10 Communicative Language Teaching

in the twenty-first century: the

'Principled Communicative Approach'
Zoltan Dornyei

Introduction

Earl Stevick has always been interested in improving language teaching

methodology, and he has never been afraid of innovation. His seminal
work, Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways (Stevick 1980), intro-
duced many of us to Counselling-Learning and Suggestopedia for the
first time, and in Memory, Meaning and Method: A View of Language
Teaching. (Stevick 1996) he discussed a wide range of theoretical and
practical considerations to help us better understand the intricate cog-
nitive and interpersonal processes whereby a language is acquired and
then used for meaningful communication. The proposal in this chap-
ter to revitalize Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in the light
of contemporary scholarly advances is fully within the spirit of Earl's
approach.'
By the turn of the new millennium, CLT had become a real buzzword
in language teaching methodology, but the extent to which the term
covers a well-defined and uniform teaching method is highly question-
able. In fact, since the genesis of CLT in the early 1970s, its proponents
have developed a very wide range of variants that were only loosely
related to each other (for overviews, see Savignon 2005; Spada 2007).
In this chapter I first look at the core characteristics of CLT to explore
the roots of the diverse interpretations and then argue that in order for
CLT to fulfil all the expectations attached to it in the twenty-first cen-
tury, the method needs to be revised according to the latest findings of
psycholinguistic research. I will conclude the chapter by outlining the
main principles of a proposed revised approach that I have termed the
`Principled Communicative Approach' (PCA).

' This chapter draws on Chapter 7 of my book The Psychology of Second Language
Acquisition (Dornyei 2009), where further discussion can be found. The text is an
edited version of a plenary talk presented at the 34th National Convention of
TESOL-Italy in Rome, 2009, first published in Perspectives. I am grateful to the
editor of this journal, Lucilla Lopriore, for permission to adapt the text for this
volume.

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Meaningful classroom activity Communicative Language Teaching in the twenty-first century

The traditional communicative approach learners' communicative competence develops automatically through
their active participation in meaningful communicative tasks.
Communicative Language Teaching was introduced at the beginning The vagueness of the 'seeking situational meaning' tenet, in turn,
of the 1970s by British and American scholars to promote the teach- resulted in a very wide range of variants of CLT in terms of actual class-
ing of usable communicative skills in L2 instruction. Although it was room application in both the UK and the USA. Richards and Rodgers
seen by many as a counter-reaction to the Audiolingual method that (2001: 155) have rightly pointed out in respect of CLT that 'There is
dominated the 1960s, the main goal of CLT — to develop a functional no single text or authority on it, nor any single model that is univer-
communicative L2 competence in the learners — was actually similar to sally accepted as authoritative.' As one extreme, for example, people
the primary audiolingual objective. However, CLT pursued the commu- often associate CLT with a strictly-no-grammar approach, epitomized
nicative agenda in a radically different manner. Instead of the audio- by Krashen's (1985) The Input Hypothesis. In contrast, some of the
lingual attempt of trying to build up an implicit L2 knowledge base founders of CLT were quite keen to emphasize a salient structural lin-
through drilling and memorization,' CLT methodology was centred guistic component, as illustrated, for example, by the starting sentence
around the learner's participatory experience in meaningful L2 inter- of Littlewood's (1981: 1) highly influential teaching methodology text:
action in (often simulated) communicative situations, which under- 'One of the most characteristic features of communicative language
scored the significance of less structured and more creative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as
tasks. For this reason, the learning of scripted dialogues was replaced structural aspects of language, combining these into a more fully com-
by games, problem-solving tasks and unscripted situational role plays, municative view.' These contrasting stances — referred to by Thornbury
and pattern drilling was either completely abandoned or replaced by (1999) as 'shallow-end' and 'deep-end' approaches, respectively —
'communicative drills'. correspond to the psychological distinction of implicit versus explicit
At the heart of the Audiolingual/CLT difference lay a basic contrast learning, and because this distinction will play a central role in conceiv-
in orientation: audiolingualism was associated with a specific learn- ing the PCA, let me elaborate on it.
ing theory — behaviourism — and therefore it was the first language
teaching method that consciously aspired to build on the principles of
the psychology of learning, whereas the communicative reform in the Implicit versus explicit language learning
1970s was centred around the radical renewal of the linguistic course
content without any systematic psychological conception to guide the Explicit learning refers to the learner's conscious and deliberate attempt to
actual process of learning to accompany it. This is well illustrated master some material or solve a problem. This is the learning type empha-
by the fact that while the linguistic content of communicative sylla- sized by most school instruction. In contrast, implicit learning involves
buses was informed by a number of cutting-edge theoretical strands, acquiring skills and knowledge without conscious awareness, that is,
such as Austin (1962) and Searle's (1969) speech act theory, Hymes' automatically and with no conscious attempt to learn them. Amongst lang-
(1972) model of communicative competence and its application to L2 uage teachers, the emerging view of a typical communicative classroom
proficiency by Canale and Swain (1980) and Canale (1983), as well has been that it should approximate a naturalistic language acquisition
as Halliday's (1985) systemic functional grammar, the only learning- environment as closely as possible, thereby providing plenty of authen-
specific principle that was available for CLT materials developers and tic input to feed the students' implicit learning processes. This view was
practitioners was the broad tenet of 'learning through doing', coupled partly motivated by the fact that the main language learning model for
with the only marginally less ambiguous guideline of developing the humans — the mastery of our mother tongue — predominantly involves
learners' communicative competence through their active participation implicit processes without any explicit teaching: children acquire the com-
in seeking situational meaning. Thus, the conception underlying learn- plex system of their Ll through engaging in natural and meaningful com-
ing within CLT was confined to the widespread assumption that the munication with their parents and other caretakers.
Unfortunately, the problem with implicit language learning is that
Of course, audiolingualism was more complex than that, but a broad character- while it does such a great job in generating native-speaking Li profi-
ization is sufficient for the current discussion; for more details, see Castagnaro ciency in infants, it does not seem to work efficiently when we want to
(2006) and Dornyei (2009). master an L2 at a later stage in our lives. This is regrettable, but the

