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Communicative approach as an English language teaching method: Van

Atatürk Anatolian High School sample

Article · March 2011

DOI: 10.14527/C1S1M5

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 I

T. R.
THE UNIVERSITY OF YUZUNCU YIL
THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH AS AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TEACHING METHOD: VAN ATATURK ANATOLIAN HIGH SCHOOL
SAMPLE

M.A. THESIS

Emrullah ŞEKER

VAN - 2010
 II

T. R.
THE UNIVERSITY OF YUZUNCU YIL
THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH AS AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TEACHING METHOD: VAN ATATURK ANATOLIAN HIGH SCHOOL
SAMPLE

M.A. THESIS

Emrullah ŞEKER

Supervisor
Assoc.Prof.Ilker AYDIN

VAN – 2010
 III

SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ MÜDÜRLÜĞÜNE

Bu tez .. / .. / 20.. tarihinde asağıdaki jüri tarafından oybirliği/oyçokluğu ile

….............................................................ANABİLİM DALINDA

YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ olarak kabul edilmistir.

Baskan ….............…........................................................................................

Üye (Danışman)…...........................................................................................

Üye....................................................................................................................

Üye …..............................................................................................................

Üye....................................................................................................................

This master of arts was unanimously certified by the following examining

committee members on … / …./ 20.. .

The president of Member of Member of

Examining Committee Examining Committee Examining Committee
……………………… ………………………. ……………………..
 IV

CONTENTS

CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... IV
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ............................................................................................. V
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 6
2. COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH ....................................................................... 11
2.1. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ......................................................................... 11
2.2. PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF CLT TEACHING ............... 15
2.3. TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ROLES IN COMMUNICATIVE
LANGUAGE TEACHING .................................................................................... 18
2.4. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF CLT CURRICULUM .............. 20
2.5. THE CRITICISM OF THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH ................... 21
2.5.1. PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH ................................................................. 22
2.5.2. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ............. 22
2.5.3. THE UNREALISTIC REPRESENTATION OF ENGLISH ................... 23
2.5.4 THE MYTHICIZED IMAGE OF THE NATIVE SPEAKER ................. 23
2.5.5. REJECTION OF L1 ................................................................................. 24
3. COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH IN TURKISH EDUCATION SYSTEM ...... 25
3.1. COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK (CEF) .......................................... 25
3.2. M.E.B CURRICULUM OF ENGLISH TEACHING ..................................... 27
4. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 35
4.1. SETTING ........................................................................................................ 36
4.2. PARTICIPANTS ............................................................................................ 36
4.3. INSTRUMENTS ............................................................................................. 37
4.4. PROCEDURES ............................................................................................... 37
4.5. A SAMPLE EVALUATION TEST................................................................ 37
4.6. DATA ANALYSIS ......................................................................................... 38
4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS......................................................................... 40
4.1. THE PARTICIPANTS’ ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH ............................... 41
4.1.1. THEORETICAL ACQUISITION ........................................................... 45
4.1.2. ANALYTICAL ACQUISITION ............................................................. 48
4.1.3. SYNTHETIC ACQUISITION ................................................................. 50
4.2. THE PARTICIPANTS’ PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH ................................. 53
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 56
REFERENCES........................................................................................................... 62
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... 66
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... 67
LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... 67
LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................ 67
 V

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This study was prepared as a master of arts. It focuses on the communicative

language teaching practices and its reflections on language teaching system of
Turkish National Education in Turkey.

It is consisted of five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction, which

explains the main lines and map of this study. The second chapter includes the
description, the literature, the opponents and proponents of Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT). Moreover, the third chapter introduces CLT in Turkish
Education System and its presence in curriculum and teaching programs. The fourth
chapter describes the methodology of this study. It identifies the details and the
research methods used in the study. The fifth chapter, however, reveals the findings
or results in the study and then illustrates the data with tables and charts. It discusses
the findings with both opponent and proponent ideas. Finally, the last chapter
evaluates the data revealed, by criticizing the weak sides and suggests
recommendations and alternatives on how to strengthen and overcome those
weaknesses. At the end of the study, the references benefited are listed and the
appendices used in the study are enclosed.

Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to my advisor Associate

Prof. Dr. İlker AYDIN for his constant support, and patience during my study.
Secondly, I owe special thanks to Prof. Dr. Hasan BOYNUKARA for his interest,
and encouragements. I also wish to express my thanks to my friend Şaban OZEL for
his special interest and intense technical support for the illustrations in the study.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to my dear wife Nurgül ŞEKER for her
encouragements and patience.
 6

1. INTRODUCTION

In English Language Teaching (ELT) methodology, “Communicative

Language Teaching (CLT)”, which is the most dominant and experienced foreign
language teaching method in many current ELT applications, has been widely used
in Turkey as well as in other countries in the world. Moreover, it is regarded as the
most reliable and efficient way of teaching language not only for English but also for
other languages. However, until recently, very few studies have been carried out in
the field in order to interpret the CLT applications and their results in teaching
English as a foreign language or a second language in the world. Despite the
increasing popularity of the communicative approach, very few small-scale
classroom studies has been carried out. Although CLT is widely practised throughout
the world via pre-school and school programs, workshops, and university courses,
there is little evidence about what teachers understand from CLT and how they apply
it in the classroom.

It is difficult to set an absolute right way of language introduction by means

of communicative means since it depends on many variables such as teachers and
teachers’ understanding of CLT, materials, culture, native language and the native
language’s family especially as to its syntax and grammar. Whereas it is expected to
be efficient among the same family languages such as French, German, English,
Italian or Spanish interchangeably, it may not be appropriate for the languages from
different families such as English and Turkish, Japanese and French or German and
Arabic. For instance, research carried out on teachers’ understandings of CLT
practices have shown that there are differences among teachers’ theoretical
perception of CLT and their class experiences due to different challenges like
teachers’ misconceptions about CLT, their inadequacy in communicative
competence and explicit grammar teaching accompanying with large classrooms and
the educational system. Although it is versatile in terms of theory, most of the
teachers are in dilemma in the application process. However, there is a contradiction
between what teachers believe CLT to be and the way it has evolved. CLT is
generally believed among the teachers as not teaching grammar, teaching only
speaking, pair work, which means role play, expecting too much from the teacher.
Although it is recognized as the most effective approach by many applied linguists
and teachers, there are still a number of misconceptions about what it entails. It has
been figured out that although some teachers provide their learners with rich
communicative tasks, most of the teachers still in hesitation about discussion of
 7

communicative ability.1 Whatever its results are, it is still regarded as the most
respected and relied method by most of the teachers. In contrast, what is suggested in
this study is that if something is too difficult or impossible to implement, then it can
not be called a real productive model however well established or dominant
theoretical it may be, as can a single drug be a remedy for every disease.

CLT is the most widely used language teaching method in Turkey as well as
in the world. Today CLT is the leading method in teaching English as a foreign or a
second language environment (EFL or ESL). However, the idea of CLT and its
usefulness have been almost completely disregarded except in very few studies in the
field. Almost no any critical study has been carried out on this field.2 And this claim
was also reasserted by Savignon when she stated that in literature, CLT and teacher
education have not received adequate attention. Those already existing put the blame
on the practices, teachers or the materials rather than the method itself. 3 Moreover,
other existing studies about the application of CLT in EFL and ESL settings mostly
focus on the challenges that teachers encounter during in-class activities. Nunan, for
example, investigated CLT as manifested in the classroom. He contended that
although teachers were highly qualified, with graduate diplomas in TESOL, and had
goals for communicative classes, there were few opportunities for genuine
communicative language use.4 Consequently, teachers’ understanding and beliefs
about the characteristics of CLT differed from those appearing in the methodology of
CLT. Sato and Kleinsasser had research and the results showed that there was a
contradiction between teachers’ understandings of communicative language teaching
and their actual class experiences in Australia because of the different challenges
such as deductive explanations of grammar points, large classrooms, education
system, and teachers’ fragmented knowledge of CLT.5 Furthermore, a study
conducted by Sakui in Japan showed that despite the support of the ministry of
education in Japan, the general practice of the English lessons in this country are
mainly based on grammar teaching and far more fore grounded than CLT.6 Also, Bal
carried out a study on the teachers’ perceptions of communicative language teaching
in Turkish EFL setting theory versus practices. His study was carried out in Adana,
Turkey and revealed that the English teachers participated in the study generally did
not apply CLT activities in their EFL classrooms. Furthermore, they consumed much
time on explicit grammar teaching and reading activities rather than CLT practices.

1 Sandra J. Savignon, “Teaching English as communication: a global perspective”, World Englishes ,

2003, p. 22.
2 Evelyn Doman, Grammatical consciousness raising, Modern English Teacher (MET), London,
2005, p. 24.
3 Savignon, “Teaching English as communication: a global perspective”, op.cit., p. 55.
4 David Nunan, “Communicative language teaching:Making it work”, English Language Teaching
Journal, 1987, p. 41.
5 Kazuyoshi Sato & Robert C. Kleinsasser, “Communicative language teaching: practical
Understandings”, The Modern Language Journal , 1999, 83 (iv), p.94.
6 Keiko Sakui, “Wearing Two pairs of shoes: language teaching in Japan,” ELT Journal., 2004, p.58.
 8

In other words, teachers in Turkish EFL settings are generally unfamiliar and
inadequate with CLT practices.7 As a result, those studies mentioned revealed that
there are deep steeps between the ideal CLT application and the current real practices
in different parts of the world. The reasons depend upon various factors, one of
which particularly was the teachers’ failure in the practices of CLT despite the
sufficient technical equipment and materials or academic proficiencies. The lack of
critical studies on the field, surely, did not skip the Turkish setting. Therefore, this
study aims to reveal the infertile outcomes and practices of CLT in Turkey.

In this study, we aim to study whether CLT applications in High Schools,

particularly in Van Ataturk Anatolian High School give the expected feedback or
not. We also aim to find out whether CLT is appropriate for the Turkish learners who
study English as a foreign or second language. Accordingly, the expected
acquisitions of the Secondary Education English Teaching Program of the Ministry
of Turkish National Education and the results of the study will be compared and the
results will be illustrated. Furthermore, in this study, it is also suggested to use the
first language in teaching second language grammar to encourage creativity and to
aim to make learners communicate easily without expecting ideal native speaker’s
pronunciation or fluency, which is almost completely rejected by CLT practitioners.

The data for this significant research was collected through a sample test. The
study was limited to 300 students attending English classes in Ataturk Anatolian
High School in the province of Van. The participants were composed of the 9th, 10th
and 11th grades, ranging between the age of 14 and 16. The grades were given the
test in equal numbers. The test was composed of three parts, each of which was
designed to measure different language levels. Also, each part was divided into two
different difficulty levels in order to distinguish the memorized and the creative
language.

However, there are some limitations for this study, the most important of
which is that the classroom practices of CLT in this setting were not observed or
considered as the reason for inefficiency of CLT practices. However, teachers in
Turkish National Education System are regularly inspected for their classroom
performances and classroom materials in terms of teaching formation and
methodology regulations. Thus, in this study, we neglected the degree of how
successful CLT is administrated by the teachers in this school. Moreover, this study
is only limited to a single Anatolian High School, but the students in this school are
from different cities of Turkey and graduated from different elementary schools from
different parts of the city and also Turkey. In addition, the students in this sample
school are admitted to the school only if they pass an entrance examination.

7 Mehmet S. Bal, Teacher’s Perceptions of CLT in Turkish EFL Setting Theory vs. Practices,
unpublished graduate thesis, Adana, 2006.
 9

Furthermore, the spelling mistakes were neglected and those answers having spelling
mistakes but giving the expected meaningful answer was regarded as correct
answers. Besides, the close-to-correct answers were accepted, which means that there
were no fixed single answers for open-ended and multi-answered questions. The
criterion for these questions was whether they were context related or not. Finally,
the vocabulary choice of the participants was ignored as long as it did not change the
meaning.

Based on the general scope of this research, the first chapter provides the
principles and the characteristics of CLT, a detailed description of EFL and ESL
settings, and a review of related studies on the topic of CLT implementations in EFL
environments. In the second chapter, CLT in Turkish Education System, its English
Teaching Curriculum and compatibility with Common European Framework
enclosed with a sample annual lesson plan are mentioned. In the third chapter, the
methodological structure of the study is presented. The chapter outlines the research
design, followed by the description of the participants, the description of the
instruments, the description of the school, procedure for data collection, and finally
the description of how the data were analysed. In the forth chapter of the study, the
findings based on the quantitative research principles are illustrated in graphs and
charts and the results are discussed. In conclusion, an overall summary of CLT and
its application in Turkish education system, the results obtained from the study and
their evaluation, the shortages of CLT identified in the study and accordingly some
suggestions to overcome them as well as the suggestions for further English teaching
practices rather than CLT in EFL applications are mentioned.

Operational Definitions

The terms used in this research are as follows:

English as a Second Language (ESL): The teaching of English to speakers

of other languages who live in a country where English is used as a first language.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL): The teaching of English to speakers

whose first language is not English.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): A language teaching method

which aims at focusing on communicative proficiency by replicating contextual and
purposive features of genuine communication in the classroom.

Native Language / Mother Language / First Language (L1): The language

unconsciously acquired in the family.
 10

Second Language / Target Language (L2): The language consciously

acquired or to be acquired by learning.

