COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

What is Communicative Language Teaching?

Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the audio lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Students' motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics.

Margie S. Berns, an expert in the field of communicative language teaching, writes in explaining Firth's view that "language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context, both its linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together to speak)" (Berns, 1984, p. 5).

Communicative Language Teaching aims broadly to apply the theoretical perspective of the Communicative Approach by making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and by acknowledging the interdependence of language and communication.

What are the goals of teachers who use communicative language teaching?

The goal is to enable students to communicate in the target language. To do this students need knowledge of the linguistic forms, meanings, and functions. They need to know that many different forms can be used to perform a function and also that a single form can often serve a variety of function. They must be able to choose from among these the most appropriate form, given the social context and the roles of the interlocutors. They must be able to manage the process of negotiating meaning with their interlocutors. Communication is a process; knowledge of the forms of language is insufficient.

What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the students?

The teacher facilitates communication in the classroom. In this role, one of his major responsibilities is to establish situations likely to promote communication. During the activities he acts as an adviser, answering students' questions and monitoring their performance.

Students are, above all, communicators. They are actively engaged in negotiating meaning – in trying to make themselves understood and in understanding others – even when their knowledge of the target language is incomplete.

What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?

The most obvious characteristic of CLT is that almost everything that is done is done with a communicate intent. Students use the language a great deal through communicative activities such as games, role plays, and problem-solving tasks.

Another characteristic of CLT is the use of authentic material. It is considered desirable to give students an opportunity to develop strategies for understanding language as it is actually used.

What is the nature interaction between student-teacher and student-student?

Teacher is the facilitator of the activities, but he does not always himself interact with the students. Sometimes he is a co-communicator, but more often he establishes situations that prompt communication between and among the students.

Students interact a great deal with one another. They do this in various configurations; pairs, triads, small groups, and whole groups.

How are the feelings of the students dealt with?

One of the basic assumptions of CLT is that by learning to communicate students will be more motivated to study a foreign language since they will feel they are learning to do something useful with the language. Also, teachers give students an opportunity to express their individuality by having them share their ideas and opinions on a regular basis.

How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?

Language is for communication. Linguistic competence, the knowledge of forms and their meanings, is just one part of communicative competence. Another aspect of communicative competence is knowledge of the function language is used for.

Culture is the everyday lifestyle of people who use the language. There are certain aspects of it that are especially important to communication – the use of nonverbal behavior, for example, which might receive greater attention in CLT.

What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are emphasized?

Language functions might be emphasized over forms. Typically, although not always, a functional syllabus is used. A variety of forms are introduced for each function. Only the simpler forms would be presented at first, but as students get more proficient in the target language, the functions are reintroduced and more complex forms are learned.

Students work on all four skills from the beginning. Just as oral communication is seen to take place through negotiating between speaker and listener, so too is meaning thought to be derived from the written word through an interaction between the reader and the writer.

What is the role of the students' native language?

Judicious use of the students' native language is permitted in CLT. However, whenever possible, the target language should be used not only during communicative activities, but also for explaining the activities to the students or in assigning homework.

How is evaluation accomplished?

A teacher evaluates not only the students’ accuracy, but also their fluency.

How does the teacher respond to students errors?

Errors of forms are tolerated during fluency based activities and are seen as a natural outcome of the development of communication