Communicative activities are those which place emphasis on the message as much as or more than on the form.
Communicative competence is the ability to use the language in situations of real communication.
These concepts are, and will remain, a pivotal aspect of the Core French program. Communication as a Common Essential Learning looks at language from a different perspective. It is about language in general, not about the French or English language in particular. Language is a tool for thinking and learning, a symbolic system for putting ideas, both concrete and abstract, into a form in which they can be manipulated. Language is the means that students usually use to bring order and meaning to facts and experience, either by speaking or writing or by inner monologue of thought.