Abstract

This paper will outline an instructional approach that proposes a Complexity, Accuracy, Fluency (CAF) paradigm as a means of providing learners with the CAF-based communication consciousness and CAF-oriented manipulative skills that are increasingly important in language use in Language for Specific Purposes. Given the complex combinations of communicative tasks, communicative formats and communicative circumstances that accompany the wide-ranging and various contexts of contemporary professional communication, communicative competence demands a combinative consciousness and informed application of Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency as a communication paradigm. Viewed as a combination of its three components, a CAF paradigm constitutes a fundamental ‘information, language and communication’ triad that can guide professional language use in any communicative circumstance. Viewed as a communicative skill set, the CAF triad implies the capability to adjust specific elements and aspects of information, language and communication as needed for a communicative task, whether in oral or print communication and regardless of task category. Adjusting complexity in this context refers to both content and language complexity. Adjusting accuracy refers to the conventions that dictate appropriate or acceptable language in a given context. Finally, adjusting fluency refers to a sense of communicative fluency, that which yields either smooth and persuasive language as in a native-speaker normative view or explicit and clearly explanatory language as necessary in some communicative encounters. The need to manipulate these three components depends on circumstance variables such as objective, available time, audience characteristics and the degree of detail desired. This paper will outline this combinative CAF notion as background to a materials development project being undertaken in a Japanese university, introducing the specifics of an Extended Reading Aloud format that involves learners in managing the content and language complexity, manipulating various language registers while focusing on accuracy, and proceduralizing communicative fluency in different communicative genres. While empirical testing of the interactions of Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency in a testing paradigm have yielded contentious and contradictory outcomes, the qualitative research findings presented in this paper contribute to an instructional application of CAF, a view that maximizes the potential of CAF in educational and communicative contexts. Although undertaken in a Japanese university English educational setting, the generalizations underlying the instructional materials are applicable to most ESL/EFL and LSP/ESP educational settings.

Authors and Affiliations