“Communicative language teaching.”

Name :- Neelamba. R. Sarvaiya.

Course no:- 12-A English language teaching.

M.A.Sem-3

Roll no:-19

Topic:- “Communicative language teaching.”

Year:- 2014-2015

Submitted to:-  Shree S.B.Gardi English Department,
                         M.K. Bhavnagar University,

Bhavnagar.

“COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING”:-

                      The origins of Communicative Language Teaching (CL T) are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s. In Situational Language Teaching, language was taught by practicing basic structures in meaningful situation-based activities.

                      This was partly a response to the sorts of ctiticisms the prominent American linguist Noam Chomsky had leveled at structural linguistic theory in his now classic book Syntactic Structures (1957). Chomsky had demonstrated that the current standard structural theories of language were incapable of accounting for the fundamental characteristic of language - the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences.

                         Another impends for different approaches of foreign language taching came from changing educational realities in Europe. With the increasing interdependence of European countries came the need for greater efforts to teach adults the major languages of the European Common Market and the Council of Europe, a regional organization for cultural and educational cooperation. Education was one of the Council of Europe's major areas of activity. It sponsored international conferences on language teaching, published monographs and books about language teaching, and was active in promoting the formation of the International Association of Applied Linguistics. The need to articulate and develop alternative methods of language teaching was considered a high priority

                      The work of the Council of Europe; the writings of Wilkins, Widdowson, Cand lin, Christopher Brumfit, Keith Johnson, and other British  applied linguists on the theoretical basis for a communicative or fun -ctional approa ch to language teaching; the rapid application of these ideas by textbook writers; and the equally rapid acceptance of these new principles by Ilritish language teaching specialists, curriculum  development centers, or simply communicative approach, or simply communicative language teaching. Although the movement began as a largely British innovation, focusing on alternative conceptions of a syllabus, since the mid- 1970s the scope of Communicative Language Teaching has expanded. Both American and British proponents now see it as an approach that aim to,

(a)  make communicati ve competence the goal of language teaching.

(b)  develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of

language and communication.

Its comprehensiveness thus makes it diffcrcnl in scope and status from any of the other approaches or methods discussed.

                      

                          Communicative Language Teaching means little more than an integration of grammatical and functional teaching. Littlewood states,

"One of the most characteristic features of communicative language

teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as

structural aspects of language."

For others, it means using procedures where lea rners work in pairs ot groups employi ng avail able language

resources in problem-solving tasks.

Ø  A national primary English syllabus based on a communicative approach.

For example,

              defines the focus of the syllabus as the

"communicative functions which the forms of the language serve"

The introduction to the same document comments that                                                                                     "communicative purposes

may be of many different kinds. What is essential in all of them

is that at least two parties are involved in an interaction or transaction

of some kind where one party has an intention and the other party

expands or reacts to the intention"

                          Communicative Language Toaching design alternatives, ranging from a model in which

communicative exercises are grafted onto an existing structural syllabus, to a learner-generated view of syllabus design.This is six communicative language teaching by Yalden(1983).

                          Howatt distingu ishes between a "strong" and a "weak" version of

Communicative Language Teaching:

                          

                          Common to all versions of Communicative Language Teaching, however, is a theory of language teaching that starts from a communicative model of language and language use, and that seeks to translate this into a design for an instructional system, for materials, for teacher and learner roles and behaviors, and for classroom activities and techniques.

APPROACH:-

Theory of language:-

                            

                              The communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymes (1972) referred to as "communicative competence.

                              Hymes coined this term in order to contrast a communicative view of language and Chomsky’s theory of competence Chomsky held that,

                               Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitation, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance.

      Hymes's view,

      a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language use with respect to

·         whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible

·         whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means

of implementation available.

·         whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate, adequate, happy,

successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated.

·         whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed,

and what its doing entails.

      This theory of what knowing a language entails offers a much more comprehensive view than Chomsky's view of competence, which deals primarily with abstract grammatical knowledge

     

Personal function

He described seven basic functions that language performths for children learning their first language.

 SHAPE  \* MERGEFORMAT

Instrumental function

Regulatory function

Heuristic function

Imagination function

Representation function

Interaction function

                   At the level of language theory, Communicative Language Teaching has a rich, if somewhat eclectic, theoretical base. Some of the characteristics of this communicative view of language follow.

