COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE

TEACHING

Madzna H. Alih
 B ACKGROUND

• The origins of Communicative Language

Teaching (CLT) are to be found in the
changes in the British language teaching
tradition dating from the late 1960s.
• Until then, Situational Language Teaching
represented the major British approach to teaching
English as a foreign language.

• In Situation Language Teaching, language was taught

by practicing basic structures in meaningful
situation-based activities.
 • Chomsky had demonstrated that the current
standard structural theories of language were
incapable of accounting for the fundamental
characteristics of language – the creativity and
uniqueness of individual sentences.
NOAM CHOMSKY
American linguist.
Father of modern linguistics.
• British applied linguists emphasized another
SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES (1957) fundamental dimension of language that was
adequately addressed in current approaches to
language teaching at that time – the functional
and communicative potential of language.
• D.A Wilkins (1972) proposed a functional or communicative
definition of language that could serve as basis for developing
communicative syllabuses for language teaching.

• Wilkins’ contribution was an analysis of communicative meanings

that a language learner need to understand and express. Rather than
describe the core of language through traditional of grammar and
vocabulary.
• He describe two different meanings: notional categories
(concepts such as time, sequence, quantity, location,
frequency) and categories of communicative function
(request, denials, offers, complaints).

• Notional Syllabuses (Wilkins 1976), which had a significant

impact on the development of Communicative Language
Teaching.
DAVID HENRY CHRISTOPHER CHRISTOPHER KEITH
WILKINS WIDDOWSON CANDLIN BRUMFIT JOHNSON
• Since the mid-1970s the scope of Communicative Language
Teaching has expanded.

• Both American and British proponents now see it as an

approach, (and not a method) that aims to (a) make
communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b)
develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills
that acknowledge the interdependence of language and
communication.
 D I S T I N C T I V E F E AT U R ES O F T H E A U D I O L I NG UA L M E T H O D A N D
T H E C O M M U N I C AT IV E A P P R OAC H ( F I N O C C H I ARO A N D
B R U M F I T, 1 9 8 3 )

AUDIO-LINGUAL COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

• Structure and form more than meaning. • Meaning is paramount.

• Memorization of structure based dialogs. • Dialog, if used, center communicative
• Language items are not necessarily functions and are not normally
contextualized. memorized.

• Language leaning is learning structures, • Contextualization is a basic premise.

sounds, or words. • Effective communication is sought.
• Mastery or ‘over-learning’ is sought. • Drilling may occur, but peripherally.
• Drilling is a central technique. • Comprehensible pronunciation is
• Native speaker-like pronunciation is sought. sought.
 THE ORY OF LANGUAGE

• The communicative approach in language teaching starts

from theory of language as communication. The goal of
language teaching is to develop what Hymes (1972) referred
to as “communicative competence.”

• Hymes’ theory of communicative competence was a

definition of what speakers needs to know in order to be
communicatively competent in a speech community.
• Another linguistic theory of communication favored CLT is
Halliday’s functional account of language use. “Linguist is
concerned with the description of speech acts or texts, since
only through the study of language is use are all the functions
of language, and therefore all components of meaning brought
into focus.” (Halliday 1970: 145)
• Henry Widdowson, in his book Teaching Language as
Communication (1978), presented a view of the
relationship between linguistic systems and their
communicative values in text and discourse.

• He focused on the communicative acts underlying the

ability to use language for different purposes.
 THE ORY OF LE ARNING

• Elements of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in

some CLT practices, however.
• One such element might be described as the communication
principles: Activities that involve real communication promote
learning.
• A second element is the task principle: Activities in which
language is used carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning.
(Johnson 1982)
• The third element is the meaningfulness principle: Language that
is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.
 THE SYLLAB US

• Notional Syllabus (Wilkins, 1976), which specified the

semantic-grammatical categories (e.g., frequency,
motion, location) and the categories of communicative
function that learners need to express.
• The Council of Europe expanded and developed this into a
syllabus that included descriptions of the objectives of
foreign language courses for European adults, the
situations in which they might typically need to use a
foreign language (e.g., travel, business), the topics they
might need to talk about (e.g., personal identification,
education, shopping), the functions they needed language
for (e.g., describing something, requesting information,
expressing agreement and disagreement), the notions
made use of in communication (e.g., time, frequency,
duration), as well as the vocabulary and grammar needed.
• The result was published as Threshold Level English(van
Ek and Alexander) 1980) and was an attempt to specify
what was needed in order to be able to achieve a
reasonable degree of communicative proficiency in a
foreign language, including the language items needed
to realize this “threshold level.”
 TYPE S OF LE ARNING AND TE ACHING
ACTIVITIE S