Research Questions

The study seeks to find answers to the following questions:

1. What exactly is the Communicative Language Teaching?

2. What are the significant drawbacks of CLT implementation in Turkish
National Education system?
3. Is CLT really the most appropriate teaching method for Turkish foreign
language learners?
4. Is it really wise to neglect L1 in L2 acquisition as in CLT?
 11

2. COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

The origins of communicative approach (CA) can be traced back the mid-
1960s, when linguists began to question the theoretical assumptions of traditional
approaches, and particularly when Chomsky advanced the two notions of
'competence' and 'performance' as a reaction against the prevalent audio-lingual
method and its views. Prior to the mid-1960's linguistic competence was associated
primarily with grammatical knowledge. However, from the 1960's onwards, the
second language learner was thought to not only require a target language grammar
capable of producing target language sentences but also require social and linguistic
patterns.8

The communicative approach was developed in the early 1970's by the

studies of the European Council and the contributions of many linguists, such as an
American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Robert Langs MD, known as an important
psychoanalytic revolutionist and revisionist trained in a classical Freudian
psychoanalytic institute in New York City, to the communicative approach and
language teaching, and the speed with which it gained popularity among British
language teaching instructors, gave the movement a national and international
acceptance. Thus, this new language teaching method became known as the CLT,
and has dominated the EFL/ESL profession since then.9 The Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT) based on CA, successively, was established in Britain
around 1980. Ever since it was established as a language teaching method in ESL
and EFL environment, it has received a worldwide popularity among teachers and
institutions in different parts of the world. In the following item, different comments
from a wide range of scientists and researchers on this literature are cited and
interpreted.

2.1. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In recent years, contemporary approaches to foreign language teaching have

been mainly influenced by ‘Communicative Language Teaching’ (CLT). It has been

8 Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching,
Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 89.
9 Najat Al-Mutawa & Taiseer Kailani, Methods of Teaching English to Arab Students, Longman,
1989, p. 88.
 12

the dominant approach in ELT in many countries as well as Turkey, where English is
taught as a foreign or second language. However, with the development of
globalization and multi-culturalism, English is increasingly being used as an
international language by peoples of the global community. It was estimated that at
the beginning of the 21st century, the number of English L1 speakers was about 375
million, the same as the number of people who used English as L2, and as many as
750 million used English as a foreign language . The number of the L2 English users
has gradually surpassed that of the L1. Consequently, the call for English to be
taught as an international language rather than a second or foreign language has
grown much stronger.10

The underlying theory of the CLT approach is ‘communicative competence’.

Hymes (cited in Rogers) explains that a normal child acquires a knowledge of
sentences, not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate and acquires competence
to know when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when,
where, in what matter. He further states that a child becomes able to accomplish a
repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events, and to evaluate their
accomplishment by others.11 Communicative competence was understood as the
underlying systems of knowledge and skill required for communication. Knowledge
refers to what one knows about the language and about other aspects of
communicative language use, while skill refers to how well one can perform this
knowledge in actual communication.12 Larsen-Freeman explains that although
students have knowledge of the target language’s forms, meanings and functions, if
they cannot apply them in negotiation meaning, it is still inadequate. Therefore, in
this context, practising in context is more important than learning in classroom. This
allows systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language to
be the most characteristic feature of CLT. Communicative competence involves
being able to use the language appropriate to a given social context. In addition, they
should be able to negotiate meanings with their interlocutors.13 The aims of
Communicative Language Teaching are to make communicative competence the
goal of language teaching and to develop procedures for the teaching of the four
language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and
communication. That is to say, students need to practice what they have acquired in
order to express their ideas, and teachers should provide situations for students to

10 Vivian Cook, “Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching”, TESOL Quarterly, 1999,
Vol.33 (2), p. 185.
11 Sinclair Rogers, “They Don’t Speak Our Language”, Explorations in Language Study, London,
1976, p. 15.
12 Micheal Canale,“From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy”, in
J.Richards & R.Schmidt (Eds.), Language and communication, Longman, New York, 1983, p. 27.
13 Diane Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1986, p. 131.
 13

practice and discuss in order to make them understand that learning a language is to
use the language.

On the theoretical basis, the learning theory of CLT is humanistic in nature.

That is, it comprises linguistics, psychology, philosophy, sociology, and educational
research. From a methodological perspective, in contrast to traditional or grammar
based approaches, CLT highlights communicative events rather than grammatical
forms via learners’ social interactions. In that sense, CLT methodologies emphasize
genuine communication, that is, communication based on a real desire by the learner
to understand and communicate meanings.14 Therefore, the main objective of CLT
has been the elaboration and application of programs and methodologies that
promote the development of functional language ability through learners’
participation in communicative event.15

CLT methodologies focus on developing learners’ communicative

competence via communicative activities rather than solely providing grammar
teaching. They are based on the notion that L2 competence cannot be defined by
merely grammatical knowledge. It involves communicative uses as well. Therefore,
communicative teaching comprises much more than the traditionally taught areas of
grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The main purpose of CLT is to achieve
communicative proficiency by performing contextual and purposive features of L2
real communication. Furthermore, the most significant feature of the CLT classroom
is its realistic use of the English language in which both the activities employed and
the materials used aim to be as authentic as possible. In addition, communicative
language teaching puts the emphasis on a more authentic use of language for
meaning and communication. Within the CLT framework language is best learned
through the active negotiation of meaning.

Brown’s following interconnected characteristics of CLT provide a useful

overview:16

1. Classroom goals are focused on all of the components (grammatical,

discourse, functional, sociolinguistic, and strategic) of communicative competence.
Goals therefore must intertwine the organizational aspects of language with the
pragmatic.

2. Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic,

authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes. Organizational

14 Norman Segalowitz and Patsy M. Lightbown, “Psycholinguistic approaches to sla”, Annual

Review of Applied Linguistics, Quebec, 1999, p. 43.
15 Savignon, “Teaching English as communication: a global perspective”, op.cit., p. 55.
16 Douglas H. Brown, Teaching by principles:An interactive approach to language pedagogy,
Longman / Pearson Education, New York, 2001, p. 43.
 14

language forms are not the central focus, but rather aspects of language that enable
the learner to accomplish those purposes.

3. Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying

communicative techniques. At times fluency may have to take on more importance
than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use.
4. Students in a communicative class ultimately have to use the language,
productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts outside the classroom.
Classroom tasks must therefore equip students with the skills necessary for
communication in those contexts.

5. Students are given opportunities to focus on their own learning process

through an understanding of their own styles of learning and through the
development of appropriate strategies for autonomous learning.

6. The role of the teacher is that of facilitator and guide, not an all-knowing
bestower of knowledge. Students are therefore encouraged to construct meaning
through genuine linguistic interaction with others.

In the same vein, according to Nunan there are five common characteristics of
CLT classrooms17:

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

language,

2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation,

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 to language activation

outside the classroom.

Furthermore, according to Yang and Cheung, CLT methodologies advocate18:

1. Emphasis on purposeful and meaningful activities.

17 David Nunan, “Communicative tasks and the language curriculum”, TESOL Quarterly, Oxford,
1991, p. 279.
18 Yang, A. and Cheung, C., “Adapting textbook activities for Communicative Teaching Cooperative
Learning”, English Teaching Forum, China, 2003, p. 17-18.
 15

2. The use of authentic elements.

3. The use of the extra materials besides textbook activities.

4. Avoiding from mechanical drills in pair or group work activities.

5. Diversity of activities.

According to Rodgers, CLT classrooms aim at a broad set of principles such

as19:
1. Learners learn a language via communication.

2. Authentic and purposeful communication should be the goal of classroom

activities.

3. Fluency should be the important side of communication.

4. Communication comprises the integration of different language skills.

5. Learning is creative, constructive and procedural, and comprises trial and

error.

Although these overviews on the characteristics of CLT are of different

sources, they share many common findings and detections about the subject. The
following part includes those common characteristics and principles of CLT.

2.2. PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF CLT TEACHING

In general, the major principles of the communicative language teaching can

be summarized as follows:

1. Learners use a language through using it to communicate: The primary

principle of CLT is that all activities managed and carried in classrooms are
supposed to be communication-centred and serve for the goal of communication.
What teachers and students do during the classroom can be divided into two types:
one is directly communicative activities. On listening it can be listening to weather
broadcasting; on speaking it may be asking ways in a new city; on reading it could be

19 Theodore S. Rodgers, Language teaching methodology, Retrieved August 10, 2005, from
http://www.cal.org/
 16

understanding a series of instructions; on writing it can be writing a letter for

booking a room in the hotel, so on and so forth. These activities are graded by
students’ language level. The other is indirectly communicative activities. The
activity itself is not a communicative one but of use and related to communicative
tasks.

2. Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom

activities: Free choice” refers to what and how people say is completely chosen by
themselves. In real-life communication, the speaker himself decides not only what he
intends to express but use what language form to express appropriately without being
controlled by others. In face-to-face communication his choice is made under the
pressure of time. The ability to select language forms under time pressure is an
important aspect of communicative competence and also a difficult point for foreign
language learners. Meanwhile, as the speaker should make choices spontaneously,
the listener doesn’t possibly predict what the other party tends to say. That is, the
language of the two sides is, to a large degree, arbitrary and unpredictable. For
language teaching, if the language used by students is controlled by the teacher, it
will be difficult to develop their communicative competence. The use of authentic
materials is an important characteristic of Communicative Language Teaching. There
are various authentic materials, such as a copy of a genuine newspaper article, a live
radio or TV broadcast, a menu, a literary text, etc., which expose students to
examples of natural language rather than material which has been written for
language teaching purposes. Hence CLT designs classroom practice as allowing the
students to decide by themselves what and how to express to achieve the goal of
developing communicative competence.

It is essential to create speaking opportunities for the students to achieve a

communicative competence. The ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably,
accurately and without too much hesitation will provide opportunities for students to
produce and understand tokens of the language which they may have been made
aware of, or even learnt, during accuracy activities. The activities which help develop
fluency have features as follows:

- Students get the chance to be creative and express their own attitudes,
feeling, emotions, fears etc.

- Students concentrate on ‘what’ they are saying (or writing) rather than
‘how’ they are saying (or writing) it. The focus is on the meaning of the words more
than all the others.

- Students get practice in adjusting to the demands of the situation—in speech

this means that the activity must allow for the improvising, paraphrasing, self
correction and unpredictability that is typical of natural language use outside the
 17

classroom. In short, the CLT is to teach English for the purpose of communication,
that is, to give students the ability to use the language rather than simply to know its
structure, grammar, and vocabulary. Active student learning is the main learning
style advocated by CLT.

3. Fluency and accuracy are both important goals in language learning: There
is always a goal for the communication. The goal of one party may be offering
invitation, giving opinion, expressing dissatisfaction and asking for help, etc.; while
that of the other may be resistance or declining, etc. People in communication always
keep in mind of the goal and try to achieve it. Therefore whatever he says is around
the goal; while he also evaluates by this goal what other people transmit to him. This
strategy of making corresponding adjustment according to information feedback of
the opposite is an important point in language communicative competence.
Classroom practice of CLT tends to help students, during the process of completing
their communicative tasks, improve their ability of judging the target language, tone
and attitude, and the ability of making corresponding language reaction for achieving
their own communicative goals.

4. Communication involves the integration of different language skills:

Classroom goals are focused on all of the components (grammatical, discourse,
functional, sociolinguistic, and strategic) of communicative competence. Goals
therefore must intertwine the organizational aspects of language with the pragmatic.
While involvement in communicative events is seen as central to language
development, this involvement necessarily requires attention to form.
Communication cannot take place in the absence of structure, or grammar, a set of
shared assumptions about how language works, along with a willingness of
participants to cooperate in the negotiation of meaning. In their carefully researched
and widely cited paper proposing components of communicative competence, Canale
and Swain did not suggest that grammar was unimportant. They sought rather to
situate grammatical competence within a more broadly defined communicative
competence.20

5. Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error:

According to CLT, in the process of language learning, making mistakes is normal
and shows that the student is trying using the language, which is obviously not bad.
Besides that, the goal of the students’ learning foreign languages is to get things done
successfully and to communicate with other people. There is no need (actually it is
extremely difficult) for foreign students to approach the level of the native speakers
on every aspect. In fact, it is not that CLT does not correct students’ errors at all, but
it treats different errors respectively. It has been pointed out that the errors definitely

20 Michael Canale & Merrill Swain, “Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second
language teaching and testing”, Applied Linguistics, 1980, p. 47.
 18

ought to be corrected which may violate the listener or reader and which occur
frequently. However, no matter it is serious or slight, correcting every error can have
an opposite function. Now foreign language educators generally agree that the
tolerance of spoken or written errors will benefit students on confidently using the
language to communicate.

Central to these principles is the frame of reference for making ELT

authentic, meaningful and the English learners fluent and accurate. Although there
have been modifications and reformulations of what constitute communicative
competence, the communicative approach considers target language based
communicative competence to be essential in order for foreign language learners to
participate fully in the target language culture.21 Teachers have been encouraged to
integrate language and culture in EFL classrooms by passing cultural knowledge and
rules of speaking of the native speakers onto the learners, who in turn are expected to
use the target language as the native speakers do. Such a notion implicitly suggests
that foreign language learners should model themselves on the native speakers, who
are usually taken to be speakers of a standard variety of the target language, while
completely ignoring the social identities and cultural competence of the learner in
any intercultural interaction.22 The success of ELT is measured by how native-like
the learners are in their performance of the target language.

