Communicative

1
Language Teaching
RAWEZH IBRAHIM
20132232

CLT- RAWEZH 05/11/2014

Warm-up

• Teaching is not the matter of forcing learners to be good task takers.

It is the matter of creating risk takers to commit errors and making
mistakes.

• How is your learning experience?

• Have you been a good task taker or a risk taker in your learning life?

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Brief definition

• Communicative language teaching can be understood as a set of

principles about the goals of language teaching;

• how learners learn a language

• the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning

• and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom

(Richards, 2 )

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Historical background
• The origins of CLT are to be found in the change in the British
Language teaching tradition dating from late 1960s.
• In 1970 a group of experts began to investigate the possibility of
developing language courses on a unit-credit system. A system in
which learning tasks are broken down into ‘portions or units, each of
which corresponds to a component of a learner’s needs and is
systematically related to all the other portions.
• Since the mid of 1970s the scope of CLT has been expanded.
• Both of American and British proponents now see it as an approach.

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System of meaning behind communicative
use of language
• Notional categories: time, sequence, quantity, location and
frequency.

• Categories of communicative function: request, denials, offers and

complaints.

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Communication NOT only structure

• Being able to communicate requires more than linguistic

components; it requires communicative competence – knowing
when and how to say what to whom.

(Larsen-Freeman, 121)

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Components of communicative competence
Grammatical

communicative competence
Discourse

context
Strategies

Sociocultural
(Savignon, 8)

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Aims
• Applying the theoretical perspective of the communicative
approach by:
- Making the communicative competence the goal of language
teaching.
- Acknowledging the independence of language and communication.
(Larsen-Freeman, 121)
- Language is not just patterns of grammar with vocabulary items
slotted in, BUT also involves language functions.
- If learners get enough exposure to language, opportunities to use it-
and have motivation; language learning will take care of itself.
(Harmer, 50)

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 Well-organized foreign language curriculum

Objectives
(Why to teach?

Measurement
Content and
What to teach?
(Evaluation
How much?

Learning-teaching process
How to teach? (Demiral, 17)
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Characteristics
• It pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects
of language.
• Language teaching techniques are designed to engage learners in the
pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful
purposes.
• Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles
underlying communicative techniques.
• In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the
language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts
(Brown, 266-7).

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Characteristics – cont.
It exists when someone in a exchange knows something, the other
Information gap does not.
• A: What is today?
• B: Wednesday.
The speaker has a choice of what and how she will say a
choice sentence.
• Controlled practice has no choice. It is not communicative.

feedback A speaker can realize whether he achieves his purpose or not.

• If the listener has not this opportunity; the exchange is not communicative.

(Larsen-Freeman, 129)
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CLT at the level of approach; theory of
language
• The communicative approach in language teaching starts from a
theory of language as communication.
• The focus of linguistic theory was to characterize the abstract abilities
speakers possess that enable them to produce grammatically correct
sentences in a language, for Chomsky.
• Hymes held that such a view of linguistic theory was sterile, that
linguistic theory needed to be seen as a part of more general theory
incorporating communication and culture.

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Theoretical bases of CLT
• At the theoretical level, CLT has a rich theoretical base:
- Language is a system for expression of meaning.
- The primary function of language is for interaction and
communication.
- The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative
uses.

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Theory of learning in CLT

Communication principle:
activities that involve real
communication promote
learning.

Elements of Task principle: activities in

an underlying which language is used for
learning carrying out meaningful tasks
theory in CLT: promote learning.

Meaningfulness principle: language

that is meaningful for the learner
supports learning.

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Design in CLT-objectives
• An integrative and content level (language as a means of expression).
• A linguistic and structural level (language as a semiotic system and an
object of learning).
• An effective level of interpersonal relationships and conduct
(language as a means of expressing values and judgements about
oneself and others).
• A level of individual learning needs (remedial learning based on error
analysis).
• A general educational level of extra-linguistic goals (language learning
within the school curriculum).

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Proposed syllabus in CLT
Type Reference
1. structure plus functions Wilkins (1976)
2. functional spiral around a structural core Brumfit (1980)
3. structural, functional, instrumental Allen (1980)
4. functional Jupp and Hodlin (1975)
5. notional Wilkins (1976)
6. interactional Widdowson (1979)
7. task-based Prabhu (1983)
8. learner generated Candlin(1976)

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Learning and teaching activities
• Functional activities:
Include such tasks that as learners comparing sets of
pictures and noting similarities and differences; or
finding missing features in a picture or a map.