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 Meaningful classroom activity Communicative Language Teaching in the twenty-first century

fact is that — alas! — untutored learning through simple exposure to that 'most second language educators agree that CLT is undergoing a
natural language input does not seem to lead to sufficient progress in transformation — one that includes increased recognition of and atten-
L2 attainment for most school learners. Strong evidence for this claim tion to language form within exclusively or primarily meaning-oriented
has come from two main sources (for a detailed discussion, see Dornyei CLT approaches to second language instruction'. It was in this vein that
2009): (a) experiences in educational contexts — particularly in immer- in 1997 Marianne Celce-Murcia, Sarah Thurrell and I suggested (Celce-
sion programmes — that provide optimal conditions for implicit learn- Murcia et al. 1997, 1998) that CLT had reached a new phase that we
ing and yet which typically fail to deliver native-like L2 proficiency; termed the 'Principled Communicative Approach':
and (b) reviews of empirical studies that specifically compared implicit
In sum, we believe that CLT has arrived at a turning point: Explicit,
and explicit instruction, which demonstrate a significant advantage of
direct elements are gaining significance in teaching communicative
explicit types of L2 instruction over implicit types (for a seminal paper abilities and skills. The emerging new approach can be described as
in this regard, see Norris and Ortega 2000). a principled communicative approach; by bridging the gap between
Thus, the available evidence confirms Lightbown and Spada's (2006: current research on aspects of communicative competence and actual
176) conclusion that 'we do not find support for the hypothesis that communicative classroom practice, this approach has the potential
language acquisition will take care of itself if second language learners to synthesize direct, knowledge-oriented and indirect, skill-oriented
simply focus on meaning in comprehensible input'. In other words, mere teaching approaches. Therefore, rather than being a complete departure
exposure to L2 input accompanied by communicative practice is not from the original, indirect practice of CLT, it extends and further
sufficient, and, therefore, we need explicit learning procedures — such develops CLT methodology.
as focus on form or some kind of controlled practice — to push learners (Celce-Murcia et al. 1997: 147-8)
beyond communicatively effective language towards target-like second
language ability. Ellis (2007: 26) summarizes the overall consensus As we emphasized, the increasing directness of the emerging principled
amongst scholars as follows: CLT could not be equated with a back-to-grammar tendency. Rather, it
As with other implicit modules, when automatic capabilities fail, involved an attempt to extend the systematic treatment of language issues
there follows a call for recruiting additional collaborative conscious traditionally restricted to sentence-bound rules (i.e. grammar) to the expli-
support: We only think about walking when we stumble, about cit development of other knowledge areas and skills necessary for efficient
driving when a child runs into the road, and about language when communication. Looking back, I can see that although we did highlight
communication breaks down. In unpredictable conditions, the capacity the need to integrate direct, knowledge-oriented (i.e. explicit) and indirect,
of consciousness to organize existing knowledge in new ways is skill-oriented (i.e. implicit) teaching approaches, we could have gone further
indispensable. in underlining the need to complement the proposed new linguistic content
It is important to emphasize here that the search for ways of reintegrating with an awareness of the psychological dimension of learning. It seems
explicit learning processes in modern language teaching methodology to roe that this search for integration has been the most fruitful direction
does not mean that we should regard these processes as replacements of of language teaching methodology in the new millennium, with the most
implicit learning. Instead, the real challenge is to maximize the cooper- forward-pointing developments in research targeting the various modes of
ation of explicit and implicit learning; accordingly, as will be illustrated the explicit—implicit interface taking place in three central areas: (a) focus
below, finding ways of meeting this challenge has been the main driving on form and form-focused instruction; (b) fluency and automatization;
force of developing the PCA. and (c) formulaic language. All three areas have extensive literatures rais-
ing complex issues. Here I will offer a brief sketch of the key topics.