2.3. TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ROLES IN COMMUNICATIVE

LANGUAGE TEACHING

Teachers’ and students’ roles in class activities make up the critical focus of
communicative teaching. Most of the negative and fruitless examples were observed
to have been resulted from either the teachers' or students' lack of organisation and
implication of CLT. Teachers' language competence and creative ability primarily
affect the final product. How they understand CLT, how they instruct the students,
and how much intervention is necessary determine their roles and the outcome of
their performance. In the more creative types of activity, teachers should avoid
unnecessary intervention because this may prevent learners from becoming involved
with the activity and developing their communicative skills. The teachers’ function
becomes less dominant, but no less important in some situations.23 Teachers may

21 Cem Alptekin, “Towards intercultural communicative competence in elt”, ELT Journal, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2002, p. 58.
22 Micheal Byram, Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence, Cambridge
University Press,Cambridge, 1997, p. 8.
23 William Littlewood, Communicative Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge,1981, p. 19.
 19

find themselves talking less and listening more, becoming active facilitators of their
students' learning and facilitating communication in the classroom. In speaking
practice, it is the students’ turn to do most of the talking. The teachers are like the
skilful conductor of an orchestra, giving each of the performers a chance to
participate and monitoring their performance to see that it is satisfactory. In CLT
teachers serve more as facilitators and participants rather than being in a traditional
didactic position; and students are actively involved in interpretation, expression and
negotiation of meaning. Accordingly, the teacher is an analyst and task designer
whereas the students are improvisers and negotiators. Moreover, it is crucial for the
teachers to correct the learners’ mistakes immediately. Otherwise, once the wrong
patterns and rules become fixed in students’ minds, then they will result in habits
difficult to change, and accuracy is therefore much more emphasized than fluency. If
learners make errors during speaking, the errors are tolerated in order to encourage
fluency. However, it does not mean that errors are ignored and the teacher may not
give learners feedback. Error correction should be applied during teaching rather
than while students are practising in the target language. Otherwise, it causes a
permanent habit in which students hesitate every time they use the target language.

Thus, the students learn how to learn, and as a result, they take responsibility
for their own learning. In CLT activities, students are supposed to interact with each
other through the “group work activities, which allows the students to be exposed to
purposeful and authentic language use rather than mechanical practice of language
drills.24 According to Deckert, based on student centeredness, the CLT requires low
profile teacher roles, constant pair work or small group problem solving, students
responding to authentic texts, extended exchanges on versatile topics, and the
implementation of the four basic skills, namely speaking, listening, reading, and
writing.25 The CLT discourages teacher centeredness, quizzing of memorized
material, and detailed commentary on forms of English. Consequently, CLT often
demands teachers to use less teacher-centred activities and skills. Instructors are
responsible for organizing the classroom as a setting for communication and
communicative activities. In addition, CLT activities have shifted language
classrooms’ focus from the function and the teacher to the learner. Unlike traditional
and teacher-centred approaches, CLT is against the teacher dominance in the
classroom and supports a more equal relationship among the teachers and the
students. The CLT teacher assumes a responsibility for determining and responding
to learner language needs. The teacher is the manager of classroom activities. In this
role, one of his major responsibilities is to establish situations likely to promote
communication. A classroom during a communicative activity is far from quiet;
therefore, the teacher has to be aware of classroom management issues.

24 Diane Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, op.cit., p. 13.

25 Glenn Deckert, “The communicative approach: addressing frequent failure”, English teaching
Forum, 2004, p. 17.
 20

2.4. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF CLT CURRICULUM

The communicative commonness of English and its worldwide usefulness

necessitate changes in the approaches of English teaching. Second-language
curriculum development has become increasingly complex since the advent of
communicative language teaching during the 1980s. The trend of language teaching
has gradually moved away from traditional grammar-based approaches such as the
grammar-translation and the audio lingual methods to the communicative ones.
Communicative language teaching led to a re-examination of language learning and
teaching goals, syllabuses, materials, and classroom activities and has been a major
cause of changes in language teaching worldwide. Indeed, the influence of the
communicative approach has permeated every aspect of ELT, from syllabus design
to teaching material selection, from teaching methodology to learning assessment.26
In various countries, school curricula increasingly take into account learners’ present
or predicted communication requirements, the kinds of things they are likely to want
to say, read, or write in the target language. Communicative intentions replace
grammatical forms, and communicative competence is the overriding objective of
instruction. The underlying principle of a proficiency-based program is represented
by the functional trisection, a model for integrating the objectives of function,
context (content), and formal accuracy at any level. For example, Omaggio’s
curricular planning guides offer specifications for content (such as transportation),
function (for example, “can” participate in short conversations), and accuracy (for
instance, very basic vocabulary related to content areas listed).27 In the view of its
exponents, the importance of proficiency as an organizing principle of planning and
evaluation derives from its descriptive and predictive power for comparing different
programs and methodologies. Proficiency-based programs have developed in
universities and in schools on the belief that programs in a thoughtfully engineered
framework come from knowing in advance the why (goals), the what (functions,
content, context), the how well (student outcomes). Proficiency course descriptions
specify: the reasons why we teach language (our philosophy or rationale), what our
students will derive from the study of language (our goals), the specific capabilities
the students will develop as a result of instruction (our objectives, or student outcome
statements), the scope and sequence of our programs; and the articulation of content
and skills within our programs. But as curriculum design progresses, the topics must
become more clearly identified. He also suggests that in practice much of the content
of a proficiency-based program will be supplied by course texts.

26 Qiang Xu, The Communicative Approach to English Teaching and Testing, Foreign Language
Education Press, Shanghai, 2000, p. 14.
27 Alice C. Omaggio, Teaching language in context: Proficiency-oriented instruction., Heinle &
Heinle, Boston, 1986, p. 181.
 21

The status of English as an international language between native speakers

and non-native speakers challenges the ideology of the predominant communicative
approach of English language teaching as a foreign or second language. Unless
placed within an intercultural context, communicative language teaching cannot meet
the demand of globalization. Much of our understanding of the intercultural
dimension of language education and intercultural competence is based on research
by Byram and Flemming, Byram, and Byram and Zarate. These scholars’ work has
opened up new horizons for the integration of intercultural education and foreign or
second language education, in which the nature and role of language teaching and
learning is extensively explored within intercultural contexts. In the member states of
the Council of Europe, developing the intercultural dimension in language teaching
involves the aims to give learners intercultural competence as well as linguistic
competence; to enable them to understand and accept people from other cultures as
individuals with other distinctive perspective, values and behaviours; and to help
them to see that such interaction is an enriching experience. Therefore, a so-called
international curricula based on CLT include all the items listed above, in which
communicative purposes are given priority. Those curricula have an international
frame and the local ones adapt them into their own programs. Common European
framework of reference for languages, for example, is an international curriculum to
which all the member countries adapt their language teaching school programs.

2.5. THE CRITICISM OF THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

The concept of communicative competence has been the basis of the

communicative approach since the 1970s. What has been criticized in recent
literature is the native speaker model in the ideology of communicative competence,
which is characterized by the belief that the acquisition of L1 entails not only
grammatical competence but also the ability to use the language as native speakers.28
The practitioners of the CLT idolizing the native speaker and their failure in
identifying the differences between the detached Englishes around the world as well
as the connection between L1 and L2 allow learners of this language to suffer from
as-close-as possible reproduction of so-called native speaker norms.29 These
practices are not natural way of learning and usually result from the following
factors:

28 Micheal Byram, Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence, op.cit., p. 12.
29 Cem Alptekin, “Towards intercultural communicative competence in elt”, op.cit., p. 56-57.
 22

2.5.1. PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH

In the communicative language teaching, the first language and cultural

differences are neglected and the target language and its culture are regarded as
undetectable entities. In contrast, the differences between the already Englishes as
either a first or second language or even as a foreign language reveal the reasonable
and natural language acquisition reality. The mistakes made by the former
practitioners created a parrot-like learner model and an imitator of a native speaker,
trying to pronounce the words as authentic as possible and speak as fluent and
accurate as a native, resulting in a very long period of teaching and learning process.
In this process of copying the native speaker standard, the true value of
communicative language teaching and the identity of the learners and teachers are
diminished by an act of mimicry. In this context, the discussion of language
competence comes to the fore. It suggests that in learning a language, knowing the
structure and grammar of a language is not enough to reproduce it. The context in
which the target language is spoken shapes how to use the language; what to say to
whom, how, when, where and why. According to Hymes, the speaking ability not
merely comprises knowing the grammar of a language, but also knowing what to say
to whom, when, and in what situations.30 In the same vein, as Chomsky stated,
“competence” emphasizes the linguistic knowledge that an ideal native speaker of a
given language has. He also states, “Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with
ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows
its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions
as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interests and errors
(random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual
performance”.31 However, what is to be discussed here is to determine whether the
limits of the language competence is enough to fulfil communication or as well as
the ideal speaker of the language.

2.5.2. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Language shapes in culture and each culture has its own way of expression.
However, this does not make the language unspeakable unless it is reproduced as in
the original culture for those from other cultures, which is explained by the term
Intercultural language. In this respect, a language spoken by different cultures is only
used for communication rather than the cultural norms such as idioms, slang,
proverbs, or jokes. Therefore, in second language teaching, since the learner is not
the member of the target language, he should be guided to use the language to

30 Robin C. Scarcella & Rebecca L. Oxford, The tapestry of language teaching, Boston, Heinle &
Heinle, 1992, p. 68.
31 Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Mass MIT Press, Cambridge, 1965, p. 65.
 23

communicate, but not to be a perfect native-like speaker of the language. In Journal

of EA, it is stated that if English is used as a lingua franca, it is only a medium of
communication for its users, and their norms of behaviour, belief and values, and
identities should remain the same in spite of the English they use. It is meaningless to
make non-native speakers, e.g. Indians and Chinese, behave like Americans or
British when they come into contact with one another. For instance, studies show that
distinctive features in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and style can be identified
with China English.32

2.5.3. THE UNREALISTIC REPRESENTATION OF ENGLISH

It is widely acknowledged that English is no longer the property of any

individual cultural group. Foreign and second English speakers in the world have
enriched and will continue to contribute to the number of regional varieties and
usages of the English language. If these varieties are disregarded and only those
native ones are overrated, then an unrealistic perception and representation of
English will roam in ELT practices in the world as well as the current practice in
Turkey. English should be represented as a means of communication rather than a
language belonging to England or other English speaking cultures. The prototype
speaker should be reset and the materials should be intercultural. Expecting the
foreign language learner to speak as well as the ideal native speaker of English is
only an unrealistic expectation and thus presenting the target language according to
those ideal purposes will result in disappointment.

2.5.4 THE MYTHICIZED IMAGE OF THE NATIVE SPEAKER

The proponents of the communicative approach, in spite of breaking away

from the Chomskyan concept of the ideal speaker-hearer, have been trapped into
believing the myth of the native speaker. Who is the native speaker? If Chomsky’s
ideal listener-speaker exists only in unrealistic abstraction, the native speaker is
similarly unidentifiable. Different definitions of a native-speaker can be found, each
taking a different standpoint of this linguistic construct, including parentage,
birthplace, childhood acquisition and social prestige.33 However, there is a common
understanding in the broad sense of the term as referring to a competent user of a
language. Even this loose definition is questionable because the assessment of being

32 Zhixin Wang, “The linguistic and cultural division of Englishes in English as an international
language”, in Hu, Wenzhong, (Ed.) Aspects of Intercultural Communication Proceedings of China
2nd Conference on Intercultural Communication, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,
Beijing, 1999, p. 596.
33 Claire Kramsch, Context and Culture in Language Teaching, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1993, p. 210.
 24

competent is a complicated issue when authority and reference to a standard is taken

into consideration. Judgement about competence is always subject to the norms of
social groups. Honna points out that by virtue of this perfectionism: “Japanese tend
to hesitate to interact with English speakers until they often are heard to say, they
develop complete proficiency in the language”,34 which is like the case in Turkey.

2.5.5. REJECTION OF L1

Another weakness of the native speaker based communicative approach is the

neglect or denial of the learners’ linguistic and cultural make-up. In communicative
language teaching, the learners’ first language and native culture is believed to have
a negative influence and should be avoided as much as possible. The importance and
necessity of getting rid of L1 influence is a frequent topic of discussion. Negative
transfer is claimed to interfere or hinder English learners at lexical, syntactic,
discourse and pragmatic levels and thus the L1 should be barred. Is L1 to be blamed
for the unsuccessful teaching and learning of English? Or is the teaching principle to
be blamed? Should the learners and teachers abandon their L1 in the English
classroom or should the classroom teaching cater for the learners and teachers and
their L1 and L2 backgrounds? Cook argues for the recognition of L1 and criticizes
the native-speaker norm as the measure of final L2 achievement. He argues that L2
learners are different from monolingual native speakers in that they process multi-
competence characterized by the compound state of a mind with two languages and
the ghost-like presence of L1 cannot escape the L2 learners and users at any time and
place35 It is also stated ‘Being blind to L1 influence can only hinder the learning and
teaching of L2. The productive influence of L1, e.g. the positive transfer of L1, is not
a new discovery but such research findings have seldom been applied to practical
ELT'. However, in English classrooms in Turkey, students are constantly advised by
their teachers to forget about their Turkish when learning English. The fact, however,
is that most students rely on their Turkish for comprehension of English and they are
often found to be engaged in Turkish-English or English-Turkish translation when
learning or using English. By pointing out this fact, the authors have no intention of
arguing for a dependence on L1 in L2 teaching and learning. Therefore, disregarding
or rejecting L1 is completely unrealistic.

34 Nobuyuki Honna, “English as a language for international communicative: an Asian perspective”,

in Hu, Wenzhong (Ed.), Aspects of Intercultural Communication Proceedings of China 2nd
Conference on Intercultural Communication, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,
Beijing, 1999, p. 561.
35 Cook, loc.cit., p. 209.
 25

3. COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH IN TURKISH EDUCATION

SYSTEM

In Turkey, language teaching has always been discussed and criticized by the
language practitioners. Despite the contemporary innovations not only in technology
and thus in audiovisual means but also in teaching approaches and techniques, there
are still many drawbacks and fruitlessness in applications. Among those is the
language competence having only been acquired after a long period of education the
most noteworthy. However, in recent years, due to the European Union adjustment
regulations, standardization trials of language teaching in Turkey have been
undertaken according to the Common European framework of reference for
languages. The standardization is about the framework and learning levels rather
than suggesting a teaching method or teaching techniques. It draws the desired
boundaries and describes the target learner considering all the individual and cultural
differences. The framework brings both a unity by demanding a standard acquisition
and certain skills of language in different levels and diversity in terms of
multiculturalism and democracy by focusing on what to teach rather than how to
teach. In contrast, current applications in Turkish National Education (M.E.B)
system not only suggests a curriculum involving the topics and even the text book
but also imposes teaching methods and techniques dominating the teacher without
recognizing the cultural or individual differences.

