2. Presentation’s outline
I. Background
II. Approach: Theory of Language and Theory
of Learning.
III. Design: Objectives, Syllabus, Types of
Learning &Teaching Activities, Learner&
Teacherroles, and The Role of
Instructional Materials.
IV. Conclusion
V. Limitations
3. Background
The origins of Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) are to be found in the changes
in the British language teaching tradition in the
late 1960s.
Communicative Language Teaching is usually
characterized as a broad approach to teaching,
ratherthan as a teaching method with a clearly
defined set of classroom practices. Historically,
Communicative Language Teaching has been
seen as a response to the Audio-Lingual
Method and as an extension ordevelopment of
the Notional-Functional Syllabus.
4. Background
As an extension of the notional-functional syllabus,
Communicative Language Teaching places great
emphasis on helping students use the target
language in a variety of contexts and on learning
language functions. Unlike the Audio-Lingual
Method, its primary focus is on helping learners
create meaning ratherthan helping them develop
perfectly grammatical structures oracquire native-
like pronunciation. This means that successfully
learning a foreign language is assessed in terms of
how well learners have developed their
communicative competence, which can loosely be
defined as theirability to apply knowledge of a
language with adequate proficiency to
communicate.
5. Background
Scholars who advocated this view of language: British
functional linguist Halliday, American sociolinguist Dell
Hymes , J. Austin and A. Wilkins.
There was a need in Europe to teach adults the major
languages of the European Common market, and in1971
a group of experts began to investigate the possibility
of developing language courses, in which learning tasks
are broken into units. In 1972, D. A. Wilkins proposed a
functional orcommunicative syllabus forlanguage
teaching. His contribution was an analysis of the
communicative meanings that a language learnerneeds
to understand and express.
6. Background
Wilkins defined two categories of meanings:
notional categories (concepts such as time,
sequence, quantity, location, frequency) and
categories of communicative function
(requests, denials, offers, complaints). This
was the birth of notional syllabuses, which
had a significant impact on CLT.
7. Background
Communicative Approach aims to:Communicative Approach aims to: make communicative
competence the goal of language teaching, and develop
procedures forthe teaching of the fourlanguage skills
(listening, speaking, reading and writing) that
acknowledge the interdependence of language and
communication.
There are two version of the CLT:There are two version of the CLT: • The weak version
stresses the importance of providing learners with
opportunities to use theirEnglish forcommunicative
purposes (learning to use English). • The strong version
advances the claim that language is acquired through
communication. That is not merely a question of
activating an existing but inert knowledge of language,
but of stimulating the development of the language
8. Approach
Theory Of Language :
The Communicative Approach in language teaching
starts from a theory of language as communication.
The goal of language teaching is what Hymes
(1972) referred to as “communicative
competence.” Hymes coined this term in orderto
contrast a communicative view of language and
Chomsky’s theory of competence. • In Hymes’
view, a person who acquires communicative
competence acquires both knowledge and ability for
language use with respect to:
9.
10. Approach
This theory of what knowing a language entails
offers a much more comprehensive view than
Chomsky’s view of competence, which deals
primarily with abstract grammatical knowledge.
Anotherlinguistic theory of CLTis Halliday’s
functional account of language use. Halliday
elaborated a powerful theory of the functions of
language. He described seven basic function that
language performs forchildren learning theirL1:
11. 1. Instrumental function: using language to get things
2. Regulatory function: using language to control the
behaviorof others
3. Interactional function: using language to create
interaction with others.
4. Personal function: using language to express personal
feelings and meanings
5. Heuristic function: using language to learn and to
discover
6. Imaginative function: using language to create a world
of the imagination
7. Representational function: using language to
communicate information
12. Anotherinfluential analysis of communicative
competence was found in Canale &Swain (1980),
in which fourdimensions of communicative
competence are identified:
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 participants, and the
communicative purpose of the interaction.
13. 3) Discourse competence: the interpretation of
individual message elements in terms of
theirinterconnectedness and of how
meaning is represented in relationship to
the entire discourse text.
4) Strategic competence: refers to the coping
strategies that communicators employ to
initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and
redirect communication.
14. At the level of language theory, CLThas a rich
theoretical base. Some of the characteristics of this
communicative view of language follow: languageis
asystemfortheexpressionof meaning, theprimary
goalof languageis toallowinteractionand
communication, thestructureof languagereflects its
functionalandcommunicativeuses, theprimaryunits of
languagearecategories of functionaland
communicativemeanings.
15. Theory of Learning
Little has been written about CLTlearning theory.
Elements of an underlying learning theory can be
discerned in some CLTpractices as follows:
One element is the communication principle: activities
that involve real communication promote learning. •
Anotherelement is the task principle: activities in which
language is used forcarrying out meaningful tasks
promote learning. • A third element is the
meaningfulness principle: language that is meaningful to
the learnersupports the learning process.
