Communicative Language Teaching in the 21st Century.pptx

Editor's Notes

• #3: The Communicative Approach emerged in the early 1970s as a result of the work of the Council of Europe experts. A group of experts saw the need to focus in communicative proficiency rather than mastery of structures. Advocates of CLT argued that communicative competence, and not simply grammatical competence, should be the goal of language teaching.
• #4: Wilkins's contribution was an analysis of the communicative meanings that a language learner needs to understand and express rather than describe the core of language through traditional concepts of grammar and vocabulary. The Communicative Language Teaching, also called the Notional or Functional Approach, is seen rather as an approach than a method in language teaching that aims to make the communicative competence the goal of language teaching.
• #5: The Communicative Approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication - ( assumption that structure follows function rather than the other way around) The goal of language teaching is what Hymes reffered to as “communicative competence.” • According to Hymes, a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both Knowledge and Ability for language use.
• #6: He has elaborated a powerful theory of the functions of language, which complements Hymes’s view of communicative competence for many writers on CLT. Another linguistic theory of CLT is the functional language use (Michael Halliday). The 7 basic functions that language performs are:
• #7: An approach based on the idea that learning language successfully comes through having to communicate real meaning. When learners are involved in real communication, their natural strategies for language acquisition will be used, and this will allow them to learn to use the language.
• #8: Communicative competence includes the following aspects of language knowledge: 1. 2. (e.g., knowing when to use formal and informal speech or when to use language appropriately for written as opposed to spoken communication) 3. (e.g., narratives, reports, interviews, conversations) 4. (e.g., through using different kinds of communication strategies)
• #17: 1. The implication is that the learner should contribute as much as he gains and learn in an interdependent way.
• #18: Teacher plays an important role in communicative approach. Teacher’s main task is to teach students how to communicate in English efficiently. The following are some of the roles: The role of the teacher in the language classroom is that of a facilitator, who creates a classroom climate conducive to language learning and provides opportunities for students to use and practice the language and to reflect on language use and language learning. ➢Needs analyst.(The teacher analyses the learners language needs in order to facilitate meaningful communication.)
• #19: It was argued that learners learn a language through the process of communicating in it, and that communication that is meaningful to the learner provides a better opportunity for learning than through a grammar-based approach. The over- arching principles of communicative language teaching methodology at this time can be summarized as follows:
• #20: In applying these principles in the classroom, new classroom techniques and activities were needed. Instead of making use of activities that demanded accurate repetition and memorization of sentences and grammatical patterns, activities that required learners to negotiate meaning and to interact meaningfully were required. Teacher motivates the students, monitors their performance, and encourages them to proceed with confidence. The teacher helps the groups identify their errors and rectify them themselves.
• #21: Teacher helps learners to produce similar utterances suitable to the situations on their own. The activities proceed from guided to free communicative activities.
• #23: Another useful distinction that some advocates of CLT proposed was the distinction between three different kinds of practice – mechanical, meaningful, and communicative
• #24: They are also given a list of prepositions such as across from, on the corner of, near, on, next to. They then have to answer questions such as “Where is the book shop? Where is the café?” etc. The practice is now meaningful because they have to respond according to the location of places on the map.
• #25: such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest café, etc. Exercise sequences in CLT take students from mechanical, to meaningful, to communicative practice.
• #27: Example: Students practice a role-play in pairs. One student is given the information she/he needs to play the part of a clerk in the railway station information booth and has information on train departures, prices etc. The other needs to obtain information on departure times, prices etc. They role play the interaction without looking at each other’s cue cards.
• #28: The teacher takes a narrative and divides it into twenty sections (or as many sections as there are students in the class). Each student gets one section of the story. Students must then move around the class, and by listening to each section read aloud, decide where in the story their section belongs. Eventually the students have to put the entire story together in the correct sequence.
• #36: Many proponents of CLT have advocated the use of “authentic,” “from life” materials in class.