This document discusses Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), an approach that emphasizes using the target language for meaningful communication. It focuses on functions of language, provides opportunities for students to negotiate meaning, and engages students in role-plays, dialogues, and other interactive activities. While CLT had early successes, it was later criticized for excluding grammar instruction and failing to develop student accuracy. The approach also faced issues with cultural adaptation and commercialization. The document concludes by discussing communicative approaches as an evolution of CLT that balances functional language use with different classroom techniques.

1. Facultad de Humanidades
Escuela de Ciencias del Lenguaje
Seminario de Lingüística Aplicada
Communicative Language
Teaching
Prof. Carlos Mayora
November 2014

2. Communicatve Language Teaching
CLT
Approach
Functional Linguistics (Halliday)
Speech Acts (Searle)
Communicative Competence (Hymes)
Cognitivism/constructivism
Experiential learning
Cooperative learning
Design
What? Functions of language.
TR: Provide opportunities for students to communicate using
the target language and to negotiate meaning.
SR: Engage in meaningful communication. Express him/herself.
Materials: authentic .
Procedure
Role-plays
Jig-saw tasks
Dialogues

3. CLT: some main characteristics
• Equal emphasis on all four language skills.
• Emphasis on students needs.
• Combination of different techniques.
• Functions were central, vocabulary and
form were dependent on communicative
purposes and intends.
• Promotion of interaction and meaning
negotiation.

4. CLT: some main characteristics
• Use of target language in the classroom as the
main means of classroom communication.
• In pronunciation, intelligibility was given priority
over accuracy, native-like and unaccented
speech were no longer seen as goals.
• Tolerance of mistakes. Correction should not
disrupt the flow of communication.
• Register, context and situation were given
prominence.

5. CLT: criticism
• In the early years of CLT it was
misinterpreted which led to the exclusion of
grammar and an overemphasis on speaking.
• The research base of the approach was not
too solid. Non-pedagogical research was
used to sustain pedagogical practices.

6. CLT: criticism
• Learners developed fluency and confidence
but fail to reach accuracy.
• Soon, authentic materials were replaced by
commercially produced textbook and a large
market developed. These materials often
offered artificial and Anglo-centered contexts
for the presentation and practice of
language.

7. CLT: criticism
• Cultural inadequacy: the tenets and
principles of CLT collided with the
cultural beliefs and philosophies of
teaching and learning in non-western
cultures.
• For many, CLT became a “method” just as
any of the former methods.

8. Communicative approach
A development (evolution) of CLT in
which the centrality of meaning and
the functional view of language are
kept as principles, but in which
different designs and procedures are
used in the classroom.

9. Communicative approaches
• Competency-based teaching
• Content-based instruction
• Task-based language teaching
• Strategic teaching
• Critical pedagogy

10. Bibliography and suggested readings
• Celce-Murcia, M. (2001). Language teaching approaches: An overview.
In Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed.) Teaching English as a second or foreign
language (3rd ed., pp. 3-11). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.
• Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006) Understanding language teaching. From
method to postmethod. London: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates Inc.
• Richards, J.C. (2006) Communicative language teaching today.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Richards, J.C. and Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in
language teaching (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
• Savignon, S. (1991). Communicative language teaching: State of the
art. TESOL Quarterly, 25(2): 261-267.