Lahore Leads University

Department of M.Phil. Linguistics

Name Basheer Ahmad
Roll Number: F21-3042
Semester: Fall 2021
Semester Number: 1st
Subject: Applied Linguistics
Course Code: ELING719
Date of Examination: Mid
Communicative Language Teaching
The “communicative approach to the teaching of foreign languages” — also known as
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) or the “communicative approach” — emphasizes
learning a language through genuine communication.
Learning a new language is simpler and more enjoyable when it's far definitely significant.
Communicative language coaching (CLT) is a method to the teaching of second and foreign
languages that emphasizes interaction as both the way and the aim of mastering a language. It’s
also called “communicative technique to the teaching of foreign languages” or simply the
“communicative approach”. The CLT approach has brought about predominant adjustments in
such methods, wherein language is taught and learnt. CLT pursuits to make "communicative
competence" the goal of language teaching and to expand techniques for teaching the four
language skills, inclusive of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It’s well known that CLT
technique lets in language newcomers to express themselves and their perspectives through
collaborative sports, undertaken all through instructions.
Galloway says that the communicative method might be said to be the made of educators and
linguists who had grown disappointed with the Audio-lingual and Grammar Translation methods
of foreign language preparation. Richards and Rodgers (1986), however, declare that the origins
of communicative language teaching are to be located in the adjustments of situational language
teaching techniques, which inspired the British language teaching tradition until the late 1960s.
different authors inside the discipline have described and characterized CLT in various methods
(Howatt, 1984; Littlewood, 1981; Savignon, 1991; Scarcella and Oxford, 1992). Littlewood
explains that “one of the most characteristic functions of communicative language coaching is
that it will pay systematic attention to functional as well as structural elements of language,
combining those into a greater fully communicative view” (1981:1).
The term "Communicative Language coaching" (CLT) means various things to different
instructors. To a few teachers, it simply method a more emphasis on the usage of the target
language within the classroom, and specifically, a greater emphasis on orality. To different
instructors, conversation includes the exchange of unknown facts among interlocutors. And
finally, some instructors understand communication in the maximum global, anthropological
phrases, this is, as a cultural-bond machine for making that means. no matter their numerous
definitions of CLT, all the module instructors appear to endorse for a communicative approach.
An effective knowledge of a language is more than merely knowing vocabulary and rules of
grammar and pronunciation. learners want that allows you to use the language appropriately in
any social context. Theorists agree that meaningful communication supports language learning
and that classroom activities should recognition on the learner’s genuine needs to talk
information and ideas.
Using the Method
The most common educational model applied in the context of the Communicative Method is
the Functional-Notional approach, which emphasizes the organization of the syllabus.
This breaks down the use of language into 5 functional categories that can be more easily
analyzed: personal (feelings, etc.), interpersonal (social and working relationships), directive
(influencing others), referential (reporting about things, events, people or language itself), and
imaginative (creativity and artistic expression).
These 5 broad functions are then delivered by the teacher in the classroom using the ‘3 Ps’
teaching model, which stand for Presentation, Practice and Production.
The role of the teacher
The role of the teacher is to be facilitator of his students‟ learning. The language teachers need to
assist learners by providing them with frameworks, patterns and rules to develop their
communicative language skills. Unlike the traditional teacher-centered methodology where
learning is under the control of the teacher, CLT advocates that students can learn the target
language from different sources rather than just teacher’s direct instructions. Among these
sources, Richards (2006) mentioned: (1) interaction between learners and users of the target
language, (2) creating meaningful and purposeful interaction between students in the target
language, (3) paying attention to the language one hears and trying to reproduce it in different
ways and (4) attending to the feedback learners get from their interlocutors.
It is clear that, with such principles, CLT methodology has marked a paradigm shift in the roles
of both the learner and the teacher alike. Learners now have to work cooperatively and learn
from their peers instead of individual learning from the teacher as highlighted in traditional
approaches. They are now engaged in designing classroom activities and encouraged to develop
a sense of “autonomous and life-long learning” (Richards, 2006, P. 5).
Some Disadvantages/ Limitations
1. The CLT approach focuses on fluency but not on accuracy. The weaker learners who
struggle and cannot use the target language continue to make mistakes and eventually
give up.
2. In this approach method, it is hard to say that it is very applicable in crowded class. This
method increases the workload on the teacher.
3. During pair and group work activities teacher focus on accuracy through error correction
because learners need to understand their mistakes. The CLT approach is great for
Intermediate and Advanced learners, but for Beginners some controlled practice is
needed.
4. The adoption of a communicative approach raises important issues for; Teacher training,
 Materials development, Testing. Evaluation. So, it is not suitable for every teacher and
every class
Classroom activities
1-Role-play
Role-play is an oral activity usually done in pairs, whose main goal is to develop students'
communicative abilities in a certain setting.
Example:
1. The instructor sets the scene: where is the conversation taking place? (E.g., in a café, in a
park, etc.)
2-Interviews
An interview is an oral activity done in pairs, whose main goal is to develop students'
interpersonal skills in the TL.
Example:
1. The instructor gives each student the same set of questions to ask a partner.
2. Students take turns asking and answering the questions in pairs
3-Group work
Group work is a collaborative activity whose purpose is to foster communication in the TL, in a
larger group setting.
Example:
1. Students are assigned a group of no more than six people.
2. Students are assigned a specific role within the group. (E.g., member A, member B, etc.)
3. The instructor gives each group the same task to complete.
4. Each member of the group takes a designated amount of time to work on the part of the
task to which they are assigned.
5. The members of the group discuss the information they have found, with each other and
put it all together to complete the task.
5-Opinion sharing
Opinion sharing is a content-based activity, whose purpose is to engage
students' conversational skills, while talking about something they care about.
Example:
1. The instructor introduces a topic and asks students to contemplate their
opinions about it.
E.g., dating, school dress codes, global warming.