3.1. COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK (CEF)

This common framework describes itself as a set of objectives which provide

a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines,
examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe. It describes in a comprehensive way
what language learners have to learn to do in order to use a language for
communication and what knowledge and skills they have to develop so as to be able
to act effectively. It establishes that determining universal objective criteria for
describing language proficiency will facilitate the mutual recognition of
qualifications gained in different learning contexts, and accordingly will aid
European mobility. The uses of the Framework include the planning of language
learning programmes in terms of their assumptions regarding prior knowledge, and
their articulation with earlier learning, particularly at interfaces between primary,
lower secondary, upper secondary and higher education, their objectives, and their
content. The planning of self-directed learning includes raising the learner’s
awareness of his or her present state of knowledge, self-setting of feasible and
 26

worthwhile objectives, selection of material, self-assessment. Learning programmes

and certification can be global, bringing a learner forward in all dimensions of
language proficiency and communicative competence; modular, improving the
learner’s proficiency in a restricted area for a particular purpose; weighted,
emphasising learning in certain directions and producing a ‘profile’ in which a higher
level is attained in some areas of knowledge and skill than others; partial, taking
responsibility only for certain activities and skills and leaving others aside.

In order to fulfil its functions, such a Common European Framework must be

comprehensive, transparent and coherent. CEF should differentiate the various
dimensions in which language proficiency is described, and provide a series of
reference points such as levels or steps by which progress in learning can be
calibrated. It should be borne in mind that the development of communicative
proficiency involves other dimensions than the strictly linguistic. By transparent, it is
meant that information must be clearly formulated and explicit, available and readily
comprehensible to users. By coherent, it is meant that the description is free from
internal contradictions. With regard to educational systems, coherence requires that
there is a harmonious relation among their components, such as the identification of
needs, the determination of objectives, the definition of content, the selection or
creation of material, the establishment of teaching and learning programmes, the
teaching and learning methods employed, evaluation, testing and assessment.

The construction of a comprehensive, transparent and coherent framework for

language learning and teaching does not imply the imposition of one single uniform
system. On the contrary, the framework should be open and flexible, so that it can be
applied, with such adaptations as prove necessary, to particular situations. CEF
should be multi-purpose, that is, it is usable for the full variety of purposes involved
in the planning and provision of facilities for language learning, flexible, that is, it is
adaptable for use in different circumstances, open, that is, it is capable of further
extension and refinement, dynamic, or in continuous evolution in response to
experience in its use, user-friendly, that is, it is presented in a form readily
understandable and usable by those to whom it is addressed, and non-dogmatic, that
is, it is not irrevocably and exclusively attached to any one of a number of competing
linguistic or educational theories or practices.

It is, therefore, suggested that in accordance with the basic principles of

pluralist democracy, the framework aims to be not only comprehensive, transparent
and coherent, but also open, dynamic and non-dogmatic. For that reason it cannot
take up a position on one side or another of current theoretical disputes on the nature
of language acquisition and its relation to language learning, nor should it embody
any one particular approach to language teaching to the exclusion of all others. Its
proper role is to encourage all those involved as partners to the language learning and
teaching process to state as explicitly and transparently as possible their own
 27

theoretical basis and their practical procedures. In order to fulfil this role it sets out
parameters, categories, criteria and scales which users may draw upon and which
may possibly stimulate them to consider a wider range of options than previously or
to question the previously unexamined assumptions of the tradition in which they are
working. This is not to say that such assumptions are wrong, but only that all those
responsible for planning should benefit from a re-examination of theory and practice
in which they can take into account decisions other practitioners have taken in their
own and, particularly, in other European countries.

These suggestions of the framework introduces a highly democratic and

multicultural final target which aims to set a standard educational level without
imposing a narrow single-handed teaching methodology. It is high time that
language teaching and learning was fully integrated with intercultural education for
Turkish learners as well as for the other second language learners from the other
cultures. Intercultural competence is what the learners need to operate in the
multicultural world today. The goal of ELT should be oriented towards producing
competent intercultural speakers rather than native-like imitators or actors. An
intercultural approach to teach English for and as intercultural communication would
be a solution for this problem. The rationale and principles of this sort of intercultural
language teaching (ILT) are currently far from the CLT applications in Turkey. The
educational scientists will have to question the feasibility of the communicative
approach in the ELT profession, particularly in Turkey.

3.2. M.E.B CURRICULUM OF ENGLISH TEACHING

M.E.B underlines its language policy and principals in a program drawing the
borders in which language teaching takes place. Unlike the Common European
Framework, the program determines not only the principles and targets but also the
methods and even the techniques to be used during the teaching process. In this part,
we discuss and compare the program with the universal standards such as CEF.

One of the principal characteristics of the program, in which this study is

particularly interested, is the burden of Communicative Approach. It is described as a
method whose principal purpose is to achieve the written and oral communication,
which is also the principal function of the language itself. Language is a means of
communication rather than the set of rules. It also underlines the fact that students
are directed to understand and acquire what they have learned and to use those
acquired in the environment where they live rather than to memorize the structures.
In language learning, it is essential that the learners themselves should discover and
 28

set the rules instead of being introduced directly. These descriptions are in
conformity with those we mentioned in previous chapter.

As to the teaching methods and techniques in foreign language learning, it

also highlights the interaction of the native language and the first language having
previously learned with the second foreign language and reflection of the background
information and suggests language reflection as a teaching technique. In this context,
we can easily make out that it is advisable to use native language as a tool in foreign
language teaching, which contradicts with CLT. It is also suggested in the program
as a principal of language teaching that if a student can set a link between his/her
previous and following knowledge, then language learning will be well-established
as well. Accordingly, setting a link between the first or native language and the
second language also means setting a link between his/her previous and following
knowledge. Therefore, students already have background information while being
presented a new language. This available information is their previous experiences,
native languages and the universal characteristics of his/her already acquired
language, which is defined as universal grammar by Noam Chomsky.

The following lesson plan is cited from the formal published program of
M.E.B. It clearly includes the objectives, the grammar topic to be presented, teaching
and learning techniques to be practised, materials to be used during the lesson, and
the activities during a limited period of time.

Table 1: A sample lesson plan for a single for a simple class

PART I
LESSON English

CLASS 9th grade

THEME Sports

CONTENT Healthy Life

DURATION 40 minutes

PART II
OBJECTIVES • to be able to ask questions
• to be able to answer the questions
• to be able to set cause and effect relations
while speaking
• to use pre-listening instructions in
 29

understanding what is said

• to make comparisons while reading
• to be able to answer pre-reading,while
reading, and post-reading questions
• to be able to set cause and effect relations
while writing
• to be able to provide examples from his
own life and experiences while writing
• to be able to build meaningful sentences
• to be able to write relevant statements
GRAMMAR TOPICS Conditionals ( 0 type), Comparatives
TEACHING AND LEARNING • Brain storming
TECHNIQUES • Question-answer
• Pair work
• Discussion
MATERIALS USED BY THE • reading text
• TEACHER • dictionary
• STUDENTS • worksheet related to the text

PART III

TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS

Step Time Task (teacher) Task (pupils) Interaction Purpose

1 5 mins A. Introduction: Listen T→Ss Arouse interest.

T elicits the words

healthy and unhealthy.

T asks Ss: Do you eat

healthy food? If not,
why not?

T elicits answers from Ss call out the T↔Ss

Ss. answer to the
A student may answer: I question.
eat too much butter and ( I eat too much
cheese. fruit.
T uses the opportunity to Etc.)
elicit/ teach the word
fat,as in Butter and oil
are fats.

(T=teacher
Ss=students)
 30

2 10 mins B. Presentation: T→Ss Work in pairs and

Ss↔Ss answer the question
Activity A Ss read the health Ss↔Ss in the health quiz.
quiz, using their
dictionaries Discuss the answer
where with the class.
necessary.
Ss discuss the
questions and put Check answer orally.
a tick or cross Correct the errors.
beside each
sentence.

T check answer orally, T→Ss Receive feedback

encouraging discussion.
T corrects major errors.

Activity B

T checks answers orally, Ss↔Ss Reading for general

explaining where T→Ss understanding
necessary. For question Ss work in pairs. Ss↔Ss-T
4, T encourages Ss answer the
discussion. questions.
Example : I eat a lot of Check reading
fat. I don’t eat enough comprehension
vegetables

3 15 mins C. Main Activity/ Giving advice about

Practice one’s health

T→Ss
Activity C Ss↔Ss
In pairs, Ss read
T elicits the word the two texts and
lifestyle. complete the
chart.
Ss use their
dictionaries Ss↔T
where necessary.

Ss read the
questions.
T checks answers orally, Ss discuss the
 31

explaining where question in pairs.

necessary. T corrects Ss answer the
major errors. questions. Ss↔T,Ss↔
T
Ss -T ↔Ss

Activity D
T checks understanding.
T checks answers orally, Ss write their
encouraging discussion advice to one of
for question 3 and 4. Leo and Tania.

T could then ask

students to write their
answers.
T writes new words on
the board in sentences.
T→Ss
Ss↔T,Ss
4 5 mins D. Closure/Conclusion

Activity E
T elicits a few sentences Ss write a short
from students, for paragraph about
example: You shouldn’t their own
smoke. You should eat lifestyle, using
more vegetables. the texts in
Activity C as a
T walks round and model. Ss↔T,Ss
checks Ss sentences.

5 5 mins E. Follow up Lessons/

Assessment/Evaluation

T asks Ss to write a
short paragraph about
their own lifestyle.
 32

As seen in the table above, the activities during the lesson are designed
deductively, in which the students initially read or are exposed to the structures in the
context and then are required to make similar statements. This presentation exhibits
the common CLT application during an ordinary class. The following chart cited
(see; Table 1 ) shows the annual Schedule of English Lesson in 10th Grades of the
schools depending on Ministry of Turkish National Education (M.E.B.) :
 33

HAFTA DERS HEDEF VE DAVRANIŞLAR KONULAR ÖĞRENME/ÖĞRETME KULLANILAN DEĞERLENDİRME

(Weeks) (Hours) (Objectives) (Subjects) YÖNTEM VE EĞİTİM (hedef ve davranışlara
(Months)

SAATİ TEKNİKLERİ TEKNOLOJİLERİ, ulaşma düzeyi)

AY

(Teach.Technq.& Methods) ARAÇ VE

GEREÇLERİ (Evaluation)
(Materials)

10 Meeting the students, talking about Introduction: Giving and obtaining Communicative Some flash cards,
how to do an efficient course, information Approach activity sheets
3 discussing the different ways of Ask&Answer reading,
doing the courses, the importance of writing giving examples,
24-25 English in our daily and future lives presentation, error
in the context of a changing world correction, pair work ,
EYLÜL (September)

groupwork
1 PERSONAL DENTIFICATION
Introducing oneself/ greeting My name’s... I’m .............. This is my…. New Bridge to
someone(formal-informal) Asking What’s your ... How do you spell it? Success Student’s
4 10 and giving information. How old are you? Connector: and Communicative Book and
Understanding and following What’s ............. in English? Approach Workbook
28-02 classroom instructions. Asking and What nationality are you? I’m ............. Ask&Answer reading, Worksheets
giving information about Where are you from? I’m from writing giving examples, Dictionary
nationalities; addresses and ...................... presentation, error Cassette and CD
telephone numbers. What’s your home address? correction, pair work , Projection
My address is …….What’s your groupwork Pictures
telephone number? It’s
Imperatives
Open your books! Write down! Don’t
read etc
Describing family members. UNIT 2:FAMILY Communicative New Bridge to
Describing personal possessions. Possessive adjective “‘s” possessive Approach Success Student’s
1 10 Identifying some objects. adjectives Ask&Answer reading, Book and
EKİM
(October)

Have/Has got writing giving examples, Workbook

05-09 How many have you got? presentation, error Worksheets
What have you got in……..? correction, pair work , Dictionary
groupwork Casette and CD
Posters, pictures

Table 2 : A sample page of the annual Curriculum of English Lesson in Anatolian High Schools
 34

It is clear that all the objectives are communicative and the subjects are
generally written in spoken form rather than the grammatical expressions. The
teaching techniques reflect the main lines of communicative approach such as error
correction, pair work, group work activities, skills teaching etc. The listed materials,
in addition, are the communicative means of teaching such as visual and audial
materials. The materials are usually of foreign origin where the target language is
spoken as native language.

Likewise, English teaching in all grades of both elementary and secondary

schools depending on M.E.B. are based on communicative language teaching
targeting the ideal speaker of English nearly as well as a native speaker of English,
whereas it is mostly criticized side of CLT as mentioned above. The teachers and the
program planners in Turkey heavily emphasis on ‘thinking as an English man’,
which is almost impossible to be acted as is stated by Byram, et al. “Thinking as a
human with his/her own first language and culture but being able to express it in the
target language words by using an international base’ would be far better proposal
than ‘thinking as an English man suggestion.”36

What we propose here is that rather than the modification of CLT on an

intercultural based curriculum, it is better to use the first language of all cultures so
as to provide a real and cultural reason to interpret the ideas in the first language into
the words in the target language. Instead of trying to create an authentic atmosphere
in order to make the students acquire the presented language in a context with time
and labour consuming materials, it is wiser for the learner to use his/her already
available native or first language.