1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning.

2. The primary function of language is for 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 as exemplified in discourse.

Theory of learning:-

                            Communicative language teaching literature about communicative dimensions of  language, little has been written about learning theory. Neither Brumfit and Johnson (1979) nor Littlewood  (1981 ), for example, offers any discussion of learning theory. Elements of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in some CL T practices,

      One such element might be described as the communication principle.

      A second element is the task principle: Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning.

      A third element is the meaningfulness principle: Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.

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

                            Other accounts of Communicative Language Teaching, however, have attempted to describe theories of language learning processes that are compatible with the communicative approach. Savignon (1983) surveys second language acquisition research as a source for learning theories and considers the role of linguistic, social, cognitive, and individual variables in language acquisition.

                            Acquisition refers to the unconscious development of the  target language system as a result of using the language for real communication.

Design:-

 Objectives:-

                          Piepho (1981) discusses the following levels of objectives in a communicative approach:

                  1. an integrati ve and content level (language as a means of expression)

                  2. a linguistic and instrumental level (language as a semiotic system and an object of learning);

                  3. an affective level of interpersonal relationsh ips and conduct (language as a means of exp ressing alues and judgments about oneself and others);

                 4. a level of individual learning needs (remedial learning based on error analysis);

                 5. a general educational level o f extra-linguistic goals (language learning within the school curriculum).

                          These are proposed as general objectives, applicable to any teaching situation. Particular objectives for CLT cannot be defined beyond this level of specification, since such an approach assumes that language teaching will reflect the particular needs of the target learners. These needs may be in the domains of reading, writing, listening, or speaking, each of which can be approached from a communicative perspective.

The syllabus:-

                       

               One of the first syllabus models to be proposed was described as a notional syllabus. whi ch specified the semantic-grammatical categories of communicative function that learners needs to express.

                             Discussion of syllabus theory and syllabus models in Communicative Language Teaching has been extensive. Some designs of communicative syllabuses have also looked to task specification and task organization as the appropriate criteria for  syllabus design.

Procudure:-

              

                  Because communicative principles can be applied to the teachin g of any

skill, at any level, and because of the wide variety of classroom activities and exercise  types discussed in the literature and communicative language teaching, description of typical classroom procedures used in a lesson based on CLT principles is not feasible.

                                 Such procedures clearly have much in common with those observed in classes taught according to Structural-situational  and Audio-lingual  principles. Traditional procedures are not rejected but are reinterpreted. A similar conservatism is found 111 many orthodox CLT Texts , such as Alexander's Mainline beginners (1978). Although each unit has an ostensibly functional focus, new teaching points are introduced with dialogues, followed by controlled practice of the main grammatical patterns. The teaching points are then contextualized through situational practice. This serves as an 1Otroductlon to a freer practice activity, such as a role play or improvisation. Similar technique used in another popular textbook, Starting Strategies (Abbs and Freebau~ 1977). Teaching points are introduced in dialogue form, grammatical items are isolated for controlled practice, and then freer activities are provided. Pair and group work is suggested to encourage students to ~se and practice functions and forms. The methodological procedures underlying these texts reflects a sequence of activities represented 10 Littlewood .

Pre communicative activities

            I.            Structural activities

         II.            Quasi-communicative activities.

 Communicative activities

       I.            Functional activities.

    II.            Social interaction activities.

Learners must first gain control over individual skills (pronunciation,. grammar, vocabulary) before applying them 10 communicative tasks, she advocates providing communicative practice from the start of instruction.

Conclusion:-

                          Communicative Language Teaching is best considered an approach rather than a method. It refers to a diverse set of principles that reflect a communicative view of language and language learning and that can be used to support a wide variety of classroom procedures. These principles include,

ü  Learners learn a language through  using it to communicate.

ü  Authentic and meaningful communication should be that goal of classroom activities.

ü  Fluency is on important dimension of communication.

ü  Communication involves the integration of different language skills.

ü  Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trials and errors.

    

            Today, Communicative language teaching they continues an its”classic” form, as is seen in the huge range of course books and other teaching resources based on the principles of CLT.

It has influenced many other language teaching approaches and methods that subscribe to a similar philosophy of language teaching.