• Social interaction activities:

Include conversation and discussion sessions, dialogues and role-plays,
simulations, skits, improvisations and debates.

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Communicative VS. non-Communicative
activities
Communicative Activities non-communicative activities

A desire to communicate No communicative desire

A communicative purpose
Content NOT form
Variety of language
No teacher intervention
No materials control
No communicative purpose
Form NOT content
One language item only
Teacher intervention
Materials control

(Harmer, 85)
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CLT- RAWEZH
Practice makes perfect - activity
• Imagine you are all employees of the same company. One of you is
the boss and you have a meeting with him.

• You are discussing ‘what will possibly occur as a result of your

company merging with another one’.

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Learner roles
• Learner as a negotiator between the self, the learning process, the
object of learning, within the classroom procedures and activities
which the group undertake. The should share as much as they get,
and thereby learn independently.

• Participation is cooperative rather than individualistic.

• Learners are expected to interact primarily with each other rather

than with the teacher.

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Teacher roles
• Facilitating the communication process between all participants in the
classroom, and between these participants and the various activities
and texts.
• Acting as an independent participant within the learning-teaching
group.
• Organizing the resources and as a resources himself.
• Guiding within the classroom procedures and activities.
• Other roles are needs analyst, counsellor and group process manager.

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Teacher as a needs analyst
Learners respond strongly agree or strongly disagree
I want to study English because...
• I think it will someday be useful in getting a good job.
• it will help me better understand English-speaking people and their
way of life.
• one needs a good knowledge of English to gain other people's
respect.
• it will allow me to meet and converse with interesting people.
• I need it for my job.
• it will enable me to think and behave like English-speaking people
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Teacher as a Counsellor:

In this role, the teacher-counsellor is expected to exemplify an effective

communicator seeking to maximize the meshing of speaker intention
and hearer interpretation, through the use of paraphrase, confirmation
and feedback.

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Role of the instructional materials

instructional
materials

text based task based realia

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Text based

It offers the learners many kinds of prompts on which they can build up
conversations. They will typically contain visual cues, pictures and
sentence fragments which the learners can use as a starting point for
conversation.

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Task based

It consists of exercise handbooks, cue cards, activity cards, pair-

communication practice materials and student-interaction practice
booklets.

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Realia

Using authentic material, for example newspaper articles, photos,

maps, symbols, and many more. Material which can be touched and
held makes speaking and learning more concrete and meaningful.

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Procedure

• CLT procedures are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

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• How would you ask your friend to give you permission to use his
book?

• How would you ask someone to tell you a location?

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• Presentation of a brief dialogue
• Oral practice of each utterance of the dialogue
• Questions and answers based on the dialogue
• Questions and answers related to the learners’ personal experiences
• Study one of the basic communicative expressions in the dialogue
• Learner discovery of generalizations or rules underlying the functional
expression or structure
• Oral recognition, interpretative activities
• Oral production activities
• Copying the dialogue
• Sampling the written homework
• Evaluation of learning

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Procedure of strong version

• Communicate
Stage II • Drill if
as far as • Present language necessary
possible with all items shown to be
available necessary to
resources achieve effective
communication

Stage I Stage III

(Liao, Xiao Qing, 20)

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Procedure of weak version

Production;
Uncontrolled
Practice;
Question and
answer, role
plays.
Language items;
grammar
knowledge is
presented

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Shortcomings
• Time construction
• Selecting suitable activities
• Cost factor
• Size of the classroom
• Hesitation
• Challenge of inculcating self learning (Walia, 128-9)
• Not enough emphasis on grammar and pronunciation.

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Bibliography
• Brown, H.D. (2004). Principles of language learning and teaching.
• Demiral, Ozcan (2004). ELT Methodology.
• Harmer, Jeremy (1998). How to teach English.
• Harmer, Jeremy (2005). The practice of English language teaching.
• Jack C. Richards; 2006. Communicative Language Teaching Today.
• Liao, Xiao Qing (2000). Communicative Language Teaching: Approach, Design and
Procedure.
• Richards and Rodgers (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching.
• Richards, Jack (2006). Communicative language teaching today.
• Savignon, Sandra (2002). Interpreting Communicative Language Teaching.
• Walia, Divya (2012). Traditional teaching Methods vs. CLT. Article journal.
• http://teflpedia.com/Communicative_Approach

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 Thanks for your attention!

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