English as a Second or

Foreign Language

HAMISSOU OUSSEINI, PHD

 Communicative
Language Teaching
The Communicative Revolution
 Almost everything that is done in class is done
with a communicative intent
 Focus on MEANING rather than form
 Focus is not on language practice but on how
language works in discourse
 AUTHENTICITY is a fundamental goal:
Classroom situations should encourage real use
of language (e.g., group work in target language)
 Fluency and accuracy are both important but not
one at the expense of the other
 Attention to the PROCESS as well as the product
Communicative Language Teaching
 Shift from linguistic competence
 Communicating in the target language is the key
goal for CLT
 Acknowledging the interdependence of language and
communication
 Introduction of communicative approach
characterised by the emphasis on communicative
competence
 Communicative competence is “the ability to use the
language in socially and culturally appropriate ways”
(Byram et al., 2002)
 Seen as the combination of linguistic, sociolinguistic,
discourse and strategic elements.
Communicative Language Teaching
 Authentic language through realia (real
context/artefact)
 Target language used for communication in class;
not just the object of study
 Process of communication (through situations), not
mastery of language forms
 Discourse analysis (supra-sentential level) is also
necessary for understanding the functions of the
language
 Errors are seen as normal and natural to the
development of communication skills
 Emphasis, most often, on fluency.
 Communicative Language Teaching
 CLT encourages cooperation among learners.
Cooperation offers opportunity to develop
negotiation skills
 Teacher as facilitator and advisor
 There is degree of freedom allotted to students to
express themselves. They are given choices on
what to say and how to say it
 Grammar is inductive.
 Vocabulary learned based on functions and
situations presented in class
 Judicious use of native language is allowed
 Content-Based
Language Learning
Content-Based Language Teaching
 Content-Based Language Teaching
 Communication is central to CBLT but it shifts from
functions
 It is an approach to second language teaching based on
content/ information that students will acquire.
 Use of content of other disciplines to learn English: It is
believed that learning a language is more effective when
it is used to convey information/content of interest
 Students learn the language as a by-product of leaning
about a real-world content.
 There is shift from Learning to use English to Using
English to learn it
 Priority is given to process over predetermined linguistic
content
 Content-Based Language Teaching
 Theory of Language:
• Language is text and discourse-based.
• Language use draws on integrated skills.
 Additional assumptions that derive from CBI
• People learn a second language most successfully
when the information they are acquiring is perceived
as interesting, useful, and leading to a desired goal.
• Some content areas are more useful as a basis for
language learning than others.
• Students learn best when instruction addresses
student’s needs
• Teaching builds on the previous experience of the
learners.
Content-Based Language Teaching
 Types of learning and teaching activities:
• language skill improvement;
• vocabulary building;
• discourse organization;
• communicative interaction;
 The role of teachers: Instructors must be more than good
language teachers. They must be knowledgeable in the
subject matter and able to elicit that knowledge from their
students. (Stryker and Leaver 1993:292)
 Learner Roles: become autonomous; support each other in
collaborative models of learning; be willing to explore
alternative learning strategies; be willing to seek multiple
interpretations of oral and written texts.
 Task-Based
Language Teaching
Task Based Language Teaching
 Interactionist perspective:
 Successful language learning involves
learners in negotiation of meaning
 Open-ended meaningful interaction through
problem-solving tasks in class
 TBLT aims to provide learners with a natural context
for language use.
 It uses group work discussion and decision making
tasks.
 Lessons and materials provide supporting
frameworks within which learning takes place.
Task Based Language Teaching
 As learners work to complete a task, they have
abundant opportunity to interact. Such interaction is
thought to facilitate language acquisition as learners
have to work to understand each other and to
express their own meaning.
 By interacting with others, learners get to listen to
language which may be beyond their present ability,
but which may be assimilated into their knowledge of
the target language for use at a later time.
 The central purpose we are concerned with is
language learning, and tasks present this in the form
of a problem-solving negotiation between knowledge
that the learner holds and new knowledge.
Types of tasks:
Information-gap. It involves the exchange of information among
participants in order to complete a task. This might involve a
student describing a picture for another student to draw or
students drawing each others' family trees after sharing
information.
Opinion-gap. It requires that students give their personal
preferences, feelings, or attitudes in order to complete a task.
For instance, students might be given a social problem, such
as high unemployment and be asked to come up with a series
of possible solutions.
Reasoning-gap. It requires students to derive some new
information by inferring it from information they have been
given. For example, students might be given a railroad
timetable and asked to work out the best route to get from one
particular city to another or they might be asked to solve a
riddle.
Participatory
Approach
Social Justice Process
 Paulo Freire and the literacy program for peasants in Brazil.
 Dialogues about problems in peasants’ lives.
 The dialogues became the basis for literacy development.
 A process of sensitisation and raising awareness:
“education is meaningful to the extent that it engages
learners in reflecting on their relationship to the world
they live in and provides them with a means to shape
their world.”
 The process should help students to understand the social,
historical, cultural forces that affects their lives.
 It should help empower students to take action and make
decision to gain control over their lives.
 It should help students to use English and learn it.
 CLT/CBI/TBLT: Weaknesses
 The goal of communicative competence
seems distant for some learners (especially in
EFL contexts)
 Learner resistance
 Problems with teacher background (Teachers
lacking communicative competence)
 Mismatch with traditional teaching methods
and the wider curriculum