Bringing the Communicative Approach

to a Predominantly Grammar
Translation System
by Jessica Cinco

For years, the majority of Chinese schools have taught English using a combination of the
Grammar Translation Approach and the Reading Approach. English courses are teacher- and
textbook-centered, focusing primarily on learning specific grammar, reading and writing. Lessons
are geared towards passing government-created standardized English tests. Classes often have
well over 50 students, who may never even visit any English speaking country (Anderson, 1993).
This reminds me of the painful stories my parents told me of their childhood Latin classes in the
1950’s, made up of strict teachers, boring material and copious amounts of memorization to pass
standardized tests. As both a language teacher AND student myself, I cringe to think about either
teaching in this manner or having to sit in class and endure this means of instruction. It just isn’t
practical….or fun. I’ve seen the effects of this style of education, when students who’ve been
taught English in this manner, whether from China or other countries, are placed in my English
classes at ASU. They are withdrawn and often resent being in class. My goal is, and always will
be, to bring life back into these burned-out language learners.

This past summer, I participated in the Jiangsu Teacher Training Program, in the Jiangsu
Province of China, located just outside of Shanghai. The Jiangsu Provincial Department of
Education has been striving to revolutionize their English education program in public schools
since 2004 (JESIE Program, 2016). Every summer, native-speaking English teachers journey to
the Jiangsu Province to help the government conduct a ten-day English teacher training program
for its public school English teachers. This program brings together two amazing groups of
teachers: the Chinese teachers who struggle to prepare massive classes of students who don’t
want or care to learn English to take government-created standardized tests and native English
speaking educators who’ve been utilizing techniques from the Communicative Approach in their
own classrooms.

I was placed in Kunshan, an industrial suburb of Shanghai, for the Jiangsu Teacher Training
Program this past July and worked with 22 English teachers from around the city, most of whom
didn’t know each other. When I met the teachers on the first day of this course, on a hot, humid
July morning, most of the teachers were not particularly engaged. They were exhausted,
overworked and resentful of the fact they had to spend 2 weeks of their summer vacation in a
teacher training program full of strangers. Could I blame them? Absolutely not. But my goal was
to engage them, rekindle their passion for language education and hopefully send them back to
their own classrooms in the fall with new ideas and techniques for language education.

Throughout the ten-day course, I introduced these teachers to many different methods of
language education, all focused around the ever-broadening Communicative approach. I
emphasized the importance of creating engaging, student-centered classes, fluency over
accuracy, and partner and group work. I not only explained, but also demonstrated through my
own teaching style, the importance of making the English classroom a “safe zone,” a warm,
comfortable environment where students feel they are able speak and make mistakes without
being judged or reprimanded. We sang songs, wrote and performed skits, gave presentations,
created poems, used grids to create and organize paragraphs, played language games, had a
food day where students brought in their favorite food and discussed why they liked it and how it
was made, and even watched an episode of Friends so that we could analyze some of the
differences between American and Chinese culture. All of these simulated possible activities and
techniques for them to use in their own classes.
At the end of this course, the resentful, withdrawn strangers I met on the first day of class had
transformed into warm, vibrant, vivacious friends eager to return to their classes in the fall. We
shared a tearful, loving goodbye, with promises to keep in touch on the last day of the course.

These incredible teachers provided me with so much positive feedback: they felt like our original
group of “strangers” had melded into a big, happy “family;” they felt comfortable making mistakes
and learning from each other; they had new ideas to introduce to their students; their confidence
in themselves and their English abilities had risen astronomically. My heart was warmed and
overjoyed by their responses.

However, they also had one major concern: How can they implement these new, student-
centered Communicative Approach ideas when they still had to administer the
reading/writing/grammar-based standardized tests?

So, here are some questions for you to ponder: What would you do if you were put in this
situation? What advice would you give to these teachers? Have you, or someone you know,
been in a similar educational situation? How was the situation handled? Would you suggest the
same solution or a different approach?

References:

Anderson, Jan (1993). Is a communicative approach practical for teaching English in China?
Pros and cons. System, Vol. 21, No. 4.

JESIE Program (2015). Teach in China. Accessed on November 19, 2015 from
http://www.teachinchina.org.au/index.htm