The Functional-Communicative Approach

1. A Historical View
The communicative approach or Commmunicative Language Teaching
(CLT )- is the name which was given to a set of beliefs which included not
only a re-examination of what aspects of language to teach, but also a shift
in emphasis in how to teach. The most prominent figures of this approach
were Firth, Halliday, Wilkins, Sinclaire Their main criticism made to
structuralism was that it left the learner short of adequate capacity to
communicate.
The approach specifies that communication requires more than
grammar and a vocabulary. The learner needs what Hymes defined as
Ethnography of Speaking which is concerned with the situations and
uses, the patterns and functions of speaking as an activity in its own
right.(Hymes 1962, p.101)
The advocates of this approach have used the term communicative
competence. The term was used by Dell Hymes to designate the
knowledge of the psychological, social and cultural rules which govern the
exchanges of language in the social surroundings of a given society. The
trend of TEFL nowadays is to develop the learners communicative
competence which is the capacity to produce utterances appropriate to the
situations of communication.
2. Classroom Application
The what to teach aspect of the communicative approach
stressed the significance of language functions rather than focusing solely
on grammar and vocabulary. A guiding principle was to train students to
use these language forms appropriately in a variety of contexts and for a
variety of purposes.
The how to teach aspect of the communicative approach is
closely related to the idea that language learning will take care of itself,
and that plentiful exposure to language in use and plenty of opportunities
to it are vitally important for a students development of knowledge and
skill. Activities in CLT typically involve students in real or realistic
communication. Where the accuracy of the language they use is less
important than successful achievement of the communicative task they
are performing .This role-play and simulation have become very popular in
CLT, where learners simulate a television program or a scene at an airportor they might put together the simulated front page of a newspaper.
Sometimes they have to solve a puzzle and can only do so by sharing
information. Sometimes they have to write a poem or construct a story
together.
3. Shortcomings
Communicative language teaching has come under attack
from teachers for being prejudiced in favour of native-speaker teachers by
demanding a relatively uncontrolled range of language use on the part of
the student, and thus expecting the teacher to be able to respond to any
and every language problem which may come up. Large classes which in

certain countries may exceed a hundred pupils each, would render it

impossible to fulfil their tasks. CLT has sometimes been seen as having
eroded the explicit teaching of grammar with consequent loss among
students in accuracy in the pursuit of fluency.
Despite these reservations, however, the communicative
approach has left an indelible mark on teaching and learning, resulting in
the use of communication activities in classroom all over the world.