ASSIGNMENT

Language Teaching Methods and Classroom Dynamics

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Definition of Communicative Language Teaching

Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics defines the Communicative Approach
or Communicative Language Teaching as “an APPROACH to foreign or second language teaching
which emphasises that the goal of language learning is COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE. ”
(Richards et al 1992:65) According to the same dictionary, the approach which has been developed by
British applied linguists as a reaction away from grammar-based approaches

a) teaches the language needed to express and understand different kinds of functions

b) is based on a NOTIONAL SYLLABUS or some other communicatively organised syllabus

c) emphasises the process of communication, such as using language appropriately in

different types of situations; using language to perform different kinds of tasks, e.g. to solve
puzzles, to get information , etc.; using language for social interaction with other people.

Historical Background

The origins of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) dates back late 1960s. Until then Situational
Language Teaching represented the major British Approach to teaching English as a foreign language.
In Situational Language Teaching, language was taught by practising basic structures in meaningful
situation-based activities. But just as the linguistic theory underlying Audiolingualism was rejected in
United States in the mid-1960s, British applied linguists began to call into question the theoretical
assumption underlying Situational Language teaching. (Richards and Rodgers 1991:64)

American Linguist Noam Chomsky had demonstrated that the current standard structural theories of
language were incapable of accounting for the fundamental characteristics of language -the creativity
and uniqueness of individual sentences. Then, British applied linguists emphasised another
fundamental dimension of language that was inadequately addressed in current approaches to
language teaching at that time -the functional and communicative potential of language. They saw the
need to focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastery of
structures. (Ibid)

As the scope of Communicative Language Teaching has expanded, it was considered as an approach
rather than a method, which aims to;

i- make communicative competence the goal of language teaching

ii- develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the
interdependence of language and communication. (Richards and Rodgers 1986:66)

Nunan offers five features to characterise the Communicative Language Teaching.

1. An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language

2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation

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 3. The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning
process itself.

4. An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to

classroom learning.

5. An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom.
(cited in Brown 1994a :78)

Brief Notes on Communicative Language Teaching (What is it ?)

It starts from a theory of language as communication, and the goal of language teaching is to develop
“communicative competence.”

The theory of communication is Halliday’s functional account of language use. He described seven
basic functions that language performs for children learning their first language, and learning a second
language was similarly viewed as performing different kinds of functions. These are:

1.Instrumental Function (“I want”) : used for satisfying material needs

2.Regulatory Function (“do as I tell you”) : used for controlling the behaviours of others

3.Interactional Function (“me and you”) : used for getting along with other people.

4.Personal Function (“here I come”) : used for identifying and expressing the self.

5.Heuristic Function (“tell me why”) : used for exploring the world around and inside one.

6.Imaginative Function (“let’s pretend”) : used for creating a world of one’s own.

7.Informative Function (“I’ve got something to tell you”) used for communication new
information.(Richards et al 1992:104)

Different conceptions about communication (such as Grammatical competence, Sociolinguistic

competence, Discourse competence, Strategic competence) are put forward as dimensions of
Communicative competence. (Richards and Rodgers 1986:71)

To sum up, from the viewpoint of theory, “it (The Communicative Language Teaching) is therefore a
unified but broadly-based theoretical position about the nature of language and of language learning
and teaching .” (Brown 1994b :244-45)

On the same topic, Richards and Rodgers argue that “at the level of language theory, Communicative
Language Teaching has a rich, if somewhat eclectic, theoretical base. Some of the characteristics of
this communicative view of language follow.

1.Language is a system of the expression of meaning

2.The primary function of language is for interaction and communication

3.The structure of language is reflects its functional and communicative use

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 4.The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, bur categories
of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse. (Richards and Rodgers 1986:71)

As to the theory of learning, little has been found in literature, but we can find some elements
underlying the Communicative Language Teaching Practices. One of these elements is
“communication” principle. (Ibid.) According to Morrow, activities that are truly communicative should
have three features. (cited in Larsen Freeman 1986:132)

1.Information gap: During the communication some knowledge exchange should take place.
Asking to someone who knows what today is “What is today?”, and getting his response is not
a true communication. Besides, Scrivener states that we normally communicate when one of
us has information (facts, opinions, ideas, etc.) that another does not have. This is known as
an “information gap” (1994:62)

2.Choice: In communication, the speaker should have the choice of what to say and how to
say.

3.Feedback: True communication is purposeful. Speaker can evaluate whether or not his
purpose has been achieved based upon the information he receives from his listener.

If the listener does not have an opportunity to provide the speaker with such feedback, then the
exchange is not really communicative.

Second element is the task principle. Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful
tasks promote learning. Harmer states that there has been an agreement that rather than pure rote
learning or de-contextualised practice, language has to be acquired as a result of some deeper
experience than the concentration on a grammar point, and supports his view with the results of
Allwrights’s experiment and Prabhu’s Bangalore Project. (1991:34-35)

Third element is the meaningfulness principle. According to the principle, language that is meaningful
to the learner supports the learning process.

Another example of examining the features of communication is Richard’s discussion on “several

components of communicative competence in foreign language learning.” (1983) He mentions the five
features of communication brief explanations of which are summarised below:

1.Communication is meaning-based: The first step in learning to communicate is to learn how to

create propositions, for language is comprehensible to the degree that hearers are able to reconstruct
propositions from the speaker’s utterances. But, communication in a foreign language implies more
than constructing propositions, because speakers use them in a variety of ways, for example, asking,
affirming, denying, expressing an attitude etc.

2.Communication is conventional: Language learner’s ultimate goal seems to be having native

speaker syntax and usage, and be able to produce infinitive number of novel utterances by using these
‘internalised’ rules. Since there are strict constraints imposed on the creative-constructive capacities of
speakers, which limit how speakers encode prepositional meanings, communication largely consists of
the use of language in conventional ways. Besides, these constraints affect both the lexical and
grammatical structure of discourse. Conversational openers routine formulae, ceremonial formulae and
memorised clauses are features of conventionalised language.

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3.Communication is appropriate: Mastery of a foreign language not only requires use of conventional
utterances that express prepositional meaning but also knowledge of different communicative
strategies and styles according to the situation, the task and the roles of the participants.

4.Communication is interactional: Conversation between people has an “interactional function”

which can be called as the use of language to keep open the channels of communication between
people and to establish a suitable rapport. Generally, in the initial stages of conversation with a
stranger, speakers introduce carefully chosen topics that reflect mutual agreement. Choosing safe
topics which satisfy hearer’s desire to be right is called “phatic communion”, and the mechanism of
phatic communion include speaker’s repertoire of verbal and visual gestures, and speaker’s stock of
‘canned topics’ and formulaic utterances.

5.Communication is structured: Another aspect of communication is its ongoing organisation which

can be viewed from two different perspectives: a macro perspective that reveals the differences in
rhetorical organisation that reflect different discourse ‘genres’ or ‘tasks’; and a micro perspective
showing how some of the processes by which discourse is constructed out of individual utterances are
reflected in speech.

Here I conclude my first portion of discussion on communicative approach it basically a copy work from
different web-sites and books. In the next part I wont be discussing the advantages of Communicative
Language Teaching as they are already discussed in the above section. I will be discussing the
problems or obstacle I using this method.

References:
1. http://www.silinternational.net/lingualinks/LANGUAGELEARNING/WaysToApproachLanguage
Learning/CommunicativeLanguageTeaching.htm
2. http://www.cal.org/ERICCLL/DIGEST/gallow01.html

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3. http://www20.uludag.edu.tr/~acan/studies/C%20LTeaching.htm
4. www.aber.ac.uk/~mflwww/clteach.html