36 Micheal Byram, Bella Gribkova, & Hugh Starkey, “Developing the Intercultural Dimension in
Language Teaching: A Practical Introduction for Teachers”, Council of Europe, EA Journal,
Strasbourg, 2002, Vol.22, No: 41, p. 5.
 35

4. METHODOLOGY

This study mainly focused on the productivity and efficiency of the

communicative skills of the application of CLT in English classrooms in an
Anatolian High School, the main purpose of which is to teach foreign language in
Turkish National Education system. Thus, a quantitative research design was
preferred. Quantitative research involves counting and measuring of events and
performing the statistical analysis of a body of numerical data. The assumption
behind this method is that there is an objective truth existing in the world that can be
measured and explained scientifically. The main concerns of the quantitative method
are that measurement is reliable, valid, and generalizable in its clear prediction of
cause and effect.37

According to Ting-Toomey, “being deductive and particularistic, quantitative

research is based upon formulating the research hypotheses and verifying them
empirically on a specific set of data. Scientific hypotheses are value-free; the
researcher's own values, biases, and subjective preferences have no place in the
quantitative approach. Researchers can view the communication process as concrete
and tangible and can analyse it without contacting actual people involved in
communication.”38

The strengths of the quantitative method include:

 Stating the research problem in very specific and set terms.

 Clearly and precisely specifying both the independent and the dependent
variables under investigation.

 Following firmly the original set of research goals, arriving at more objective
conclusions, testing hypothesis, determining the issues of causality.

 Achieving high levels of reliability of gathered data due to controlled

observations, laboratory experiments, mass surveys, or other form of research
manipulations.

 Eliminating or minimizing subjectivity of judgement.

37 Catherine Cassel & Gillian Symon, Qualitative methods in organizational research, Sage
Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA ,1994, p. 13.
38 Stella Ting-Toomey, Qualitative research: An overview, In W.B. Gudykunst, & Y.Y. Kim (Eds.),
Methods for intercultural communication research , Sage Publications, Beverly Hills ,1984, p.169
 36

 Allowing for longitudinal measures of subsequent performance of research

subjects.

Consequently, throughout the study the data was collected via a sample test in
order to answer the following research questions:

1. What exactly is the Communicative Language Teaching?

2. What are the significant drawbacks of CLT implementation in Turkish

National Education system?

3. Is CLT really the most appropriate teaching method for Turkish foreign
language learners?

4. Is it really wise to neglect L1 in L2 acquisition as in CLT?

4.1. SETTING

The study was carried out in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades of Atatürk Anatolian
High School in the province of Van, Turkey. It is the oldest high school in this city.
The school admits the students, having a relatively high level of score from SBS
examination (e.g. an exam for Turkish secondary school students to be replaced in
high schools accordingly). It has almost all educational opportunities for the students.

4.2. PARTICIPANTS

The study was conducted with 300 Anatolian High School students. The
participants were selected from three different grades, including 10th, 11th and 12th
grades in equal numbers. Their ages range between 14 and 16. Anatolian high
school students are admitted with the average of three examinations, taken every year
by the students at the end of each secondary school year. Therefore, they all have a
certain level of acquisition ability.
 37

4.3. INSTRUMENTS

In this study, we used a sample test based on the principles of the quantitative
research method in order to elicit data related to the students’ acquisition of English,
their reproduction level of the language and the reflection of the CLT practices on
the students in EFL settings in Turkey. This sort of data collection strategy is a
relative technique which involves dependent or independent variables and has a kind
of dependency on a variable or variables. In quantitative research, the aim is to
classify features, count them, and construct statistical models in an attempt to explain
what is observed. Data is in the form of numbers and statistics. Objective researcher
seeks precise measurement and analysis of target concepts, e.g., uses surveys,
questionnaires etc. Quantitative data is known to be more efficient to test hypotheses.
Researcher tends to remain objectively separated from the subject matter.

4.4. PROCEDURES

The first phase of the study was consisted of the process of obtaining
permission from the directory of the setting school. At the second phase, the
researcher identified 300 participants of different grades in the school, where the
participants were studying. Then, the teachers to give the test were met and given the
details of the research, and were asked to make the students to fill out the
questionnaire in a lesson hour duration, which was 45 min. It was very important that
during these sessions, the participation was voluntary, and no imposition was made
on the participants. Eventually, the participants were also given the opportunity to
ask questions about the questionnaire. Consequently, at the final phase of the study,
the tests were collected and the answers given by the participants were evaluated.

4.5. A SAMPLE EVALUATION TEST

The main purpose of the sample test (illustrated in Appendix A) was to give
the researcher necessary information about the participants’ level of acquisition and
reproduction as well as their general understanding of English. The test covers the
range of language proficiency from elementary to pre-intermediate level. The test
included three types of questions, the first type of which aims to measure the
theoretical English knowledge, the next of which aims to measure the ability of
 38

analysis, and the last of which targets to evaluate the participants’ levels of synthesis.
Therefore, it is consisted of three parts, named as ‘PART A’, ‘PART B’, and ‘PART
C’. Moreover, each of the parts includes two levels of questions, numbered as ‘I’ and
‘II’. The language questioned in Level ‘I’ is made up of the daily routine and
structurally fixed imitative language, whereas the language questioned in Level ‘II’
is of rare and reproductive features, the former of which is described E-Language
(external language) and the latter I-Language (internal language) by Chomsky.39
Level I and Level II questions are characterized by how often they are exposed rather
than how difficult they are.

There are 45 questions in the test. In PART A, there are ten theoretical level
of questions, five of which are in level I and the other five are in level II. In PART B
, in addition, there are ten analysis level of questions, five of which are in level I and
the other five are in level II, but in three types of questions . However, in PART C,
there are twenty five synthesis level of questions in two different types, twenty of
which are in the first part including ten level I and ten level II questions, and five of
which are in the second part including only reproduction level II of questions, which
aimed to define the participants’ perceptions of English as well as their language
proficiency. In this part, the creativity of the participants was aimed to be evaluated
and rather than one standard answer, any possible meaningful answer was regarded
as correct answer. Open format questions are those that ask for unprompted opinions.
In other words, there are no predetermined set of responses, and the participants are
free to answer whatever they chooses.

4.6. DATA ANALYSIS

The analysis of the data collected via the instruments should be interpreted in
solid units such as numbers in order to be scientifically valid. The purpose of the data
analysis is to bring meaning, structure, and order to the data. Interpretation requires
acute awareness of the data, concentration, and openness to subtle undercurrents of
social life. Accordingly, the data obtained from our sample test were analysed by
using quantitative research method involving the systematic collection, organization,
and interpretation of numeric material derived from the test used as data source in the
study.

The analysis was performed in several stages. Initially the sample tests were
collected from the teachers and then they were divided into the groups according to

39 Vivian Cook & Mark Newson, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, Second edition, Cambridge
Publications, Oxford, 1996, p. 125.
 39

their grades. Second, the variables were set, which were labelled as Level I and Level
II, and Part A, Part B and Part C. The variables were set according to the grades of
the students (i.e. 10th, 11th and 12th grades), levels of knowledge (i.e. Part A, Part B
and Part C), and level of the questions (i.e. Level I and Level II). The grades are the
classes in which the participants study. Moreover, the levels of knowledge are those
determined according to the measurement and evaluation principles that suggest the
educationalists to use different types of measurement means measuring different
levels of knowledge such as theory, analysis and synthesis, which were named as
‘Part A’, ‘Part B’ and ‘Part C’. Similarly, the levels of the questions are those having
nearly the same difficulty level and content but differ in their commonness or
creativity, which were titled as ‘Level I’ and ‘Level II’.

Next, the total correct answers for each question were counted and their
frequencies were calculated. Then, total correct answers over the total participants
(i.e. 300 Sts) were proportioned as ‘…/ 300’ as well as with their percentages as ‘…
%’. After this process, the frequencies and the percentages were applied to the afore
mentioned variables of the questions. The statistical data, calculated in frequencies
and percentages were processed with the program MS Office Excel 2003 by a
statistician in Van District Office of Turkish Statistical Institute and then the results
were illustrated in tables, bars and pie charts. Moreover, in order to interpret some
special common answers, partly qualitative data analysis, particularly content
analysis, was also used. Content analysis allows inferences to be made which can
then be corroborated using other methods of data collection.40 The main purpose of
content analysis is to examine what is there and label it.

This study analysed some parts of the data obtained from the open-ended
questions via content analysis technique in order to determine the presence of certain
words or concepts within texts or sets of texts. Thus, we quantified and analysed the
presence, meanings and relationships of such words and concepts, then made
inferences about the messages within the texts. At the third stage of the data analysis,
the content analyses of the papers were applied on some special words and
expressions.

40 John Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design; Choosing Among Five Traditions, Sage
Publication, London, 1998, p. 181.
 40

4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this chapter, the participants’ acquisition, production and perception of

English are compared with and contrasted to different variables and illustrated by
charts and tables.

The data reveal that the learners participated in the study generally lack the
ability to use the foreign language in a creative way. The majority of the participants
failed in the level of reproduction. In all three levels of knowledge, i.e. theory (Part
A), analysis (Part B) and synthesis (Part C), the participants were markedly
unsuccessful in relatively unfamiliar expressions and sentences (Level II). In other
words, students in this EFL setting are generally inadequate with creative practices.
In addition, the discrepancy between students’ theoretical perceptions of English and
their inability in reproductive practices may prevent them from implementing the
target language principles in a real context. CLT, as the principal language teaching
method in MEB curriculum, in contrast, is claimed to emphasize and encourage the
communication of meaning between teacher and students and among the students
themselves in group or pair work.41 The ultimate goals of the CLT curriculum are to
develop students’ communicative competence and prepare them to use the L2 in the
outside world. Now let’s remember what we mentioned about the principles of CLT
in part 2.2. of this study. CLT should constantly reflect a communicative side of
language and thus emphasizing:

a- Learners learn a language through using it to communicate.

b- Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of
classroom activities.
c- Fluency is an important dimension of communication.
d- Communication involves the integration of different language skills.
e- Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error.

However, despite all these opportunist intentions and implications of CLT,

the results in this study show that at least in this setting, i.e. in Van Atatürk Anatolian
High School, the participants having been taught English via CLT for a period of
time ranging from two to four years are incompetent in comprehension, knowledge,
analysis and reproduction levels of the language.

41 Patsy M. Lightbown & Nina Spada, How languages are learned. OUP Teaching a foreign
language: one teacher’s practical theory. Teaching and Teacher Education. 20, Oxford, 2000, p. 291.
 41

4.1. THE PARTICIPANTS’ ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH

The frequencies and the number of the correct answers to both levels, i.e.
Level I (familiar language) and Level II (unfamiliar language), in three levels of
knowledge (i.e. Part A, Part B, and Part C) are shown successively in Table 3:

Table 3: The overall correct answers to Level I and Level II questions and their
rational frequencies

Columns Labels
LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2
Overall Overall
Total Overall
Correct Correct Total
Line Labels Ans. Overall Rate Ans. Overall Rate Overall Ans. Rate

PART A 1141 3.803333333 216 0.72 1357 4.523333333

1 229 0.763333333 229 0.763333333
2 235 0.783333333 235 0.783333333
3 230 0.766666667 230 0.766666667
4 223 0.743333333 223 0.743333333
5 224 0.746666667 224 0.746666667
6 67 0.223333333 67 0.223333333
7 22 0.073333333 22 0.073333333
8 79 0.263333333 79 0.263333333
9 27 0.09 27 0.09
10 21 0.07 21 0.07
PART B 961 3.203333333 347 1.156666667 1308 4.36
11 73 0.243333333 73 0.243333333
12 80 0.266666667 80 0.266666667
13 246 0.82 246 0.82
14 192 0.64 192 0.64
15 49 0.163333333 49 0.163333333
16 179 0.596666667 179 0.596666667
17 143 0.476666667 143 0.476666667
18 227 0.756666667 227 0.756666667
19 50 0.166666667 50 0.166666667
20 69 0.23 69 0.23
PART C 2241 7.47 1204 4.013333333 3445 11.48333333
 42

A-1 234 0.78 45 0.15 279 0.93

A-2 290 0.966666667 179 0.596666667 469 1.563333333
A-3 227 0.756666667 112 0.373333333 339 1.13
A-4 206 0.686666667 82 0.273333333 288 0.96
A-5 79 0.263333333 45 0.15 124 0.413333333
A-6 245 0.816666667 76 0.253333333 321 1.07
A-7 279 0.93 14 0.046666667 293 0.976666667
A-8 271 0.903333333 72 0.24 343 1.143333333
A-9 202 0.673333333 14 0.046666667 216 0.72
A-10 208 0.693333333 18 0.06 226 0.753333333
B-1 134 0.446666667 134 0.446666667
B-2 88 0.293333333 88 0.293333333
B-3 173 0.576666667 173 0.576666667
B-4 74 0.246666667 74 0.246666667
B-5 78 0.26 78 0.26
Overall
Total 4343 14.47666667 1767 5.89 6110 20.36666667

According to the table above, whereas the learners can reproduce familiar
statements used in everyday English (with a ratio of 0.9, 0.8 or 0.7), they fail to
reproduce unfamiliar but similar ones (with a ratio of 0.04, 0.1 or 0.2) (see bold
figures in Table 3). The resulting figures in the study also reveal that learners taught
through CLT are only successful in the statements with which they are familiar
whether the task is of theoretical (shown as Part A in the questionnaire), analytical
(Part B) or reproduction (Part C) level. In Figure 1, each answer of the participants
for each question in the questionnaire was shown in a bar chart with Level 1 and
Level 2 questions in all three levels of knowledge ( i.e. theoretical, analytical and
reproduction).
 43

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
17
18
15
16
19
20
A-1
A-2
A-3
A-4
A-5
A-6
A-7
A-8
A-9
A-1
A-2
A-3
A-4
A-5
A-6
A-7
A-8
A-9
A-10

A-10

B-1
B-2
B-3
B-4
B-5
Level 1 Level 2 Level 1 Level 2 Level 1 Level 2

PART A PART B PART C

Figure 1

The difference between the highest value which is 0.96 or 290 of the total 300
participants for the question Level 1 A2 in Part C and the lowest value which is 0.04
or 14 of the total 300 participants for the question Level 2 A7 in the same part is
found to be 0.92, which is a significant figure in our study.

