Communicative Language Teaching

Chapter: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

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Key concept

1. An approach to language teaching
2. Emphasis on interaction
3. The study of “authentic texts” written in the Target Language (TL)
4. Use of the TL both in class and outside of class
5. Much more clinical method that depends on direct communication

Brief history

Noam Chomsky’s theory ‘communicative competence’ gave rise to CLT. The CLT was the product of the dissatisfaction of the educators and linguists for earlier GTM, SLT and ALM. It got developed especially by the British linguist Michael Halliday in 1970s as an approach to communicative language teaching based on interaction. To put it differently, is also a reactional process or style of TL teaching.

Objectives or goals

1. Developing oral or verbal skills prior to reading and writing
2. To face the changeable situations of real life
3. Discovering meaningful teaching ways about meaningful topics
4. Achieving perfect communicative competence

More Notes of ELT

Pillars of CLT

British linguist Michael Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) was one of the pillars of CLT. Halliday identifies seven functions that language has for children in their early years.

1. Instrumental: In this stage, children use language to express their needs. For example: water, want juice etc.
2. Regulatory: Children order others to do work in this stage such as ‘go away’.
3. Interactional: Here in stage, language is used to contact others and form relationships. As for example: Love you, mummy.
4. Personal: Personal stage of CLT focuses on expressing the feelings, opinions and individual identity. For an instance: Me good girl.
5. Heuristic: This stage is called knowledge gaining stage through observation and questioning. In that place: What are you doing?
6. Imaginative: Here in this stage, language is used to tell stories or jokes. To put it differently, it means creating imaginative environment.
7. Representational: Representational stage refers to convey facts and information.

Syllabus of CLT

British linguist D. A. Wilkins was the pioneer or proponent of the syllabus of CLT. According him, national functional syllabus must be the syllabus of CLT but there are other proposals too which are as follows:

1. Structures plus functions
2. Structural, functional and instrumental
3. Interactional
4. Task-based
5. Learner generated

Principles of The Communicative Approach:

1. Language learning is learning to communicate using the target language.
2. The language used to communicate must be appropriate to the situation, the roles of the speakers, the setting and the register. The learner needs to differentiate between a formal and an informal style.
3. Communicative activities are essential. Activities should be presented in a situation or context and have a communicative purpose. Typical activities of this approach are games, problem-solving tasks, and role-play. There should be information gap, choice and feedback involved in the activities.
4. Learners must have constant interaction with and exposure to the target language.
5. Development of the four macro skills — speaking, listening, reading and writing — is integrated from the beginning, since communication integrates the different skills.
6. The topics are selected and graded regarding age, needs, level, and students’ interest.
7. Motivation is central. Teachers should raise students’ interest from the beginning of the lesson.
8. The role of the teacher is that of a guide, a facilitator or an instructor.
9. Trial and error are considered part of the learning process.
10. Evaluation concerns not only the learners’ accuracy but also their fluency.

Main Features and Techniques:

1. Meaning is paramount.
2. Dialogues, if used, enter around communicative functions and are not normally memorized.
3. Contextualization is a basic premise. Meaning cannot be understood out of context. Teachers using this approach will present a grammar topic in a meaningful context.
4. Language learning is learning to communicate, and effective communication is sought.
5. Drilling may occur, but peripherally.
6. Comprehensible pronunciation is sought.
7. Translation may be used where students need or benefit from it.
8. Reading and writing can start from the first day.
9. Communicative competence is the desired goal.
10. Teachers help learners in any way that motivates them to work with the language.
11. Students are expected to interact with other people through pair and group work.

Classroom activities or teaching procedure

CLT teachers choose classroom activities based on what they believe is going to be most effective for students developing communicative abilities in the target language (TL). They promote collaboration, fluency, and comfort in the TL. The six activities listed and explained below are commonly used in CLT classrooms.

1. Role-play

Role-play is an oral activity usually done in pairs; whose main goal is to develop students’ communicative abilities in a certain setting.

2. Interviews

An interview is an oral activity done in pairs; whose main goal is to develop students’ interpersonal skills in the TL.

3. Group work

Group work is a collaborative activity whose purpose is to foster communication in the TL, in a larger group setting.

4. Information gap

Information gap is a collaborative activity, whose purpose is for students to effectively obtain information that was previously unknown to them, in the TL.

5. Opinion sharing

Opinion sharing is a content-based activity, whose purpose is to engage students’ conversational skills, while talking about something they care about.

6. Scavenger hunt

A scavenger hunt is a mingling activity that promotes open interaction between students.

Teachers role in CLT

Teachers have certain roles to play in CLT which are:

1. To facilitate communication for students
2. To play the role of an independent participant
3. Monitoring the class with attention and motivation
4. Talking less but to be listener mostly.
5. Maintaining appropriate classroom environment without being autocratic rather being process manager and counsellor.

Role of learners

As CLT is an approach based on interaction, the learners must perform the following duties in CLT class.

1. To be energetic participant
2. No to be showy using unusual and bombastic words while interaction in group and pair but to focus communicative skills in simple and general way
3. Following self-reliant process

Advantages and disadvantages of CLT

Advantages or benefits

1. Communicative approach is much more pupil-orientated, because it is based on pupils’ needs and interests.
2. Communicative approach seeks to personalize and localize language and adapt it to interests of pupils. Meaningful language is always more easily retained by learners.
3. Seeks to use authentic resources. And that is more interesting and motivating for children.
4. Children acquire grammar rules as a necessity to speak so is more proficient and efficient.

Disadvantages or limitations

1. It pays insufficient attention to the context in which teaching and learning take place.
2. The Communicative Approach often seems to be interpreted as: “if the teacher understands the student, we have good communication” but native speakers of the target language can have great difficulty understanding students.
3. Another disadvantage is that the CLT approach focuses on fluency but not accuracy. The approach does not focus on error reduction but instead creates a situation where learners are left using their own devices to solve their communication problems. Thus, they may produce incoherent, grammatically incorrect sentences.
4. CLT demands improved training for the teachers.
5. CLT also demands for small class that is absolutely impossible in developing countries.

There is nothing in the world that is over criticism and does not possess any limitation. CLT is no exception of this universal concept. But it is still popular approach rather than method for Target Language (TL) teaching and will remain effective and acclaimed even in the most developed stage of post method pedagogy.