Transcript Communicative Language Teaching

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE
TEACHING
By Alia Alhassan
2lteachers represent language skills as follows
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Communication =language skills
Speaking
Writing
active =productive
Reading
Listening
passive =receptive
 The four skills of language are necessary in
both written and oral communication
definition
 Elaboration and implementation of curricula
and methodologies that promote the
development of functional language ability
through
learner
participation
in
communicative events in classroom learning
,and teaching practice in terms of social
interaction
 Looking at language in context ,analysis of
learner’s expression and negotiation .CLT
puts the focus on learners
The beginning of CLT
 In Europe(1970s) : the language
needs of
group of immigrants and guest workers . A
rich linguistic tradition ,led to the council of
Europe development of a syllabus for
learner’s based on functional –notional
concepts of language use .the language for
specific purposes (LSP)movement was
established
In Germany
 Communicative classroom language learning has
emerged
 Langauge teaching methodologist Candlin,Edelhoff
and Piepho took the lead in the development of
classroom materials that encouraged learner choice
and increasing autonomy ,their exercises type for
communicatively oriented English teaching were
used in teacher in –service courses and workshops to
guide curriculum change .Exercises were designed to
exploit the variety of social meanings within
particular grammatical structure
U.S.A
 Hymes
(1971): had reacted to Chomsky’s
characterization of the the linguistic competence
(the observance of sociolinguistics norms of
appropriacy).His focus was not language learning
but language as a social behaviour
 US methodologist tend to focus on native speakers
cultural norms and the difficulty of representing
them in a classroom of non-native speakers .They
were aiming at involving learners in the experience
of communication ,participating in the negotiation
of meaning ,and the use of games ,role play , pair
and group activities
Is grammar important in CLT?
 Canale and Swain (1980):they suggested that
grammar is important ,they sought rather to
situate grammatical competence within more
broadly defined communicative competence
 Savignon (1970) he did not suggest that teachers
forsake the teaching of grammar ,rather ,the
replacement of language laboratory ,structure
drills with meaning –focused .self expression
found to be the more effective way to develop
communicative ability with no loss of
morphosyntactic accuracy
 Research has shown that the combination of
form-focused and meaning –focused
classroom activity depends on the learner’s
age ,nature and length of instructional
sequence ,opportunities for language contact
outside the classroom
Implication for existing
programs
 Teacher’s
assessment
of
learner’s
achievement : most US educators and
language program feel frustration at the
domination of curricula by multiple choice
test ,that put teachers on pressure to make
their students do well in such tests ,often
devote the class time to teaching test –taking
skills about writing rather than allowing them
practice in writing .
 Teachers feel frustration at the seeming
ambiguity in discussions of communicative
ability .Negotiation of meaning is well and
good but this lacks precision and doesn't
provide a universal scale for assessment
Promising avenues
 Sociolinguistic
of inquiry
inquiry: the relationship
between language and speech community
 It concerns with identity and motivation to
explain the construction by bilinguals ,it
may include the previous
systems of
phonology
,syntax
,discourse
,communication strategies
and it is
important in understanding the implications
of norms ,appropriacy ,and variability of CLT
Classroom inquiry
 Classroom has started to be major interest of
second language acquisition . The year 1988
alone saw the publication of al least five
books on topic of classroom language
learning
Foreign language teacher talk
 Study of Foreign language teacher talk was
conducted by Guthrie (1989) ,he found that
persistent meaning focus confusion even when
teachers felt they were providing optimal
classroom environment by speaking only in the
language being learned . Transcriptions of
teacher –learner revealed incoherent discourse
 Study by Nunan (1987) ,concluded that patterns
of classroom interaction provide little genuine
communication between teacher and learner or
between
learner
and
learner
.
Learner –learner talk
 Study by Kinginger (1990): he has examined
the nature of learner –learner talk associated
by task types like small group or pair work
 Data has showed that when learners are
constrained by formal considerations or
provided with a structure –embedded text as
a basis of conversation ,their talk had many
of the same characteristics as form-focused
teacher talk .
Questions
 1- what are the language skills that are
important in communication ?
 2- what do linguists mean by communicative
competence ?
 3-what are the reasons that led to
communicative language learning ?