In another statistical data (see fig. 2), the results were divided into six parts as
Part A Level 1, Part A Level 2, Part B Level 1, Part B Level 2, Part C Level 1, and
Part C Level 2 . The correct answers for each group were counted and illustrated in
Figure 2:
 44

TOTAL

PART A Level 1
PART A Level 2
PART B Level 1
PART B Level 2
PART C Level 1
PART C Level 2

Figure 2

Furthermore, the total correct answers for Level 1 and Level 2 were
separately shown in figure 3.

Total Correct Answers

Level 1
Level 2

Figure 3
 45

As shown in Figure 3, despite their parallel structures and few vocabulary

differences, there are significant differences in the number of the correct answers.
For example, in the third question of the Part C, the students were seen to write ‘How
are you?’ which is included in Level 1 questions , however, they could not write
‘How are your children ?’ which is included in Level 2 questions. The total numbers
and the percentages of the correct answers in total Level 1 and Level 2 questions
were shown below in Table 4.

Table 4: Level I and Level II in all parts

Variables Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Level I 4419 73,6 73,6 73,6
Level II 1194 19,9 19,9 19,9
Total (300X20)6000 100,0 100,0 100,0

Whereas 73,6 % of the participants could answer the Level 1, composed of

familiar daily expressions, this figure decreases to 19,9 % in Level II questions,
composed of unfamiliar expressions. The results were also evaluated and illustrated
according to the levels of the knowledge.

4.1.1. THEORETICAL ACQUISITION

The theoretical English knowledge of the participants was measured by

theoretical questions including grammatical structures and rules. Part A of the
sample test, used as a questionnaire in this study, is composed of multiple choice
grammatical questions and measures the participants’ ability to identify English verb
tenses. While the participants were asked about tenses such as Simple Past, Past
Continuous, Simple Future, Present Perfect, and Simple Present are in Level I, they
were asked to recognize Past Perfect, Future Continuous, Present Continuous, Future
Perfect, and Past Perfect Continuous. The frequencies and the percentages of the
correct answers of Level I and Level II questions in Part A are shown below in Table
5.

Table 5: Level I and Level II in Part A

Variables Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Level I 1141 76 76 76
Level II 216 14,5 14,5 14,5
Total (300x5)1500 100,0 100,0 100,0
 46

As we understand from the table, we can see that there are significant
differences between Level I and Level II correct answers in Part A. Even though the
participants can distinguish Simple Present (question numbered 5) and even Present
Perfect (question numbered 4) (see Figure 4), they are not successful to identify
Present Continuous (question numbered 8) or Future Continuous (question numbered
7) as well as the formers.

In the following Figure 4, you can see the sharp decrease in Level II
questions. The differences are not associated with the difficulty level but with the
familiarity since Level I and Level II questions are characterized by how often they
are exposed rather than how difficult they are. In the first five questions (Level I), the
average correct answers are seen to be 220-250, whereas in the second five (Level
II), they range between 0 and 80.

PART A
250
200
150
Toplam
100
50
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Level 1 Level 2

PART A

Figure 4

In figure 5, total correct answers to Level I and Level II in Part A were

illustrated in a pie chart. However, the missing values were neglected. The chart
clearly illustrates the important level of reproduction and knowledge difference
between familiar and unfamiliar expressions or L2.
 47

Total Correct Answers in Part A

PART A Level 1
PART A Level 2

Figure 5

Consequently, the results from the questions of theoretical level of knowledge

reveal obvious differences in the participants’ acquisition of target language
grammar, at least for the tense acquisition in this current study. The results in this
part of the questionnaire were interpreted in figures and tables in order to be made
quantitative data. In this study, the underlying reasons of these significant differences
in grammar acquisition are claimed to be resulted from the language teaching
methodology (i.e., CLT) that is currently practised in schools by MEB. In CLT
practices, “Communicative intentions” replace grammatical forms, and
“communicative competence” is “the overriding objective” of instruction as
described in Hessische Kultusminister.42 Grammatical side of the language is
neglected and communication is dominantly suggested. The classroom materials or
textbooks make the language a complex puzzle and the students are confused.
Communication is ideally aimed, but the way to communication is characterized by
imitations and limited by the language exposed during an education semester. As far
as understood from the results in this study, the students could identify the
grammatical terms they had been frequently exposed but the ones they had relatively
less imitated or heard.

As a result, what is claimed in this study that foreign language learners should
not be limited to what they have been exposed. Moreover, in grammar teaching,
neglecting the L1 leads to a language made up of imitated expressions of an outside

42 Rahmenrichtlinien, Sekundarstufe I, Der Hessische Kultusminister, Neue Sprachen publ.,

November 1980, Wiesbaden, ref.: 50124, p. 23.
 48

world rather than another saying of communication as well as the native language
already owned. Noam Chomsky states that the principle of structure-dependency is
used in all languages and any human being who knows any language therefore
includes the principle of structure-dependency within their knowledge of language.43
Therefore, it is worth to consider L1 as a better alternative to be used in language
teaching in order to teach a foreign language grammar.

4.1.2. ANALYTICAL ACQUISITION

Analytical acquisition of a language can be measured by questions allowing

the students to break the material into pieces and identify the differences or recognize
the details in the target language. In this study, in order to measure the analytical
abilities of the participants, they were asked true/ false questions based on a given
single sentence. Furthermore, they were asked to answer multiple choice questions
requiring analytic ability in the target language. In this part, called Part B in the
questionnaire, total 10 questions were asked, five of which are in Level I and the
other five of which are in Level II. In both levels, the questions are analytical and
have nearly the same level of difficulty but differ in their familiarity, which is the
same case in Part A. The frequencies and the percentages of the correct answers of
Level I and Level II questions in Part B are shown below in Table 6.

Table 6: Level I and Level II in Part B

Variables Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Level I 931 62 62 62
Level II 427 28,4 28,4 28,4
Total (300x5)1500 100,0 100,0 100,0

Unlike in Part A, in Part B, there are no significant differences between the

figures. The figures are relatively nearer than those in Part A. In this Part, there are
fewer correct Level I answers than those of Part A. However, there are more correct
Level II answers than those of Part A ( 1141 Level I and 216 Level II in Part A
appear to be 931 Level I and 427 Level II in Part B ). The relative decrease in Level I
and increase in Level II can be linked to the frequency of visual exposure to the
structures and expressions. The decrease shows the lack of enough analytic
competence in identification of the details, whereas the increase reveals the fact that
analyzing can be relatively better achieved in text based or visual language. The

43 Noam Chomsky, Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures, Mass.: MIT
Press, Cambridge, 1988, p. 12.
 49

following chart (Fig. 6) clearly illustrates the proportion of the correct answers of
Level I to those of Level II in Part B.

Total Correct Answers in Part B

PART B Level 1
PART B Level 2

Figure 6

In Figure 6, the correct answers are illustrated for each question in Part B.
The eleventh and the twelfth questions are partly reading. The participants are
required to analyse and identify the details in a given sentence. Whether they are
Level I or Level II, the number of the correct answers is low, which reveals the fact
that reading activities performed in CLT classes are not productive enough to make
the students catch the meaning in details or the grammatical slenderness of the
structures. In CLT, reading activities are organized in order to get the general idea,
scan for specific information or expose the students as much vocabulary as possible.
In fact, the premier goal in reading activities of the CLT based textbooks is to
introduce the structure to be taught in a context before the class presentation. As a
result, rather than understanding whatever is read, CLT suggests understanding the
general idea of what is read.
 50

PART B
300
250
200
150 Toplam
100
50
0
11 12 13 14 17 18 15 16 19 20

Level 1 Level 2

PART B

Figure 7

The other questions are multiple choices and illustrate similar distribution of
the correct answers of afore mentioned Level I and Level II differences, except for
the question 16. The percentage of the correct answers in Part B is 62% for Level I,
28.5% for Level II, and 45% for average.

In this study, the overall low success level in this part may be related to the
lack of analytical approach of CLT. The difference in the figures of Level I and
Level II shows the importance of familiarity in the acquisition of any subject or
ability to reproduce the language in CLT.

4.1.3. SYNTHETIC ACQUISITION

Synthetic level of a language learner can be identified by how much this

learner can synthesize the acquired knowledge to reproduce a meaningful statement
in the target language. Communicative competence entails not only knowledge about
language but the ability to use language, appropriately, in real life situations.
Therefore, CLT comprises much more than the traditionally taught areas of grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation. In this context, following interconnected
characteristics of CLT provide students in a communicative class ultimately to use
the language productively and receptively in unrehearsed contexts outside the
 51

classroom. Classroom tasks must, therefore, equip students with the skills necessary
for communication in those contexts. In this study, however, the results revealed
contrary to what is expected from an average CLT learner. In order to measure the
synthesis level of the students, the participants were asked 25 questions in Part C, ten
of which are in Level I and the other fifteen of which are in Level II. In the first ten
questions of the latter part, there are some idiomatic expressions in order to
understand the language perception and creativity of the participants. The other five
of this part are, moreover, particularly situational questions, depending on a given
situation and allow the participants to think over giving the massage in the target
language and reproduce his/her own statement. The participants were expected to
write any meaningful sentence related to the given context rather than to write a
fixed answer.

Table 7: Level I and Level II in Part C

Variables Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Level I 2241 74,7 74,7 74,7
Level II A 547 21,9 22,0 22,0
Level II B 654 36,4 36,4 36,4
Total (300x10)3000 100,0 100,0 100,0

In the table above (see Table 7), the frequencies and the percentages of the
correct answers of Level I and Level II questions in Part C are shown. The table
shows that the students are almost three or four times as successful in Level I
questions as in Level II, which reveals that rather than the difficulty level of the
questions (whether they are of Part A, Part B or Part C), the identifying factor here is
the familiarity of the language they dealt with. In all three difficulty levels;
theoretical, analytical or synthetic, Level I questions, composed of familiar
expressions, have significantly higher rate of accuracy than Level II questions,
composed of unfamiliar expressions but the same level of difficulty. The percentage
of the correct answers in Level I of Part C is 74,7 %, whereas, in Level II-A, it is
21,9 % and 36,4 % in Level II-B.

The following chart (Fig. 8) clearly illustrates the proportion of the correct
answers of Level I to those of Level II-A/ Level II-B in Part C:
 52

Total Correct Answers in Part C

PART C Level 1
PART C Level 2

Figure 8

Note that while Level I is composed of ten questions, Level II is composed of

fifteen questions and of two parts Level II-A and Level II-B. Despite this fact, the
rate of Level I is still dominant over Level II. Since the reproduction ability of the
students is evaluated in this level of knowledge, the results are closely related to the
final target of the language teaching, that is, communication. Communication in
foreign language requires translation of the inner feelings and opinions to the native
speaker of the target language addressed. The study reveals that in all three parts of
this questionnaire, whatever the kind of and however difficult the question is, the
percentage and the frequencies of the correct answers in Level I and Level II are
almost in the same rates. Level I is about 70 %, while Level II is about 20 %. This
result arises a question about the method of teaching, by which those participating in
the study have been taught. CLT and its philosophy deductive learning is the one to
be responsible of this fact. Ömer Demircan underlines the possible harmful effects
and drawbacks of teaching administrated by using a deductive method like
communicative approach and suggests that deductive learning without performing
experiments, exercises, and observations turns into memorization rather than a
conscious learning. It will be inevitable for a student who constantly learns by a
deductive method to get accustomed to dependence to others and falling into an
intellectual inactivity.44

44 Ömer Demircan, Yabancı Dil Öğretim Yöntemleri, Ekin Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1990, p. 106.
 53

PART C
350
300
250
200
Toplam
150
100
50
0
A-1 A-A-2A-3A-4A-5A-6A-7A-8A-9A-1 A-A-2A-3A-4A-5A-6A-7A-8A-9B-1B-2B-3B-4B-5

Level 1 Level 2

PART C

Figure 9

In Figure 9, the correct answers are illustrated for each question in Part C.
Question Level II-A 8 and 10, having the lowest rate of correct answers, ask the
participants idioms to observe the students’ attitudes in alternative thinking and
creativity. The majority of the participants failed to replace the idiom even though
they were not expected to write the original matching. They either omitted the
questions or tried to translate them word by word. The reason is supposed to be
resulted from the participants’ hesitation to reproduce an expression not having been
heard or experienced before, and the underlying reason may be attributed to CLT,
which makes the target language mythicized and the creativity sin. In this context,
Honna points out that by virtue of this perfectionism, Japanese tend to hesitate to
interact with English speakers until, as they often are heard to say, they develop
complete proficiency in the language.45 This proves that the problem is not unique to
Turkey or to that limited study in particular.