The ongoing transformation of CLT Focus on form (FonF) and form focused instruction (FFI)
-

Focus on form (FonF) and form-focused instruction (FFI) indicate a

As we saw above, relying on a purely implicit learning approach has concern with the structural system of language from a communicative
turned out to he less than successful in L2 learning in general, and there- perspective. In other words, they represent a halfway position between
fore the past decade has seen a gradual transformation of our idealized a concern for communicative meaning and the linguistic features of the
CLT image. In her summary of this shift, Nina Spada (2007: 271) explains language code, calling for a primarily meaning-focused instruction in
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Meaningful classroom activity Communicative Language Teaching in the twenty-first century

which some degree of attention is paid to form. Thus, FonF/FFI refer is usually subsumed under 'skill learning theory'. Thus, from a psycho-
to a new type of grammar instruction that intends to remain fully com- logical point of view, the relevant issue to explore is how L2 skills can
patible with communicative principles in that it foregrounds the mean- be automatized.
ing-focused and personally significant nature of language tasks, and in Skill learning theory proposes the following basic sequence: automa-
that sense this approach is a prime example of trying to implement the tization requires implicit (or procedural) knowledge, which in turn
explicit—implicit interface in actual classroom practice. One of the main requires initial explicit (or declarative) input and conscious consecutive
proponents of the approach, Rod Ellis (2008), has drawn up the fol- practice. Accordingly, a systematically designed fluency-building task
lowing comprehensive framework of the various form-focused options, will include an initial declarative input stage and subsequent extended
distinguishing four macro-options: practice, which can be further divided into controlled practice and
• Input-based options involve the manipulation of the language input open-ended practice (for more details, see Anderson 2000; DeKeyser
2007; Ranta and Lyster 2007):
that learners are exposed to or are required to process. The main
types of this macro-option are input flooding (input that contains • The declarative input stage is to provide clear and concise rules and
an artificially increased number of examples of the target structure), sufficient examples that the learner can then interpret and rehearse,
enhanced input (input in which the target feature is made salient to thereby raising awareness of and internalizing the skill.
the learners in some way, e.g. by highlighting it visually in a text), and • The controlled practice stage should offer opportunities for abundant
structured input (input that the learner is forced to process in order repetition within a narrow context that still maintains personal sig-
to be able to provide a required follow-up response, e.g. ticking an nificance and communicative meaningfulness (e.g. administering a
answer option in an opinion survey). verbal opinion survey to a group of people in which everybody has to
• Explicit options involve instruction that can be direct (learners are be asked the same questions). Therefore, the key to the effectiveness
provided with metalinguistic descriptions of the target feature, e.g. of this stage is to design interesting drills that are not demotivating
in deductive instruction) or indirect (learners are provided with data (see Dornyei 2001; Dornyei and Ushioda 2010) and which are related
illustrating the target feature and are required to 'discover' the rule to some communicative function. The most elaborate operationaliza-
for themselves, e.g. in inductive instruction). tion of this stage is offered by the 'creative automatisation' tasks of
• Production options involve instruction geared at enabling and indu- Gathonton and Segalowitz (1988, 2005).
cing learners to produce utterances containing the target structure. • The open-ended practice stage involves the continuous improvement
This type can he further subdivided in terms of whether it involves in the performance of a skill that is already well established in a wider
text-manipulation (e.g. fill-in-the-blank exercises) or text-creation. and wider applicability range. In spite of the unscripted, free nature
• Corrective feedback options involve either implicit feedback (e.g. of this phase, it can still benefit from some added explicit focus, for
recasts or clarification requests) or explicit correction (e.g. meta- example by highlighting some L2 functions associated with a list of
linguistic explanation or elicitation), and we can also distinguish specific phrases as specific targets for practice.
between feedback that is input-providing (e.g. recasts or metalinguis-
tic explanation) or output-prompting (e.g. requests for clarification Interestingly, this declarative input controlled practice open-ended
or elicitation). practice sequence is reminiscent of the well-known methodological
progression of presentation —) practice production (PPP).

