16.Communicative language teaching.
Approach
The origins of Communicative Language Teaching are found in the changes in the
British language teaching tradition.Sitiuational Language Teaching was the major
approach to teaching English as a FL.Language was taught by practicing basic
structures in meaningful situation-based activities.British applied linguistics rejected
the theoretical assumptions underlying SLL because the focus on language teaching
was the mastery of structures rather than on communicative proficiency.
Scholars who advocated this view of language:British functional linguist
Halliday,American sociolinguist Dell Hymes and work in philosophy J.Austin.In
1972 D.A.Wikins prososed a functional or communicative syllabus for language
teaching.His contribution was an analysis of the communicative meanings that a
language learner needs to understand and express.wkins defined two categories of
meanings:notional categories (concepts such as time,sequence,quantity,location,
frequency) and categories of communicative
function(requeste,denials,offers,complaints)Communicative Approach aims:to make
communicative competence the goal of language teaching and develop procedures for
the teaching of the four language skills(listening,reading, speaking, writing).The goal
og language teaching is to develop what Hymes referres to as “communicative
competence”.Hymes coined this term in order to contrast a communicative view of
language and Chomskys theory of competence.In Hymes view a person who acquires
communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language
use.1)whether something is formally possible 2)Whether something is convenient
3)Whether something is appropriate in relation to a context 4)Whether something is in
fact done,actually performed and what its doing entails.Also Hymes described 7
basic fuctions that language performs for children learning their first language.
1.Thhe instrumental function:using language to get things
2.The regulatory function:using language to control the behavior of others
3.The representational function:using language to communicate information
4.the interactional function:using language to create interaction with others.
5.The personal function:using language to express personal feelings and meanings
6.The heuristic function:using language to learn and to discover the imaginative
function
7.The imaginative function:using language to create a world of the imagination
Another influentional analysis of coomunicative competence was found in Canal and
Swain in which four dimensions of communicative competence are
identified:grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse
competence,strategic competence.
Grammatical competence :it is the domain of grammatical and lexical capacity
Sociolinguistic competence :an understanding of the social context in which
communication takes place ,including role relationships,the shared information of the
paticipants and the communicative purpose of the interaction
Discourse competence:the interpretation of individual massage elements in terms of
their interconnectedness and of how meaning is represented in relationship to the
entire discourse or text
Strategic competence refers to the coping strategies that communicators employ to
initiate,maintain,repair,and redirect communication
CLT HAS SOME SOME CHARACTERISTICS:1.Language is a system for the
expression of meaning,2.the primary function of language is to allow interaction and
communication,3.the structure of language reflects its functional and communicative
uses.4.The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural
features but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in
discourse 5.Communicative competence entails knowing how to use language.
Syllabus
One of the first syllabus models to be proposed was described as a notional
syllabus,which specified the semantic-grammaticl categories and the categories of
communicative function that learners need to express.The Council Europe expanded
and developed it into s syllabus that included descriptions of the objectives of foreign
language courses for European adults,the situations in which they might typically
need to talk about,the functions they needed language for,the notions made use of iin
communication,as well as the vocabulary and grammatical needed.The result was
published as Threshold Level English.
Advocates of CLT also recognized that many learners needed English on order to use
it in specific occupational or educational settings-they needed English fo specific
purposes.And it has some differences:differences in vocabulary,grammar, functions
etc.
Common activity types in CLT include:jig-saw,task-completion(such as puzzles,map
reading),information-gathering,opinion-sharing,information transfer,reasoning gap
activities,role plays
Learner roles:the learner is a negotiator between himself,the learning process and
object of learning.Students had to become comfortable with listening to their peers in
group work or pair work tasks,rather than relying on the teacher model
Teacher roles: is to facilitate the communication process between all participantsnin
the classroom.and between these participants and the various activities and textes.The
second role is to act as an independent participant within the learning –teaching
group.third role is that of researcher and learner,with much to contribute in terms of
appropriate knowledge and abilities,needs analyst,group process manager
The role of instructional materials:text based materials,task based materials,relia-
based materials(authentic,from-lifematerials in the classroom),technology-supported
materials
Activity types in CLT: pre communicative-such as structural activities and quasi
communicative activities
Communicative activities-functioal and social interaction activities
Conclusion:Clt is best considered an approach rather than a method.It refers to a
diverse set of principles
Learners learn language through using it to communicate
Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities
Fluency is an important dimension of communication
Communication involves the integration of different language skills
