Communicative Language Teaching

Commmunicative Language Teaching (CLT)

I- Introduction :
1. Defintion :

CLT is a set of principles that have served as a major source of influence on language teaching
practice. It aims at making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and develop
procedures for the teaching of the four skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and
communication.

Basic features of CLT:

- An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language

- An enhancement of the learner’s own person experiences as important contributing
elements to classroom learning.
- An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the
classroom.
- The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.

2. Background

CLT was first proposed in the 1960s and it was the result of:

 A growing dissatisfaction with Situational Language Teaching (SLT) approach used at the
time.
 Noam Chomsky demonstrated that the fundamental characteristic of language is the
creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences. Other linguists emphasized the functional
and communicative potential of language.  a need to focus on communicative proficiency
rather than on mere mastery of structures.
 Education and The Council of Europe: with the increasing interdependence of European
countries came the need for more efforts to teach adults the major languages of the
European Common Market. The Council of Europe was a regional organization for cultural
and educational cooperation. Education was one of its major areas of activities through
sponsoring international conferences on language teaching, publishing books about
language teaching, and promoting the formation of the International Association of Applied
Linguistics.
 The need to develop alternative methods of language teaching was a high priority.

II- Approach
1. Theory of Language:

CLT starts from a functional theory of language focusing on language as a means of communication.

The goal of language teaching is to develop Hymes’ concept of “communicative competence”. (This
term was coined to contrast Chomsky’s theory of competence).

Chomsky’s theory of competence: based on the cognitive view of language: speakers have abstract
grammatical knowledge that enables them to produce grammatically correct sentences in a
language.
 Hymes’ believed that such a view was sterile.

Hymes’ theory of competence: He defined communicative competence as the ability to use

grammatical competence in a variety of communicative situations: what speakers need to know in
order to be communicatively competent in a speech community.
Communicative Language Teaching

For Hymes, a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability
for language use with respect to the following:
1/ whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible
2/ whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation
available.
3/ whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful,) in relation
to a context in which it is used and evaluated
4/ whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed and what its doing
entails.

Halliday’s functional account of language use: He elaborated a powerful theory of the functions of
language, which complements Hymes’ view of communicative competence.
He described 7 basic functions that language performs for children learning their first language:

The instrumental function Using language to get things

The regulatory function Using language to control the behaviour of others
The interactional function Using language to create interactions with others
The personal function Using language to express personal feelings and meanings
The heuristic function Using language to learn and to discover
The imaginative function Using language to create a world of the imagination
The representational function Using language to communicate information

Henry Widdowson’s view: his focus was a practical one. He emphasized the learner’s use of speech
acts or functions for a communicative purpose.

Canale and Swain’s view: identified 4 dimensions of communicative competence:

1/ Grammatical competence: domain of grammatical and lexical capacity (what Chomsky calls
linguistic comepetence and what Hymes means by “formally possible)

2/ Sociolinguistic competence: an understanding of the social context in which communication

occurs. (includes role relationships, the shared information of the participants, and the
communicative purpose of their interaction)

3/ Discourse competence: the interpretation of individual message elements in terms of their

interconnectedness and of how meaning is represented in relationship to the entire discourse/ text.

4/ Strategic competence: the coping strategies that communicators employ to initiate, terminate,
maintain, repair and redirect communication.

CLT Language Theory: CLT has a rich, eclectic theoretical base:

1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning
2. The primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication
3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses
4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features; but
categories of functional and communicative meaning.
5. Communicative competence entails knowing how to use language for a range of different
functions and purposes.
Communicative Language Teaching

2. Theory of learning

Elements of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in some CLT practices:

1/ the communication principle: activities that involve real communication promote learning
2/ the task principle: activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote
learning
3/ The meaningfulness principle: language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning
process

 Learning activities are selected according to how well they engage the learner in
meaningful and authentic language use.

III- Design:
1. Objectives of CLT: relate to:
a very general language learning goal: the objectives in this case reflect the type of syllabus
framework used, such as whether the course is organized around a topic-based, function
based, or skill-based syllabus.
Learners with specific needs: the objectives in this case are specific to the contexts of teaching
and learning. These needs may be in the domains of listening, speaking, reading or writing

 In either case, objectives normally seek to operationalize the notion of communicative

competence into more specific descriptions of leaning outcomes.

2. Syllabus:
The notional-functional syllabus
The Council of Europe developed a syllabus that included:
Descriptions of the objectives of foreign language courses for European adults
The situations in which they might need to use a foreign language
The topics they might need to talk about
The functions they need language for
The notions made use of in communication
The vocabulary and grammar needed
 the result was published as Threshold Level English and was an attempt to specify what was
needed to be able to achieve a reasonable degree of communicative proficiency in a foreign
language.