16. As a consequence, learning activities are
selected based on how well they engage
the learnerin meaningful and authentic
language use (ratherthan just mechanical
practice of language patterns).
Otheraccounts of CLThave attempted to
describe theories of language learning
processes that are compatible with CLT.
17. Design
Objectives
An integrative and content level (language as a means
of expression)
A linguistic and instrumental level (language as a
semiotic system and an object of learning).
An affective level of interpersonal relationships and
conduct (language as a means of expressing values
and judgments about oneself and others).
A level of individual learning needs (remedial learning
based on erroranalysis).
A general educational level of extra-linguistic goals
(language learning within school curriculum)
18. Syllabus
One of the first syllabus models to be proposed was
described as a notional syllabus (Wilkins, 1976), which
specified the semantic grammatical categories and the
categories of communicative function that learners need
to express.
The Council of Europe expanded and developed this into
a syllabus that included the following: description of the
objectives of FLcourses, situations in which they might
typically use an L2 (travel, business), topic they might
need to talk about (education, shopping), functions they
needed language for(requesting information,
expressing agreement &disagreement), the notions
made use of in communication (time, frequency,
duration), as well as vocabulary and grammarneeded.
19. Types of learning and teaching
activities
The range of exercise types and activities
compatible with a communicative approach
is unlimited. Classroom activities are often
designed to focus on completing tasks that
are mediated through language orthrough
information sharing. Exercises can be in the
form of Free Talk, Group work orPairwork.
20. LearnerRoles
The learneris a negotiator(between
himself, the learning process, and the object
of learning). The implication is that the
learnershould contribute as much as he
gains, and learn in an interdependent way.
Students are expected to interact primarily
with each otherratherthan with the
teacher.
Students give and receive information
21.
22. CLTteacherassumes a
responsibility for
determining and
responding to Students
language needs. CLT
teacheradministera
needs assessment
instrument to determine
an individual’s
motivation forstudying
the language. • Based
on needs assessment
results, CLTteacherplan
instruction and activities
that respond to Students
needs.
Needs analyst
The CLTteacher-
counselor, as in the
Community Language
Learning, is expected to
exemplify an effective
communicatorseeking
to maximize the
speakerintention and
hearerinterpretation,
through the use of
paraphrase,
confirmation, and
feedback.
Counselor
• CLTprocedures
require teachers to
acquire less teacher-
centered classroom
management skills. •
CLTteacher
organizes the
classroom for
communication and
communicative
activities.
Group process
manager
TeacherRoles
23. Roles of Instructional Materials
A wide variety of materials have been used to
support communicative approaches to language
teaching.
CLTview materials as a way of influencing the
quality of classroom interaction and language use.
The primary role of materials is to promote
communicative language use.
There are three kinds of material currently used in
CLT: text-based, task-based, and realia.
24. Text-based materials
There are numerous
textbooks designed to
direct and support CLT.
Theirtable of contents
suggest a kind of
grading and
sequencing of
language practice.
Task-based materials
A variety of games,
role plays, simulations,
and task-based
communication
activities have been
prepared to support
CLTclasses. They are in
the form of exercise
handbooks, cue cards,
activity cards, and
interaction booklets
Realia
Many proponents of
CLThave advocated
the use of
“authentic,” “from
life” materials in
class. These include:
signs, magazines,
advertisements,
newspapers, pictures,
symbols
25. Conclusion
CLT isbest considered an approach rather than amethod.
CLT haspassed through anumber of different phasesto
apply itsprinciplesto different dimensionsof the
teaching/learning process. • Thefirst phasewastheneed
to develop asyllabusthat wascompatiblewith thenotion
of communicativecompetence. Thisled to proposalsof
syllabusesin termsof notions(acontext in which people
communicate) and functions(aspecific purposefor a
speaker in agiven context).
26. Thesecond phase, CLT focused on procedures
for identifying learners’ needsand thisresulted in
proposalsto makeneedsanalysisan essential
component of communicativemethodology. • In
thethird phase, CLT focused on thekindsof
classroom activitiesthat could beused asthe
basisof acommunicativemethodology, such as
group work, task-work, and information-gap
activities.
27. Limitations
The approach gives priority to meanings and rules of
use rather than to grammar and rules of structure.
CLT approach focuses on fluency but not accuracy
in grammar and pronunciation.
The CLT approach is great for intermediate student
and advanced students, but for beginners some
controlled practice is needed Students with low
levels of proficiency in the target language may find it
difficult to participate in oral communicative activities.
28. Despite teachers’ best efforts, classroom
activities are not actually real-life and it can
be difficult to reproduce truly authentic
language use and to facilitate genuine
interaction.
CLT is sometimes difficult to be implemented
in an EFL classroom due to the lack of
sources and equipments.