4.2. THE PARTICIPANTS’ PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH

45 Nobuyuki Honna, “English as a language for international communicative: an Asian perspective”,

in Hu, Wenzhong (Ed.), Aspects of Intercultural Communication Proceedings of China 2nd
Conference on Intercultural Communication, op.cit., p. 576.
 54

The study also questioned the participants’ own comment on some specific
expressions. Their responses to those questions reflected their perception of foreign
language, particularly English. In Part C, the participants were asked to write the
English matching of ‘Ne var Ali?’ (Question 1 in Level II-A), which means ‘What’s
the matter (with you), Ali?’ in English. The majority of the responses given were
exactly word to word translation of ‘Ne’, and ‘var’, that is, ‘what’ and ‘there’,
resulting in ‘What’s there Ali?’ or ‘What is, Ali?’ . Another example is Question 7 of
the same part and level, asking the participants to write the English matching of
‘Sudan ucuz’, which means ‘very cheap’ in English. However, their superficial
matching in English is ‘water’ for ‘su’ and ‘cheap’ for ‘ucuz’ .The participants
considered the superficial matching rather than its meaning, resulting in ‘Cheaper
than water’ . Moreover, the following examples (see Table 8) are other interesting
findings in the study:

Tablo 8: Idiomatic findings in the study

Turkish English Superficial Output

Meaning Matchings
‘Sudan ucuz’ ‘very cheap’ ‘water’ for ‘su’ ‘Cheaper than water’
‘cheap’ for ‘ucuz’
‘Adam Akıllı’ ‘very well’ ‘Man’ for ‘adam’ ‘The man is clever’
‘Clever’ for ‘akıllı’
‘Geçmiş ‘I hope you will ‘Past’ for ‘geçmiş’ ‘It be past’ /
olsun’ recover soon’ ‘Ol’ for ‘be’ ‘Past be’

Furthermore, there was an interesting finding for asking the time. In Part C,
the Question 8 of Level II-A asks the students ‘Uçağınız saat kaçta?’, which means
‘What time is your flight?’ in English. However, since the students imitated,
repeated, heard and practised it as a whole sentence as ‘What time is it?’ deductively,
they automatically built the sentence as ‘What time is it your airplane?’.

These findings reveal the misconception of foreign language acquisition in

CLT classes. CLT allows the students not to use one’s own comment but that of an
ideal native speaker’s. Therefore, the ideal authentic material is presented as the
target behaviour of the learners. Students are discouraged when the ideal target is
presented authentically. Perfectionism is the main drawback of the deductive
communicative approach in language teaching for the learners who learn the target
language as a foreign language. The learners hesitate to use inexperienced or never
heard statements owing to CLT’s deductive nature. The target must be set
realistically and the student should be got to know that the target is communication,
in other words, understanding and being understood rather than the perfect accent,
 55

perfect pronunciation, or letter to letter understanding, even none of which we can

already achieve in our own mother language.

Consequently, according to the findings in this study, the ideal target

destination of CLT is far from the real practices in schools, at least in this setting of
the study. The results are sharply different from CLT based curriculum purposes.
What is suggested in this study is to use the L1 neglected by CLT in teaching L2
grammar and thus benefiting from those structures in common and to aim learners
communicate easily without expecting ideal native speaker’ pronunciation or
fluency. The final target must at most be as nearly possible well as L1, not the same
as or more than L1 or as well as the target language itself.
 56

CONCLUSION

Considering the research questions we aimed at the beginning of the study

upon which our study is based, we conclude that Communicative Language Teaching
is teaching of a language for communicative purposes. The techniques used for
language teaching, thus, are based on communicative and authentic means. The
target language, or L2, is regarded as the ideal and final purpose of the method,
which has been set as perfect as native language. It presents many advantages for
foreign learners to acquire L2 by using the language itself and being exposed to
authentic language as much as possible. This leads to more accurate pronunciation
and larger vocabulary memory for foreign language learners during its long teaching
period. It is one of the latest teaching methods, yet it is too ambitious and the
requirements for its success are too idealistic to reach. Much as CLT is still claimed
to be the best method of language teaching, our study reveals that it should not be
regarded as perfect and relied on alone in all aspects of language acquisition.

We also understand that in Turkish National Education, language teaching,

particularly English teaching at least for this study, is based upon CLT and this
approach determines the main outlines of English curriculum in national education
system. Even though there is a long period of time arranged for English teaching in
not only elementary school but also high school curricula, the students still have
difficulty to reproduce or understand the target language. There is an increased level
of hesitance and lack of confidence among Turkish learners, most of which result
from the desire for using the language as well as an ideal native speaker prototype.
Therefore, the purpose of language teaching and the final target of whether we want
students expressing themselves fluently in the target language regardless of focusing
on their accent must be described and reset. In the former colonized Eastern or
African countries, for instance, you can easily distinguish the second language
English speaker even though it is his/her formal second language having been taught
together with the native language since very early ages. On the other hand, in
Turkey, where English is only a foreign language taught in schools, the targets are
set in order to achieve a speaker reproducing the language without referring to
his/her native language both mentally and culturally. Nevertheless, although MEB
sets the national goals in its overall national education targets, it suggests CLT,
which aims to adapt the learner to the target culture for foreign language learning in
high schools. The universal purpose of learning a language is usually of
communicative concern rather than mass of rules, which is also claimed and
supported not only by CLT but also in this study as well, however, the problem, is
how to maintain this target or whether CLT is efficient enough to achieve this
purpose as was set at the beginning of the study. The culture of a society cannot be
 57

isolated from the language. Therefore, foreign language learning cannot go beyond
imitation or repetition without referring to L1. It is necessary for any language
teaching should be as real as the native language itself. Moreover, trying to create an
authentic atmosphere in order to achieve a communicative purpose according to CLT
is like touching the left ear with the right hand, since we already have an authentic
native language background and experience supported by the culture.

In this study, we tried to understand the effectiveness of CLT and whether it

was an appropriate and yielding method in language learning in High Schools,
particularly in Van Ataturk Anatolian High School. The data were obtained from a
sample test prepared to measure the qualifications of the participants in common and
creative situations in theoretical, analytical and synthetic levels. The statistical data,
calculated in frequencies and percentages were processed with the program MS
Office Excel 2003 and then the results were illustrated in tables, bars and pie charts
to make them interpreted better. The tables were prepared to show off the figures
such as the number, the frequencies, the rates or percentages of the correct answers
over the total participants’ number. In Table 1, a sample lesson plan which
demonstrates the common CLT application during an ordinary class. In Table 2, the
sample annual curriculum shows us how much the presentation of the language
topics depend on CLT principles. In Table 3, the results were listed question by
question in order to give the rate and frequencies of correct answers to common
everyday statements and creative language. The figures were meaningful as to how
many participants were successful in which question. Similarly, Table 3 was added
to show the number of the total correct answers in common and creative situations.
Table 4, on the other hand, involves the frequencies and percentages of the total
correct answers to common and creative situations. In Table 5, we demonstrated the
grammar level of the participants in common and creative structures. Likewise, Table
6 and Table 7 include the frequencies and percentages of the total correct answers to
similar situations, the former of which was drawn to measure the reading and
understanding skills of the participants, whereas the latter of which was illustrated as
to the speaking and practical skills. In addition, during the evaluation of the papers,
we encountered some common interesting mistakes such as the perception of the
idiomatic expressions. These expressions were intentionally asked to understand
whether the participants would behave naturally or automatically when encountering
such expressions. They were expected to answer those questions in a meaningful
approach rather than to translate the words one to one into the target language.
However, the results were vice versa, that is to say, they were either left blank or
answered as word to word translation. These results were demonstrated in Table 8.

The figures, on the other hand, illustrate those frequencies, rates, figures,
numbers, and percentages shown in the tables to make them visual data so that we
can easily see the differences between the variables. In Figure 1, total correct
answers to common and creative situations in theoretical, analytical, and synthetic
 58

levels were illustrated comparatively in a bar chart, which demonstrates significant

differences for each question, making us easily see the students' level of language
acquisition. Similarly, in Figure 2, the results were divided into the parts and levels
and the correct answers for each group were then counted and illustrated as a piece in
a pie chart, followed by Figure 3 displaying the total correct answers to common and
creative situations in a pie chart without referring to their individual parts in order to
illustrate the resulting sharp difference clearly. Figure 4, Figure 7 and Figure9,
however, demonstrate the correct answers to common and creative situations
successively in theoretical, analytical, and synthetic levels in a bar chart, whereas
Figure 5, Figure 6 and Figure 8 summarizing the correct answers to the afore
mentioned common and creative situations in individual parts illustrate the results in
a pie chart as total correct answers, which makes the resulting data interpreted from a
different perspective. Finally, the illustrations of the raw data obtained from the
questionnaire in different tables and charts resulted in successful interpretations on
the figures.

In all the three levels of situations, the results proved that majority of the
participants could deal with everyday statements, but failed in unfamiliar expressions
which they had never tried before. In the theoretical level, the participants were
found to be much better at imitative of structural statements than the creative ones
(e.g.14.6 % / 76 %) although the questions had the same kind of grammar structures
but required memorized or creative thinking ability. The second part was consisted of
analytical questions targeting reading and understanding skills of the participants.
The results were still parallel to those obtained in the first part standing for the
grammar proficiency. The participants were much more successful in the common
used daily tasks than the reproductive ones, as were they in the former part (e.g.
28.4% / 62%). These results were not different from those obtained in the third part,
prepared to measure the practical speaking skills of the students. The results were
74,7 % in favor of common situations, whereas they were 21,9 % and 36,4 % in
creative structure-free situations. In brief, the study revealed that the participants
were more successful in a text based language involving what is heard and what is
practiced through the learning process than a creative one that can be extemporized,
which was the reciprocal of what is aimed in MEB's special purposes of language
teaching. Seeing the results and considering the Anatolian status (e.g. foreign
language-weighted teaching) of the participants, we put the blame on the current
teaching methodology CLT as the principal substructure of English teaching
approach in MEB for making the students learn English as a set of structural patterns
rather than a living concept.

The results obtained from all those figures and the tables proved our
suggestions about CLT applications when we started the study. The participants were
dominantly successful in everyday and common language which they experienced or
were exposed in the text books or recordings during their lessons, whereas they were
 59

equally unsuccessful in creative, unfamiliar or structure-free contexts. Therefore,

from the data interpreted in this study, we understand that CLT can not meet the
expectations set by MEB and the language practitioners. A useful and productive
language acquisition did not appear at the end of the study. The participants were
only successful in those commonly used daily expressions. When they were required
to reproduce the language, they mostly failed. Based on the results obtained, the
problems are thought to result from the gaps in CLT, which is the main purpose of
the study. The language perception in Turkish Education System appears to be an
imitative and repetitive process, by which learners can only communicate as much as
they memorized or were exposed to.

Among the results were the lack of first language in teaching L2 grammar,
deductive method of presentation discouraging creativity and trying to make learners
communicate as well as an ideal native speaker as the most prominent characteristics
of CLT, resulting in the high rate insufficiency illustrated by the figures in the
charts. The common controversy lies in the communicative emphasis of CLT. In
order to set a communication as well as a native speaker, CLT exaggerates and
mythicizes the target language is so much that learning barriers such as hesitation
and lack of confidence can be observed easily not only among the learners but
among the teachers as well. CLT applications imitate the target language and neglect
the first language, which is also described as E-Language model and almost
completely denied to be an important factor in language acquisition by Chomsky. 46
Here appears L1 as another factor to be considered in language teaching. Since all
languages have common features, the influence of L1 and culture exists as a matter
of fact and must be taken into consideration in the teaching and learning of a foreign
language. The role of learners’ native language and culture can not be ignored in the
intercultural communication, while in the communicative approach the learner’s own
language and culture is something to be avoided or even abandoned in the acquisition
of the foreign or second language. All languages have common structures and these
structures make the learners understand the nature of a language if a new language is
presented in terms of these common structures. Any human being who knows any
language, therefore, includes the principle of structure-dependency within their
knowledge of language. Therefore, in language teaching, using L1 is of a premier
importance since it provides a ready database for the second language.

The above mentioned critics or practices of CLT show off too idealistic
picture to be achieved and demand a serious amount of time, patience and effort
since it tries to imitate the natural first language acquisition whose participants are
those not having any other job apart from learning language and not caring any
concept of time rather than the foreign language acquisition reality whose
participants, on the contrary, are those having many other jobs apart from learning

46 Vivian Cook & Mark Newson, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, op.cit., p. 125.
 60

language and caring time more than anything else. In this respect, a typical L2
learner is exposed to the target language from four to six hours a week during the
school term. This cannot begin to approximate the amount of exposure experienced,
all his waking hours, by a child learning his first language. 47 An L2 learner is
typically a part-time learner, but a child (as an L1 learner) has much more time to
learn the language, so it is difficult to evaluate how much time a first language
learner actually does spend in learning a language. As a result, the process of L2
acquisition is altogether different from L1 and trying to teach L2 like L1 as in CLT
results in failure and inefficiency in EFL and ESL practices. Children acquire
functions in a different order when they learn English as L2 and as L1. However,
CLT regards L2 learners as children learning L1. This method of teaching aims to
make the learners of foreign language acquire it unconsciously and use the language
as a reflexive action like his / her mother tongue. This is of course a good target but a
hard one considering the time and cost to be spent. In our fast changing technology
age, where economy and time is exchanged with money, this method makes the ELT
institutions and publications happy unlike the students. What we try to restore in this
study is the fact that communicative language teaching models the first language
acquisition, but rejects it in the process of learning L2.