Natural Approach
In 1977, Tracy Terrell, a Spanish language teacher in California, proposed "a 'new' philosophy of
language teaching that [he] called a natural approach" (Terrell 1977; 1982: 121). It was an
attempt to develop a language learning approach that incorporated the "natural" principles that
researchers found in second language learning studies. At the same time, he collaborated with
Stephen Krashen, an applied linguist at the University of Southern California, to develop a
theoretical basis for a natural approach based on Krashen's influential theory of second language
acquisition.
Krashen and Terrell have identified a natural approach with what they call a "traditional"
approach to language learning. The traditional approach is defined as "based on the use of
language in communicative situations without the use of the mother tongue". Krashen and
Terrell note that "approaches are characterized as natural, psychological, phonetic, new,
reformist, direct, analytical, imitative, etc." (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 9).
The aim of the natural approach is to broaden communicative skills, and it's far mainly meant for
use with beginning learners. it's far presented as a set of ideas that can apply to a huge variety of
learners and teaching conditions, and concrete targets rely upon the particular context wherein it
is used. lessons inside the natural method focus on knowledge messages within the foreign
language, and place little or no importance on error correction, drilling or on aware learning of
grammar rules. they also emphasize mastering of a extensive vocabulary base over learning new
grammatical structures. in addition, teachers using the natural approach aim to create situations
in the classroom that are intrinsically motivating for students.
Terrell sees that students go through three stages of mastering their speech: comprehension, early
speech, and word formation. In the comprehension phase, Terrell focuses on students' knowledge
of vocabulary. His goal is to preserve the vocabulary in students' long-term memory, a process
he calls binding. Terrell finds some techniques more restrictive than others. For example, the use
of gestures or actions, such as the general physical response, is considered more restrictive than
the use of translation.
According to Terrell, students' speech will only emerge after enough language has been bound
via communicative input. Whilst this takes place, the learners enter the early speech stage. on
this level, students answer simple questions, use single phrases and set phrases, and fill in simple
charts inside the foreign language. In the speech emergence level, college students take part in
sports requiring more advanced language, such as role-plays and problem-solving activities
Although Terrell originally created the natural approach without relying on a particular
theoretical model, his subsequent collaboration with Krashen has meant that the method is often
seen as an application to language teaching of Krashen's monitor model. Krashen outlined five
hypotheses in his model:

1. The acquisition-learning hypothesis. This states that there is a strict separation between
conscious learning of language and subconscious acquisition of language, and that only
acquisition can lead to fluent language use.
2. The monitor hypothesis. This states that language knowledge that is consciously learned
can only be used to monitor output, not to generate new language. Monitoring output
requires learners to be focused on the rule and to have time to apply it.
3. The input hypothesis. This states that language is acquired by exposure to
comprehensible input at a level a little higher than that the learner can already
understand. Krashen names this kind of input.
4. The natural order hypothesis. This states that learners acquire the grammatical features of
a language in a fixed order, and that this is not affected by instruction.
5. The affective filter hypothesis. This states that learners must be relaxed and open to
learning in order for language to be acquired. Learners who are nervous or distressed may
not learn features in the input that more relaxed learners would pick up with little effort.

Teacher roles

The Natural Approach teacher has three central roles. First, the teacher is the primary source of
comprehensible input in the target language. "Class time is devoted primarily to providing input
for acquisition," arid the teacher is the primary generator of that input. In this role the teacher is
required to generate a constant flow of language input while providing a multiplicity of
nonlinguistic clues to assist students in interpreting the input. The Natural Approach demands a
much more center-stage role for the teacher than do many contemporary communicative
methods.

