The Communicative Language Teaching

1. The Communicative Language Teaching Lecture # 18

2. Review of the last lecture Total Physical Response Method: Total physical response (TPR) is a Language teaching methoddeveloped by James Asher, a professor emeritus of Psychology at San Jose State University. It is based on the coordination of language and physical movement. In TPR, instructors give commands to students in the target language, and students respond with whole-body actions. The method is an example of the comprehension approach  to language teaching. Listening serves two purposes; it is both a means of understanding messages in the language being learned, and a means of learning the structure of the language itself. Grammar is not taught explicitly, but is induced from the language input..

3. Language Teaching: CLT Communicative language teaching (CLT), or the communicative approach, is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study

4. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach This is a British Approach that followed Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching (simultaneous with Direct Method).

5. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach The decline of SLT – similar to Direct Method – was due to Chomsky’s influence. In Britain functional and communicative aspects gained prominence.

6. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach While in the U.S. innateness and Generativist of language were important (under Chomsky’s influence), in Britain communication was important. The innateness hypothesis is a linguistic theory of language acquisition  which holds that at least some linguistic knowledge exists in humans at birth

7. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach • Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping, meanings. • It is defined as a type of grammar which describes a language in terms of a set of logical rules formulated so as to be capable of generating the infinite number of possible sentences of that language and providing them with the correct structural description.

8. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach Many methods claim to be communicative. They also say that structure and vocabulary are important.

9. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach Communicative Approach: These are good but not enough. We can not get ready for communication if just vocabulary and structure are worked on.

10. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach Communication includes functions. Functions are what we do with the language: arguing, persuading, promising, rejection or accepting an invitation, …

11. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach All these functions happen inside a social context. Wilkin’s Functional Notional Approach formed the basis of Communicative Approach. In 1972, the British linguist D.A. Wilkins published a document that proposed a radical shift away from using the traditional concepts of grammar and vocabulary to describe language to an analysis of the communicative meanings that learners would need in order to express themselves and to understand effectively. This initial document was followed by his 1976 work Notional Syllabuses, which showed how language could be categorised on the basis of notions such as quantity, location and time, and functions such as making requests, making offers and apologising.

12. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach Functions are what we do with the language, but Notional categories are: time, sequence, quantity, location, frequency.

13. Functional Notional Approrach

14. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach Communicative Approach, Communicative Language Teaching, functional Approach and Notional Functional Approach have almost the same goals.

15. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach Knowledge of forms, meanings and functions can be positive if they help the learner in the process of meaning exchange.

16. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach There are two versions of Communicative Approach: 1. Weak Version (standard): the goal is to provide chances to use English for communication.

17. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach This is called ‘learning to use’ or ‘language for communication’. 2. Strong Version: language as communication – using language to learn.

18. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach The linguistic theory behind Communicative Approach is Dell Hymes’ communicative competence (1972). Communicative competence is a term coined by Dell Hymes in 1966 in reaction to Noam Chomsky’s (1965) notion of “linguistic competence”. Communicative competence is the intuitive functional knowledge and control of the principles of language usage. Hymes observes: “…a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others.”(Hymes 1972, 277)

19. Communicative language Teaching/ the Communicative approach He believed that Chomsky’s ‘linguistic competence’ was too limited. Linguistic competence doesn't justify social and functional rules of the language.

20. Language Teaching:CLT Hymes’ competence deals with both knowledge (usage) and use.

21. Summary • Communicative language teaching (CLT), or the communicative approach, is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study