The document discusses the notional-functional approach in language teaching, emphasizing its focus on the purposes of language use and communicative competence. It outlines the historical development of this approach, along with its theoretical foundations and educational principles, highlighting the importance of real-life communication contexts. The document also touches on communicative language teaching (CLT), its benefits, objectives, and the roles of teachers and students in the learning process.

1. Lecture 7
ENG 0232-3238
MRA

2. Notional-Functional Approach
 One of the most fruitful movements in late 20th
century.
 Functional- Notional approach focuses on the
purposes for which language is used. It emphasizes
communicative purposes of a speech act.
 It underlines what people want to do or what they want
to accomplish .
 The Functional Notional Approach helps learners to
use real and appropriate language for communication.

3. Background
 In 1972, British linguist D.A. Wilkims published a
document to describe language to an analysis of the
communicative meanings.
 In 1976 Notional Syllabuses work followed it.
 Wilkins‟ work was used by Council of Europe in drawing
up a communicative language syllabus.
 In 1970s, first books based on functional syllabuses began
to appear.
 The basic communicative purposes can be expressed in two
ways, depending on the function;
 Either formulas, fixed expressions
 Communicative or functional expressions

4. Function & Notion
 Function is the communicative act ; it is the use of
language to achieve a purpose. Like- writing an apology,
ordering, promising, greeting…
 A notion is a concept, or idea and it may be quite specific,
such as a vocabulary (dog, house, for example); or it may be
very general – size, emotion, movement, place
 A notion may be “time past”; this may include past tenses,
phrases like a month ago, in 1990, last week, and utterances
using temporal clauses beginning with when….., before….,
after…. and so on;
 Types: General Notion: abstract concepts like space, time
 Specific Notion: Situations.

5. Theoretical Bases
 F-N approach combines „communicative grammar‟
with cognitivisim and humanism.
 The primary focus is the learner and the function or
functions of language- the communicative purpose
s/he wishes to express and to understand.
 Varied sociolinguistic situations are taken into
considerations.
 Social roles, psychological attitudes of participants,
the place, time, the activity, topic are all discussed .

6. Educational Principles
 Transfer of learning is not always automatic
 A spiral and cyclical approach is recommended.
 The curriculum is divided into units and modules
 The starting point is the communicative function and the social
situation in which situation or purpose is being expressed.
 The title of the units is expressed in functional terms
 The same function may be presented in different situations
 The grammar and vocabulary to be taught in each unit result from the
integration of function and situation.
 In the F-N approach grammatical structure and function do not
overlap. The same structure may be used to express more than one
function of language.
 Concepts and language needed in social studies, geography,
mathematics, art, music and literature are integrated into the
curriculum.
 Units contain linguistics and cultural materials the ;earners will need
for sociocultural and sociovocational purposes

7. Organization & Evaluation
 Functions are classified and put into units or modules.
 They are specific as global content but free as to
internal organization and mode of presentation
 Units will specify general grammatical, lexical,
notional-semantic items; that is , meaningful and
appropriate use in context or social situations.
 The same function may repeatedly occur in different
situations at succeeding units so there is a cyclical
order.
 Grading is very difficult so it is expected that
performance tests are used instead of achievement test.

8. Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT)
 Communicative Language Teaching is “one of the most
outstanding approaches to the teaching of foreign or
second language which emphasizes the role of
communication in the language learning process.” Longman
dictionary of language teaching and Applied linguistics
 According to this approach, the main objective of language
learning is “communicative competence”.
 Emphasizes interaction as both the means and ultimate
goal of learning a language.
 A set of principles about teaching including
recommendations about method and syllabus where the
focus is on meaningful communication not structure, use
not usage. In this approach, students are given tasks to
accomplish using language, instead of studying the
language.(ESL Glossary)

9. Background
 The origin of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) dates
back to the late 1960s with the changes occurring in the teaching
tradition of the British language.
 Before then and until that time, the Situational Language
approach was the major dominant approach to teaching English
as a foreign language.
 According to SLT, that is Situational Language Teaching, the
English language was taught by practicing the basic structures in
meaningful situation-based activities.
 CLT was developed by British applied linguists as a substitution
to the common trend that was before, that is the SLT.
 According to them, the major emphasis should be on the
functional and communicative potential of language which is a
fundamental dimension that was ignored in the previous
approach.

10. Background Contd.
 The communicative Approach emerged in the early 1970s as a
result of the work of the Council of Europe experts. However, it
can be traced to the work of Chomsky in the 1960s, when he
advanced the two notions of 'competence' and 'performance' as a
reaction against the prevalent audio-lingual method and its view.
 Started off with Dell Hymes’s essay on communicative
competence and then later developed by Canale & Swain. Later
became a byword in SLA.
 In short, being able to communicate required more than
linguistic competence; it required communicative competence
(Hymes, 1971)—knowing when and how to say what to whom.
 Such observations contributed to a shift in the field in the late
1970s and early 1980s from a linguistic structure-centered
approach to a Communicative Approach (Widdowson, 1990).
 Broadly based approach (not a single method) that interweaves
cluster of principles and foundations stones of SLA.