Second, the Natural Approach teacher creates a classroom atmosphere that is interesting,
friendly, and in which there is a low affective filter for learning. This is achieved in part through
such Natural Approach techniques as not demanding speech from the students before they are
ready for it, not correcting student errors, and providing subject matter of high interest to
students.

Finally, the teacher must choose a rich mix of classroom activities, involving a variety of group
sizes, content, and contexts. The teacher is seen as responsible for collecting materials and
designing their use. These materials, according to Krashen and Terrell, are based not just on
teacher perceptions but on elicited student needs and interests.

Comparison
There are disadvantages to the Natural Approach. The authors of the Natural Approach, Terrell
and Krashen (1983) leave ambiguous the term “unconscious learning.” According to
McLaughlin (1987), Krashen incompletely defines “acquisition”, “learning”, “conscious” and
“subconscious”, making it difficult to determine whether subjects are “learning” or “acquiring”
language (McLaughlin, 1987). The Natural Approach may be too slow of a process for language
learners who are already experts in grammar and lexical semantics. For these people it may be
much faster to learn the target language by studying dictionaries and grammar books prior to
immersion. The Natural Approach also ignores many factors essential in second language course
design. It simply borrows techniques from other methods. There are still many problems in the
research method. Krashen in his early work appeared not just to ignore but to view as irrelevant
many factors that had previously been considered essential in second language course design.
The techniques recommended by krashen and Terrell are often borrowed from other methods and
adapted to meet the requirements of the Natural Approach theory. There is nothing novel about
the procedures and techniques within framework of a method.
Teaching English as Second Language (ESL) or English as Foreign Language (EFL) is quite
different with teaching first language (L1). There are many elements that should be virtually
known by the teacher to make teaching learning process an effective and efficient activity. One
of the elements is Method. Anthony (1963) has given the definition of method for our purpose. A
method to Language Teaching is a set of procedures or overall plan for systemic presentation to
teach second or foreign language (Celce-Murcia, 2001:5;Brown, 2007:14). Through an
appropriate method, a teacher will make the students feel comfortable, pleased, and not bored. In
so doing, the lesson’s goals can be reached perfectly.
To realize that objective there are many methods that have appeared in field of teaching ESL and
EFL. There are nine approaches that are integrated into many methods (Celce-Murcia, 2001:5)
and interestingly, two of methods are The Natural Approach and Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT). Both of them are very interesting methods and share some same similarities
despite their differences. The Natural Approach is designed to develop communication skills
while Richards (2006) stated that Communicative Language Teaching Approach aims at
teaching communicative competence.
NA and CLT focus on one similar classroom activity known as “Communicative Practice”.
Richards (2006) explained that communicative practice refers to activities where practice in
using language within a real communicative context is the focus, where real information is
exchanged, and where the language used is not totally predictable. For example, students might
have to draw a map of their neighbourhood and answer questions about the location of different
places, such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest café, etc. To simply put, we can assume that
students are given autonomy over their conversation through which they ask and answer
questions. Grammar is not a concern in this practice and any other speaking mistakes such as
pronunciation, intonation, and speed are not monitored by the classroom teacher.

There is also a major difference between the two approaches -- NA and CLT. NA has never
claimed to have any theory used to learn the target language besides the natural ways by which
grammar rules and other regulations are not focused. It is absolutely the way a child learns his
mother tongue. However, CLT has developed process-based CLT approaches in language
acquisition. Furthermore, CLT has a classroom activity which defies the NA theory. Mechanical
practice, according to Richards (2006), refers to a controlled practice activity which students can
successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using. Examples
of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and substitution drills designed to practice the
use of particular grammatical or other items. This activity opposes NA which supports the ideas
that second language learners should learn the target language in the very same way as a child
does, and by which grammar should not be mentioned, and drills and practices are discouraged.
The techniques used in NA-driven classes have been adopted from other approaches and
methods such as the CTL Approach. NA promotes the use of role-plays,
dialogues/conversations, reading and comprehension activities, games, oral presentations, and
group and pair work and in CLT-driven classes, books, audio resources, visuals, audio-visuals,
and authentic materials are used. NA also promots the use of books as they provide reading
sources. Terrel & Krashen (1995) mention that reading is an important academic skill.
Within the CLT Approach, the teacher leaves the role of authority to guide students to a
more independent role and on the other hand the NA directs the role of the teacher as the
provider of an environment where learners would have opportunities to experience the language
through comprehensible input.

References
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Foch, M. C. (2017). The Role of both teachers and students within A Communicative Language
Approach: A particular case in Polish primary school. Faculty of Education, Translation and
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