Abstract:
The question of communicative competence has been at the heart of the language
teaching studies since the 1970s. Indeed, the main objective of learning a foreign language
is to acquire communicative competence. This is particularly the case in the learning of languages for special purposes, where the learner does not so much seek to master the
language as to develop certain skills for communicating in specific work situations. A
closer look at this competence reveals that it is made up of a number of other components.
The question then arises as to whether the teaching of the language for special purposes
needs to take into account the development of all these components. To answer this
question, we conducted research among professionals working in the tourism, hospitality
and catering sector in Kenya using questionnaires. The data collected revealed that skills
related to understanding spoken French, and in particular understanding requests and
responding to customers, are considered to be of primary importance