According to the opinions and discussions above, we can say that CLT as a
language teaching method, particularly as an English teaching method for this study,
is too idealistic to be practiced in Turkish Education System due to the overall targets
expected from the language teaching and the linguistic or cultural characteristics of
the native language. Based on the findings from this research, it is also argued that
many teachers' and educators’ insistence on CLT are often not supported by the
learners’ output. This should not lead to a complete distrust of this approach, but
rather to more efforts on drawing its guidelines. MEB should question CLT about
whether it is the best suited foreign language method for Turkish learners. The
authorities must first determine the priorities about the description of a normal L2
speaker. Is it a person who can effortlessly pass for a native speaker in all
circumstances, a person who can just about order a coffee in a restaurant, a person
who can translate Shakespeare or a person who can interpret the small print in a
contract?48 Then they should arrange the targets and the teaching methods
accordingly. In order to achieve these educational purposes, a whole framework of
language teaching which incorporates different approaches and methods appropriate
to the national necessities is one of our suggestions, by making use of their
advantages and avoiding the disadvantages. In fact, the sole communicative approach
to language learning should be questioned and a new fundamental model with
authentic syllabuses, materials and teaching aids must be suggested to be established
for Turkish learners.

47 Elizabeth Ingram, “Psychology and Language Learning”, in Allen, J.B. and S.P.Corder (ed.) The
Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics, Vol.2, Oxford University Press, London, 1975, p. 286.
48 Vivian Cook & Mark Newson, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, op.cit., p. 125.
 61

Furthermore, during the study, we recognized that besides the experimental

group set in this study, there might have been a control group that could have been
taught English by using the first language in presenting grammar or producing
structures. Moreover, the following questions may contribute to further studies in the
field. These are:

1) How often the first language is used in English classes? This question may
enlighten the researchers in terms of the role of the first language in better
presentation of the target language in class implementations.

2) What are the differences and similarities between Turkish, which is the
first language for the great majority or at least the second language in some regions
in Turkey, and English, which is the target language in our study? This question may
provide researchers and educators of English in Turkey with how useful it will be to
use Turkish in teaching English.

Any study on either of these topics will be a good complementary of this

study and contribute to restoring more productive language teaching system
belonging to Turkish National Education.
 62

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 65

İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETİM YÖNTEMİ OLARAK İLETİŞİMCİ YAKLAŞIM:

VAN ATATÜRK ANADOLU LİSESİ ÖRNEĞİ

İletişimci dil öğretimi, yabancı dil öğretiminde en etkili yöntemlerin başında

gelmektedir. Yabancı dil öğreniminin önemi ve Türkiye’de verimli dil öğretimi
konusundaki tartışmalar dikkate alındığında, bu çalışmanın alana önemli bir katkı
sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir. Bu araştırma, Orta Öğretim Kurumları Genel Liseler
İngilizce Öğretim Programında İngilizce öğretim yöntemi olarak kullanılan İletişimci
Yaklaşımı genel hatlarıyla tanıtarak işlevselliğini değerlendirmektedir.

Çalışma, Van ili Atatürk Anadolu Lisesi 10, 11 ve 12. sınıf öğrencilerini
kapsamaktadır. Araştırmanın başında, nicel araştırma yöntemine dayalı örnek bir
seviye ölçme sınavı yapıldı. Elde edilen sonuçların İletişimci Dil Öğretimine dayalı
Orta Öğretim Kurumları Genel Liseler İngilizce Öğretim Programında hedeflenen
kazanımlarla örtüşmediği saptandı. Dil eğitimi alan kişilerin çoğunlukla daha önce
çalışılan ve sıkça kullanılan gündelik kalıplaşmış ifadeleri söyleyebildikleri; oysa
üretkenliğe dayalı, daha önce denemedikleri yapıları ve değim özelliği taşıyan
ifadeleri söyleyemedikleri veya söylemekten çekindikleri sonucuna varıldı. Yabancı
dil öğretim yöntemi olarak kullanılan İletişimci Yaklaşımda özellikle ana dilin hiç
kullanılmadığı, hedef dille bir bağıntısı yokmuş gibi anlatıldığı ve hedef dilin son
derece yapay bir şekilde sunulduğu görüldü. Ayrıca, literatürdeki diğer çalışmalarla,
konu hakkındaki farklı görüşlere de yer verilerek çalışmanın sonunda, iletişimci
yaklaşım açısından elde edilen olumsuz sonuçların olası nedenleri üzerinde duruldu
ve birtakım önerilerde bulunuldu.

Bu araştırma, Türkiye'de daha etkin bir dil öğretiminin gerçekleşmesi için

iletişimci dil öğretim modelinin ancak sınırlı bir şekilde, belli başlı konularda
kullanılması gerektiğini ve yabancı dil öğretiminde ana dilin de bir öğretim aracı
olarak kullanılmasının ikinci dil edinimini oldukça kolaylaştıracağını
vurgulamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: İletişimci Dil Öğretimi, İletişim Yetkinliği, İletişimci

yaklaşım, İngilizcenin İkinci Dil Olarak Öğretimi, İngilizcenin Yabancı Dil Olarak
Öğretimi, İkinci Dil Öğretimi, Yabancı Dil öğretimi.
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ABSTRACT

The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been one of the most
dominant methods in EFL communities. Considering the importance of foreign
language teaching and the discussions about the productive language teaching in
Turkey, this study is thought to provide significant contributions to the field. This
study is to introduce the Communicative Approach which is used as a principle
English teaching method in Secondary Schools English Teaching Program for High
Schools with its mainlines and evaluate its usefulness.

The study covers the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students of Van Ataturk
Anatolian High School. In the initial stage of this study, a sample level test based on
quantitative data collection was given. However, at the end of the study, it was found
out that there was a discrepancy between the principal target benefits of Secondary
Schools English Teaching Program for High Schools which is principally based on
CLT and the results obtained. It was found out that majority of the language learners
could only utter daily or structural expressions mostly studied beforehand or often
practised but could not or regret to reproduce those never experienced or those
depending on creativity. It was also revealed that particularly the first language was
rarely used, the target language was presented quite artificially and instructed as if it
did not have any common features with the first language in Communicative
Approach used as a second language teaching method. Furthermore, at the end of the
study, the possible reasons for these negative results obtained in terms CLT were
evaluated and some suggestions were put forth, by citing other studies and opinions
on this field.

This study suggests that communicative language teaching should only be

used on limited certain subjects in order to achieve a more efficient language
teaching system in Turkey and it will make foreign language acquisition quite easy to
use first language as a means of teaching material.

Key Words: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), Communicative,

Competence (CC), L2 Teaching, Second Language Teaching, Second Language
Acquisition, English as a Second Language (ESL), English as a Foreign Language
(EFL).
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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Level I and Level II in Part A, Part B, and Part C .................................. 44

Figure 2: Total variables ........................................................................................ 45
Figure 3: Total Correct Answers ............................................................................ 45
Figure 4: Level I and Level II in Part A ................................................................ 47
Figure 5: Total Correct Answers in Part A ............................................................ 48
Figure 6: Level I and Level II in Part B ............................................................... 50
Figure 7: Total Correct Answers in Part B ............................................................ 51
Figure 8: Total Correct Answers in Part C ............................................................ 53
Figure 9: Level I and Level II in Part C ............................................................... 54

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: A sample lesson plan................................................................................ 29

Table 2: A sample annual curriculum .................................................................... 34
Table 3: The rate and frequencies of correct answers to Level I and Level II ....... 42
Table 4: Level I and Level II in all parts ................................................................ 46
Table 5: Level I and Level II in Part A .................................................................. 46
Table 6: Level I and Level II in Part B .................................................................. 49
Table 7: Level I and Level II in Part C .................................................................. 52
Table 8: Idiomatic findings in the study ................................................................ 55

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix A: Questionnaire..................................................................................... 71
Appendix B: Evaluation Checklist .......................................................................... 73
 68

APPENDIX A

The Sample Test

A SAMPLE TEST FOR ELEMENTARY/PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS
IN ATATURK ANATOLIAN HIGH SCHOOL
Name:
Class:
PART I

I ) Aşağıdaki kavramları ve fiil çekimlerini eşleştiriniz:

1-Simple Past ….. a) was playing

2-Past Continuous ….. b) plays
3-Simple Future ….. c) has played
4-Present Perfect .…. d) played
5-Simple Present ….. e) will play

II ) Aşağıda parantez içinde verilen fiilleri karşılarında İngilizce isimleri

verilen zaman kiplerinde çekimleyiniz:

6-Past Perfect ………………… (go)

7-Future Continuous ………………… (sleep)
8-Present Continuous ………………… (speak)
9-Future Perfect .……………….. (finish)
10-Past perfect Continuous ………………… (work)

PART II

A ) Verilen cümleye göre yapılan yargıların doğru olup olmadığını belirtiniz:

One of the latest technologic developments is cameras,

which have been used for many years especially to fight
against crime.
( T: True, F: False )
11- T / F Cameras have just been started to be used against crime.
12- T / F Cameras are not the only technological developments to fight against crime.

B ) Aşağıda verilen cümlelerde uygun olan çekimi işaretleyiniz:

13- John come / is come / comes here everyday.

14- Where does she live / lives / is live?
15- What time is / are / do the matches start?
16- There is / are / were many books here yesterday.

C ) Aşağıda verilen durumlara uygun düşen cümleler kurunuz:

 69

17- You want to ask my name: ………………………

18- …………………………..? -I’m from Van.
19- …………………………..? -Because it was very cheap.
20- Your friend has got a headache. You suggest him: ………………………………

PART III

A ) Aşağıdaki Türkçe ifadelerin İngilizce karşılıklarını yazınız:

I II
Nasılsın? ………………………… Ne var Ali? ………………………………….
Adınız ne? ………………………... Çocuklarınız Nasıl?...................................
Ne iş yapıyorsunuz? ……………………. Onların mesleği ne?...................................
Fransızca biliyorum. ……………………. Sizi izliyorum………………………………..
Futbol oynamayı severim. ……………… Konuşmayı sevmem………………………..
Bilmiyorum. ……………………………… Aslan ormanda yaşar………………………..
Otur! ……………………………. Sudan ucuz!................................................
Saat kaç? …………………………… Uçağınız saat kaçta?..................................
Ya siz? ……………………………. Adam akıllı …………………………………..
Memnun oldum. ……………………….. Geçmiş olsun…………………………………

B ) Aşağıda Türkçe olarak verilen durumlarda İngilizce olarak

söylenebilecek bir ifade yazınız:

1- Bir lokantadasınız ve çorba içmek istediğinizi söyleyiniz:…………………………

2- Bana arkadaşınızın adresini sorunuz:………………………………………………

3- Dışarıdasınız ve hava çok soğuk. Ne dersiniz?...................................................

4- Yerde bir kalem buldunuz ve kimin olduğunu

bilmiyorsunuz. Sahibini sormak için:………………………………………………..

5- Arkadaşınızın hangi renkleri sevdiğini sormak için:………………………………..

 70

APPENDIX B

LEVEL I LEVEL II
(DAILY STRUCTURAL PATTERNS) (BEYOND DAILY PATTERNS)

PART A A ) Aşağıdaki kavramları ve fiil çekimlerini B ) Aşağıda parantez içinde verilen fiilleri
(THEORETI eşleştiriniz: karşılarında İngilizce isimleri verilen
CAL LEVEL) zaman kiplerinde çekimleyiniz:
1-Simple Past 229/ 300 6-Past Perfect 67 /300

2-Past Continuous 235/300 7-Future Continuous 22 /300

3-Simple Future 230/300 8-Present Continuous 79/300

4-Present Perfect 223/300 9-Future Perfect 27 /300

5-Simple Present 224/300 10-Past perfect Continuous 21/300

PART B A ) Verilen cümleye göre yapılan yargıların

(ANALYSIS doğru olup olmadığını belirtiniz:
LEVEL) One of the latest technologic developments is
cameras, which have been used for many years
especially to fight against crime.
11 T / F Cameras have just been 73/300
started
12 T / F Cameras are not the only 80/300
B ) Aşağıda verilen cümlelerde uygun olan çekimi B ) Aşağıda verilen cümlelerde uygun
işaretleyiniz: olan çekimi işaretleyiniz:
13 246/300 15
John come / is come / comes is / are / does the matches start 49/300
14 192/300 16
does she live / lives / is live is / are / were many books here
yesterday.179/300
C ) Aşağıda verilen durumlara uygun düşen C ) Aşağıda verilen durumlara uygun
cümleler kurunuz: düşen cümleler kurunuz:

17 143/300 19
You want to ask my name: …………..?
-Because it was very cheap. 50/300
18 ………..? 277/300 20
-I’m from Van. Your friend has got a headache. You
suggest him 69/300.
PART C I II
(SYNTHESIS A ) Aşağıdaki Türkçe ifadelerin İngilizce A ) Aşağıdaki Türkçe ifadelerin İngilizce
LEVEL) karşılıklarını yazınız: karşılıklarını yazınız:
Nasılsın? 234/300 Ne var Ali? 45/300
Adınız ne? 290/300 Çocuklarınız Nasıl? 179/300

Ne iş yapıyorsunuz? 227/300 Onların mesleği ne 112/300

Fransızca biliyorum 206/300 Sizi izliyorum 82/300
Futbol oynamayı severim 79/300 Konuşmayı sevmem 45/300
Bilmiyorum 245/300 Aslan ormanda yaşar 76/300
Otur! 279/300 Sudan ucuz 14 /300
Saat kaç? 271/300 Uçağınız saat kaçta? 72/300
Ya siz? 202/300 Adam akıllı 14/300
Memnun oldum. 208/300 Geçmiş olsun 18/300
B
Aşağıda Türkçe olarak verilen
durumlarda İngilizce söylenebilecek bir
 71

ifade yazınız:

Bir lokantadasınız ve çorba içmek

istediğinizi söyleyiniz

134/300
Bana arkadaşınızın adresini sorunuz

88/300
Dışarıdasınız ve hava çok soğuk. Ne
dersiniz?

173/300
Yerde bir kalem buldunuz ve kimin
olduğunu bilmiyorsunuz. Sahibini sormak
için: 74/300
Arkadaşınızın hangi renkleri sevdiğini
sormak için:

78/300

THE SAMPLE TEST EVALUATION SCALE

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