The Role of Idioms and Collocations in Developing Communicative Competence

Communicative competence is the core objective of modern foreign language teaching, emphasizing not only grammatical correctness but also sociolinguistic appropriateness and natural language use. Idioms and collocations—collectively known as formulaic language—play a pivotal role in achieving naturalness and fluency in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This paper investigates the impact of idioms and collocations on building communicative competence among EFL learners. Through an analysis of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic functions, the study highlights how mastery of collocations enhances lexical accuracy, while idioms foster cultural fluency and stylistic flexibility. The article also discusses common pedagogical challenges, such as mother-tongue interference and literal translation, offering practical strategies for integrating contextualized phraseology into English language instruction.