Fluency and automatization Formulaic language

Everybody who has ever tried to speak in a foreign language knows There is something fundamental about formulaic language such as lex-
that the accurate use of linguistic form is not the only, and often not ical phrases, idioms, conventionalized expressions, collocations, etc.
even the most serious, concern with regard to communicative effective- (for overviews, see Schmitt 2004; Wray 2008). Widdowson (1989: 135),
ness. In many respects L2 fluency is equally, if not more, important. for example, argued that 'communicative competence is not a matter
In the psychological literature, fluency is discussed under the broader of knowing rules ... It is much more a matter of knowing a stock of
concept of 'automaticity/automatization', and the promotion of fluency partially pre-assembled patterns, formulaic frameworks', and indeed

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many would agree with him that competent speakers of a language student-centred CLT, and I believe that this principle is just as valid
are in command of thousands (if not tens of thousands) of language now as when it was first formulated.
chunks, and use them as basic building blocks in their speech and writ- The controlled practice principle. While the overall purpose of lang-
ing. With his 'idiom principle', Sinclair (1991: 112) also underscores the uage learning is to prepare the learners for meaningful communication,
important role idioms (formulaic sequences) play in discourse. As he skill learning theory suggests that — similar to the training of musicians
concludes, 'The overwhelming nature of this evidence leads us to ele- or athletes — it should also include controlled practice activities to pro-
vate the principle of idiom from being a rather minor feature, compared mote the automatization of L2 skills. The purpose of this practice should
with grammar, to being at least as important as grammar in the explan- be clearly explained to the learners and the content/format should be
ation of how meaning arises in text.' made as motivating as possible within the tasks' inherent constraints.
It is important to note that formulaic language competence is directly The declarative input principle. To provide jump starts for subse-
linked to automatized, fluent language production. It has been tradition- quent automatization, PCA should contain explicit initial input com-
ally assumed that formulaic sequences are stored in the memory as single ponents. This declarative input can be offered in several ways, including
units and therefore their retrieval is cognitively of a relatively undemand- the potential utilization of accelerated learning techniques and rote
ing nature. This in turn allows the speaker to attend to other aspects of learning.
communication and to plan larger pieces of discourse, which would nat- The focus-on-form principle. While maintaining an overall meaning-
urally facilitate fluent language production under real-time conditions. oriented approach, PCA should also pay attention to the formal/struc-
There has been relatively little research on how to teach formulaic tural aspects of the L2 that determine accuracy and appropriateness at
language in classroom contexts; however, things have started to change the linguistic, discourse and pragmatic levels. An important hallmark
and some important studies have been published on the classroom of good teaching is finding the optimal balance between implicit and
practice of promoting chunks and formulaic sequences (e.g. Gatbonton explicit instruction through administering a good mixture of meaning-
and Segalowitz 2005; Boers et al. 2006; Taguchi 2007; Lindstromberg based and form-focused activities in the dynamic classroom context.
and Boers 2008). The most principled attempt to develop a coherent The formulaic language principle. PCA should include the teaching
approach for the promotion of formulaic sequences has been made by of formulaic language as a featured component. There should be suffi-
Gatbonton and Segalowitz (1988, 2005); their proposed methodology cient awareness raising of the significance and pervasiveness of formu-
is called ACCESS, standing for 'Automatization in Communicative laic language in real-life communication, and selected phrases should
Contexts of Essential Speech Segments', and it offers a principled adap- he practised and recycled intensively.
tation of CLT that aims to generate fluency by drawing on the theories The language exposure principle. PCA should offer learners exten-
of automatization and formulaic language. sive exposure to large amounts of L2 input that can feed the learn-
ers' implicit learning mechanisms. In order to make the most of this
exposure, learners should be given some explicit preparation in terms of
Conclusion pre-task activities (e.g. pre-reading/listening/watching tasks or expla-
nations of some salient aspects of the material) to prime them for max-
I have argued in this chapter that the real challenge for language teaching imum intake.
methodology is to specify the nature of the optimal cooperation between The focused interaction principle. PCA should offer learners ample
explicit and implicit learning processes in a principled manner. Working opportunities to participate in genuine L2 interaction. For best effect,
out the details of a new Principled Communicative Approach is clearly such communicative practice should always have a specific formal or
an ongoing process, but we can formulate some key guiding principles functional focus and should always be associated with target phrases
based on the available research for the approach. I would like to con- to practise.
clude by offering seven key — and somewhat overlapping — principles that In sum, the essence of the Principled Communicative Approach
are in accordance with the state of the art of our research knowledge of (PCA) that I am advocating is the creative integration of meaningful
instructed second language acquisition. communication with relevant declarative input and the automatization
The personal significance principle. PCA should be meaning-focused of both linguistic rules and lexical items. In instructed second language
and personally significant as a whole. This has been the basic tenet of acquisition, the more is not merrier if it is not focused.

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