Effective measures to develop undergraduates' communicative competence in English as a foreign language: a systematic review

Communicative competence is a key ability that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners should master in their second language acquisition; as such it has received great attention in academia. Despite abundant studies exploring ways to develop students' communicative competence, there has been no study to date synthesizing findings on the effective measures to develop EFL undergraduates' communicative competence in a tertiary context and how these findings affect EFL teaching. This systematic review analyzes 30 full-text articles that were published between 2005 and 2024, selected from six databases after a comprehensive search and assessment. The articles were scrutinized according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 guidelines and carefully assessed by the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Five categories of effective measures were identified from the synthesis of the selected articles - teaching approaches, teaching activities, teaching materials, curriculum in teaching, and language skills and strategies. Evidence from the findings of the synthesis demonstrates three features: (1) high interest in teaching approaches, teaching materials, and teaching activities; (2) greater focus on pragmatic competence than the other three competences; (3) increasing focus on technology integration with the development of EFL undergraduates' communicative competence. Practical suggestions for future studies are elaborated, based on these three aspects.

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