3. Types of Learning and Teaching Activities:

The activities needed reflect the following principles:

 Make real communication the focus of language learning.

 Provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know.
 Be tolerant of learner’s errors as they indicate that the learner is building up her or his
communicative competence.
 Provide opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency.
 Link the different skills such as speaking, reading, and listening together, since they usually
occur together in the real world.
 Let students induce or discover grammar rules.
Communicative Language Teaching

Instead of making use of activities that demand accurate repetition and memorization of sentences
and grammatical patters, there was the use of activities that encourage students to negotiate
meaning, to interact meaningfully and to develop fluency in language.

The types of activities compatible with this method are unlimited provided that they enable the
learner to achieve the communicative objectives of the curriculum.

Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between:

“functional communication activities” and “social interaction activities.”

Learners compare sets of pictures and note Conversation and discussion settings.
similarities and differences. Dialogues and role plays.
Discover missing features in a map or a picture. Simulation skits, improvisation
A learner communicating behind a screen to Debates.
another.

Goal of second language learning: develop fluency, accuracy and appropriacy in language use.

▪ Activities focussing on fluency: ▪ Activities focussing on accuracy:

- reflect the natural use of language - reflect classroom use of language
- achievement of communication through - concentrate on the formation of correct
negotiation of meaning. examples of language
- meaningful use of language. - practice language out of context
- use of communication strategies. - practice small samples of language
- production of language that may not be - no need for meaningful communication
predictable. - control choice of language
- link language use to its context.

Teachers are recommended to use both. Accuracy activities are used to support fluency activities.

With this method, classroom dynamics also changed. Teachers are encouraged to make use of
smaller group work. Pair and group activities give learners greater opportunities to use the language
and to develop fluency.

Common activity types:

 Jig-saw activities
 Task completion activities
 Opinion-sharing activities
 Information-transfer activities
 Reasoning gap activities
 Role plays

Learner roles:
In communicative language teaching, the emphasis is put on the process of communication
rather than mastery of language forms.
Communicative Language Teaching

 The role of learners is different from that found in traditional second language
classrooms
 Learner- centered approach: a cooperative rather than an individualistic
approach to learning
 Learners take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning
 students are expected to interact primarily with each other

Teacher roles:
 The role of facilitator and monitor:
Breen and Candling “The teacher has two main roles: 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.”

 Needs analyst: Teachers determine and respond to learner language needs

 Personally: one-to-one sessions with students
 formally: administering a needs assessment instrument
 Counselor:
Exemplify an effective communicator seeking to maximize the meshing of speaker
intention and hearer interpretation.
 Group process manager:
Organize the classroom as a setting for communication and communicative activities
At the conclusion of the activity, the teacher assists groups in self-correction
discussion.

Materials:
The primary role of promoting communicative language use

 It is divided into: text-based, task-based, realia- based and technology-based

materials.

 Text- based: The use of textbooks: written around a largely structural syllable.

Morrow and Johnson’s Communicate: uses visual cues, taped cues, pictures and
sentence fragments.
 Task-based: variety of games, role plays, simulations.
Items: exercise handbooks, cue cards, activity cards, pair-communication
practice material.
 Realia-based: use of authentic, from-life material.
Language-based realia: signs, magazines, advertisements, newspapers,
graphic and visual sources.
Communicative Language Teaching

 Technology-supported materials: the use of a communicative

curriculum built around interactional uses of language
Technology provides opportunities for accessing language input, combining
texts, images, audio and video.
Chat rooms, discussion boards, and teleconferencing.  Encourage authentic
interaction.

Procedure:
Communicative language teaching can be applied to the teaching of any skill and at any level
which makes the description of a typical classroom procedures used in a lesson based on
CLT principles in not feasible.
CLT procedures are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Finocchiaro and Brumfit provide an outline for teaching the method “ make a suggestion”
Examples: oral practice of each utterance of the dialog to be presented that day
Questions and answers based on the dialog topic and situation itself.
pre-communicative activities: structural activities/ Quasi-communicative activity
communicative activities : functional communication activities / social interaction activities
New teaching points are introduced with dialogues, followed by controlled practise of the
main grammatical patterns. The teaching points are the contextualized through situational
practice.

IV- Criticism of CLT:

- It promotes fossilization.
- It reflects “native speakerism”
- It is not applicable in different cultures of learning.
- It reflects a western-based top-down approach to innovation