11. Benefits
 Focusing on communicative competence: CLT increases
the communicative competence
 Increasing motivation: It provides the students with
authentic and meaningful interaction
 Gives equal importance to both the spoken language (i.e.
fluency) and the accuracy of the production as well.
 This technique increases the teacher student
 relationship. It is an interactive relationship.
 CLT provides the opportunity for students to be aware of
their abilities and exhibit them.
 The students in this way can learn the target language in an
enjoyable way.

12. Objectives
 The objectives of CLT is to develop learner’s ability to use a
language to communicate with others in real life.
 CLT helps learners to become communicatively competent.
 Adopting this approach will allow students to :
 Know how to use language for a range of different purposes
and functions.
 How to vary the use of language according to the setting
and the participants
 Know how to maintain communication despite having
limitations in one’s language learning

13. Principles
 Authentic language should be introduced
 figure out the speaker’s or writer’s intentions is part of
being communicatively competent.
 Target language is vehicle for classroom communication.
 One function can have many different linguistic forms. The
emphasis is on the process of communication rather than
just mastery of language forms.
 Students should work with language at the discourse or
suprasentential (above the sentence) level.
 Games are important as they have certain real life featuers
and speakers can get immediate feedback.

14. Contd.
 Students should be given opportunities to express ideas and opinions.
 Errors are tolerated and seen as a natural outcome of the development
of communication skills. Fluency, not accuracy.
 One of the teacher’s major responsibilities is to establish situations
likely to promote communication.
 Communicative interaction encourages cooperative relationships
among students.
 The social context of the communicative event is essential in giving
meaning to the utterances.
 The teacher acts as a facilitator in setting up communicative activities
and as an advisor during the activities.
 Students should be given opportunities to listen to language as it is
used in authentic communication.
 The grammar and vocabulary that the students learn follow from the
function, situational context, and the roles of the interlocutors.

15. Goals
 The goal is to enable students to communicate in the
target language. To do this students need knowledge of
linguistic forms, meanings, and functions.
 Communication is a process; knowledge of the forms
of language is insufficient.

16. Roles of Teachers and Students
 The teacher facilitates communication in the classroom. In this
role, one of his major responsibilities is to establish situations
likely to promote communication.
 During the activities he acts as an adviser, answering students’
questions and monitoring their performance. He might make
note of their errors to be worked on at a later time during more
accuracy-based activities. At other times he might be a ‘co-
communicator’ engaging in the communicative activity along
with students (Littlewood, 1981).
 Students are, above all, communicators. They are actively
engaged in negotiating meaning—in trying to make themselves
understood and in understanding others.
 Since the teacher’s role is less dominant than in a teacher-
centered method, students are seen as more responsible
managers of their own learning.

17. Interaction & Language View
 The teacher may present some part of the lesson, such as when
working with linguistic accuracy.
 At other times, he is the facilitator of the activities, but he does
not always himself interact with the students.
 Students interact a great deal with one another. They do this in
various configurations: pairs, triads, small groups, and whole
group.
 Language is for communication.
 Linguistic competence, the knowledge of forms and their
meanings, is just one part of communicative competence.
 Another aspect of communicative competence is knowledge of
the functions language is used for.
 Thus, learners need knowledge of forms and meanings and
 functions.
 However, they must also use this knowledge and take into
consideration the social situation in order to convey their
intended meaning appropriately.

18. Areas, Skills & Role of L1
 Language functions might be emphasized over forms.
 A functional syllabus is used. A variety of forms are introduced for each
function.
 Only the simpler forms would be presented at first. With more
proficiency, same functions would be reintroduced with complex
forms.
 Students work on all four skills from the beginning.
 Just as oral communication is seen to take place through negotiation
between speaker and listener, so too is meaning thought to be derived
from the written word through an interaction between the reader and
the writer.
 Careful use of the students’ native language is permitted in CLT.
 However, whenever possible, the target language should be used not
only during communicative activities, but also for explaining the
activities to the students or in assigning homework.

19. Evaluation & Response to Errors
 A teacher evaluates not only the students’ accuracy,
but also their fluency.
 A teacher can informally evaluate his students’
performance in his role as an adviser or co-
communicator.
 Errors of form are tolerated during fluency-based
activities and are seen as a natural outcome of the
development of communication skills.

20. Drawbacks
 The requirements are difficult. Not all classrooms can
allow for group work activities and for teaching aids
and materials.
 It is controversial whether it can be used in every level
of students.
 The teacher should prepare the syllabus by taking
students’ interests and needs into account. However,
the energy and time of the teacher are limited.