Through the discussion on the notion of communicative competence, this paper first analyses the factors that influence junior school students’ communicative competence and then puts forward some effective solutions to cultivate the communicative competence. Creating a harmonious and meaningful class atmosphere, enriching training activities and optimizing oral training environment are equally important for the proficiency of the communicative competence. The author hopes that due attention can be attached so that communicative competence can be improved.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Definition of communicative competence 

Communicative competence, as a concept, was first put forward by Hymes. In his view,“ communicative competence” refers to the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences to whom. ( Cao 454 )

Canale points out that communicative competence is the underlying system of knowledge and skill required for communication.

As to Savignon, the development of learners’ communicative competence is defined as“ expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning involving interaction between two or more persons or between one person and a written or oral text ”. 

Communicative competence is the knowledge that students have of the rules that conduct classroom communicative activity, and their successful understanding and application of the rules when communicating in the classrooms. Thus, communicative competence is necessary for students to participate in classroom activities. Communicative competence can only be achieved through students’ participation in activities and then the class teaching must provide opportunities for students to be exposed to language and process it in a significantly practical setting.

This definition indicates that a learning environment should be the one which will provide opportunities for the negotiation of meaning rather than for a production of grammatically correct sentences in a language.

2.2 Studies of communicative competence

With reference to communicative competence, Hymes’ emphasis on the importance of text, Halliday’s functional account of the language use, and Widdowson’s view of the relationship between linguistic system and communicative values in text and discourse greatly deepen our understanding of communicative competence.

Most contributors to the communicative competence and the Communicative Approach share the view that language is used for communication and we should pay more attention to the meaning than to the structure. Candlin believes that communicative language learning is “ a highly socialized activity where learners are engaged in a negotiative process...” (Cao, 456 ) Besides, according to Karshen, language learning comes about through using target language communicatively（learners’ needs considered), rather than through practicing language skills. ( Cao 457 ) Their analysis on the theory of language learning indicates the characteristics of successful language acquisition and plays an important role in my following analysis of what real aim of English learning should be in China. 文献综述

Compared with the studies in western countries, researches in China are not popular as those abroad because the domestic researches are later than abroad. But now, more and more scholars are interested in communicative competence. Communicative competence and communicative language teaching have in recent years become fashionable terms and covered a variety of developments in English teaching.

 Based on Constructive and ZPD theory and three popular SLA theories, researches are made on the cultivation of communicative competence with different teaching methods by constructing experiments on junior school students.