The range of exercise types and activities compatible

with a communicative approach is unlimited, provided
that such exercises enable learners to attain the
communicative objectives of the curriculum, engage
learners in communication, and require the use of such
communicative processes as information sharing,
negotiation of meaning, and interaction.
• Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between “functional
communication activities” and “social interaction activities”
as major activity types in Communicative Language Teaching.

• Functional communication activities include such tasks as

learners comparing sets of pictures and noting similarities
and differences; working out a likely sequence of events in a
set of pictures; discovering missing features in a map or
picture;
• one learner communicating behind a screen to another
learner and giving a instructions on how to draw a
picture or shape, or how to complete a map; following
instructions on how to draw a picture or shape, or how
to complete a map,; following directions; and solving
problems from shared clues.

• Social interaction activities include conversation and

discussions sessions, dialogues and role plays, simulations,
sits, improvisations, and debates
 LE ARNE R ROLE

• The emphasis in Communicative Language Teaching on the

processes of communication, rather than mastery of
language forms, leads to different roles for learners from
those found in more traditional second language classroom.

• Breen and candling describe the learner’s role within CLT in

the following terms:
• The role of learning learner as negotiator– between the
elf, the learning process, and the object of learning–
emerges from and interacts with the role of joint
negotiator within the group and within the classroom
procedures and activities which the group undertakes. The
implication for the learner is that he should contribute as
much as he gains, and thereby learn in an interdependent
way. (1980; 110)
 TE ACHE R ROLE S

• Breen and Candlin describe teacher roles. The teacher

has two main role:

• The first role is to facilitate the communication process

between all participants in the classroom, and between
these participants and the various activities and texts.
• The second role is to act as an independent participant
within the learning-teaching group.

• A third role for the teacher is that of researcher and

learner, with much to contribute in terms of appropriate
knowledge and abilities, actual and observed experience of
the nature of learning and organizational capabilities. (1980:
99)
NE E D ANALYST

• The CLT teacher assumes a responsibility for

determining and responding to learner language
needs. This may be done informally and personally
through one-on-one sessions with students, in
which the teacher talks through such issues as the
student’s perception of his or her learning style,
learning assets and learning goals.
 COUNSE LOR

• In this role, the teacher counselor 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.
 GROUP PROCE SS MANAGE R

• CLT procedures often require teachers to acquire less teacher-

centered classroom management skills. It is the teacher’s
responsibility to organize the classroom as a setting for
communication and communicative activities.

• Guidelines for classroom practice suggest that during an

activity the teacher monitors, encourages, and suppresses the
inclination to apply gaps in lexis, grammar, and strategy but
notes such gaps for later commentary and communicative
practice.
 THE ROLE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATE RIALS

TEX T-B AS ED MATERIAL S

• Morrow and Johhnson’s Communicate (1979), has none of the

usual dialogues, drills, or sentence fragments to initiate
conversation.

• Watcy-Jones’s Pair Work (1981) consists of two different texts

for pair work, each containing different information needed to
enact role plays and carry out other pair activities.
 TASK - B ASE D MATE RIALS

• A variety of games, role plays, simulations, and task-based

communication activities have been prepared to support
Communicative Language Teaching classes. These typically are
in the form of one-of-a-kind items: exercise handbooks, cue
cards, activity cards, pair-communication practice materials,
and student-interaction practice booklets.
 RE ALIA

• Many proponents of Communicative Language Teaching

have advocated the used of ‘authentic’, ‘from-life’ materials
in the classroom. These might include language-based realia,
such as signs, magazines, advertisements, and newspapers,
or graphic and visual sources around which communicative
activities can be built, such as maps, pictures, symbols,
graphs, and charts. Different kinds of object can be used to
support communicative exercise, such as a plastic model to
assemble from directions.
 PROCE DURE

• Because communicative principles can be applied to the

teaching of any skill, at any level, and because of the
wide variety of classroom activities and exercise types
discussed in the literature on Communicative Language
Teaching, description of typical classroom procedures
used in a lesson based on CLT principles is not feasible.