Overview of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم College of Education for Girls Department of English Dr. Mohamed Younis Mohamed Applied Linguistics 1433-1434 H 5th Level

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), or Communicative Approach, is a cover term for a number of approaches that developed in the 1970s in critical reaction to audio-lingual teaching methods and their unsatisfactory results which over-focused on teaching grammatical structures and template sentences, and which gave little or no importance to how language is actually used practically. This broad approach rapidly became, and still remains, the dominant orthodoxy in language teaching and other applied linguistic areas too. The focus of CLT was primarily and necessarily social, concerned with the goal of successful communication.

Essentially, CLT is a shift of attention from the language system as end in itself to the successful use of that system in context; that is to say from an emphasis on form to an emphasis on communication. Language learning success is to be assessed neither in terms of accurate grammar and pronunciation for their own sake, nor in terms of explicit knowledge of the rules, but by the ability to do things with the language, appropriately, fluently, and effectively. Consequently, communicative pedagogy shifted its attention from the teaching and practice of grammar and pronunciation rules, and the learning of vocabulary lists, to communicative activities.

Through communicative activities, the communicative approach emphasizes the ability to communicate the message in terms of its meaning, instead of concentrating exclusively on grammatical perfection or phonetics. Therefore, the understanding of the second language is evaluated in terms of how much the learners have developed their communicative abilities and competencies. These communicative activities should be based on learners required language. Therefore, Teachers and materials designers were urged to identify things learners need to do with the language( i.e. conduct a Needs Analysis).

This shift has had far-reaching consequences at both the macro level of syllabus and curriculum design and at the micro level of classroom activity. In the former, there has been the development of English for Specific Purposes(ESP), in which the language is needed for particular jobs/fields of study(EOP,EAP); in the latter, there has been the development of Task-Based Instruction(TBI), in which learning is organized around tasks related to real-worldactivities, focussing the student’s attention upon meaning and upon successful task completion. The CLTmethod has various characteristicsthat distinguish it from previous methods. They are

1.Understanding occurs through active student interaction in the foreign language; 2.Teaching occurs by using authentic English texts; 3.Students not only learn the second language but they also learn strategies for understanding; 4.Importance is given to learners' personal experiences and situations, which are considered as an invaluable contribution to the content of the lessons; 5.Using the new language in unrehearsed contexts creates learning opportunities outside the classroom; 6.Viewing fluency and accuracy as complementary principles underpinning communicative techniques;

7.Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Students' motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics. 8.Fromfunctionalviewpoint, the organisation of the syllabus breaks down the use of language into 5 functional categories that can be more easily analyzed: (a) personal (feelings, etc.), (b)interpersonal (social and working relationships), (c) directive(influencing

(influencing others),(d) referential (reporting about things, events, people or language itself ), and (e) imaginative (creativity and artistic expression). These 5 broad functions are then delivered by the teacher in the classroom using the '3Ps' teaching model, which stand for Presentation, Practice and Production. These characteristics are based on theview that "language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light , language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context, both its linguistic context and its social, or situational, context.

An example of communicative exercise The following exercise is taken from a 1987 workshop on communicative foreign language teaching, given for Delaware language teachers by Karen Willetts and Lynn Thompson of the Center for Applied Linguistics. The exercise, called "Eavesdropping," is aimed at advanced students. Instructions to students: Listen to a conversation somewhere in a public place and be prepared to answer, in the target language, some general questions about what was said.

1.Who was talking?2.About how old were they? 3.Where were they when you eavesdropped? 4.What were they talking about? 5.What did they say? 6.Did they become aware that you were listening to them? The exercise puts students in a real-worldlisteningsituation where they must report information overheard. Most likely they have an opinion of the topic, and a class discussion could follow, in the target language, about their experiences and viewpoints. Communicative exercises such as this motivate the students by treating topics of their choice, at an appropriately challenging level.

The roles of the teacher and student in CLT Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less and listening more to their students. They will become active facilitators of their students' learning. He sets up the exercise, but because the students' performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and observe, sometimes acting as referee or monitor. It was argued that language is best handled all at once , as it would be in the real world, as this is the learner’s ultimate goal. However, a classroom during a communicative activity is farfromquiet.

The students do most of the speaking, and frequently the scene of a classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with students leaving their seats to complete a task. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain confidence in using the target language in general. Students are more responsible managers of their own learning. Criticism of CLT

Criticism of CLT A major criticism of CLT is that of a clash of theory and practice. Theoretically all learners should learn to say and do what they personally want to do (the priority must be given to the learners’ speech intensions), but practically the syllabus mostly prescribes the lexical and grammatical items which they have to learn at a given stage of the course. This leads to difficult problems in classes in which all learners, education authorities insist, should learn ‘the same things at the same time’. That leaves little room for individualized learning processes because the syllabus and textbook prescribe which forms must be learnt when.

Correspondingly the learners are constantly called upon to imagine and pretend that they are in a situation in which they want to say what the textbook prescribes they have to say. Critics also point to the danger that learners may be tempted to simply memorize certain phrases which prove to be useful in recurring communicative situations without, however, learning to creatively construct new grammatical forms that might serve their speech intentions better.

Overview of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)