A teacher encourages students to participate in simple conversations and…

Concept: An objective of teaching English names the capacity the learner is meant to acquire. Language is primarily a tool for exchanging meaning, so the communicative objective aims at the learner’s ability to USE English with another person — listening, taking turns, choosing words for a purpose and an audience, and responding appropriately in a real situation. This is distinct from knowledge ABOUT the language (its rules or its word stock) and from the mechanics of writing it.

Application: In a simple conversation or a role-play, the learner receives a partner’s utterance, interprets it, decides what to say next, and produces speech in real time under a social role (shopkeeper and customer, doctor and patient). Every one of those demands is a demand on language USE for exchanging meaning, not on recalling a rule, a spelling or a word list. The classroom practice therefore serves the objective of developing communicative skills.

Cross-check — what each of the other objectives would actually require:

• Learning grammar definitions would require the learner to state rules and name categories (tense, voice, parts of speech); a role-play asks the learner to speak, not to define.

• Improving handwriting would require written script work — letter formation, spacing and legibility; a spoken conversation produces no script at all.

• Memorising vocabulary lists would require rehearsing isolated word–meaning pairs; a role-play supplies whole utterances tied to a situation rather than a list.

Result: Conversation and role-play train the learner to use English to exchange meaning, so the practice supports the objective of developing communicative skills.