The Communicative

Approach

Presented at Teacher Training

Bekasi. February 20, 2015

What Is Communicative Language

Teaching (CLT)?

It is a set of principles about the goals of

language teaching,

How learners learn a language, the kinds of

classroom activities that best facilitate learning,

The roles of teachers and learners in the

classroom.

What is the communicative

approach?

Language is communication.

The final aim of CLT is

communicative competence.

Four competence areas:

Linguistic competence: knowing how to use the

grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of a language.

Sociolinguistic competence: knowing how to use

language appropriately, given the setting, the topic, and

the relationships among interlocutors.

Discourse competence: knowing how to interpret the

larger context and how to construct longer stretches of

language so that the parts make up a coherent whole.

Strategic competence: knowing how repair

communication breakdowns, work around gaps in one’s

knowledge of the language, and learn more about the

language and in the context.

Communicative Approach

Principles :

Learners learn through using it to communicate

Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities

Fluency is an important dimension of communication

Communication involves the integration of different language skills

Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error

Teacher’s role The teacher has two main roles:

To facilitate the communication process in the classroom

To act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group

The teacher is also expected to act as a resource, an organizer of resources, a motivator, a counselor, a guide, an analyst and a researcher.

There are many other minor roles of a teacher, some of these would include being an actor and an entertainer.

After all, a good lesson must be interesting or the students will ‘switch off’ and learn nothing.

Learners had to …

participate in classroom activities that were based on a

cooperative approach to learning

become comfortable with listening to their peers in

group work or pair work tasks, rather than relying on the

teacher for a model

expected to take on a greater degree of responsibility for

their own learning.

In practical terms, what does

that mean?

We need to concentrate on the following:

Teacher – Student activities

Activities

Materials

Teacher-Student Interaction Since communicative competence is our aim, it is essential

that students be given every opportunity to practice communicating. In the communicative classroom teacher talking time (TTT) must be kept to a minimum. This is not to say that the teacher shouldn’t speak at all, but TTT should be controlled and appropriated.

The classroom should be learner centered.

The teacher’s role is to facilitate student communication which is done through careful selection of materials and activities relevant to the aims of the lesson in which they are used.

Communication can be divided

into two categories

Input (receptive)

Output (productive)

The four communicative skills

can be put into these

categories

OUTPUT

Speaking

Writing

Input

Reading

Listening

Whichever of these skills is being taught

the main focus must be on the student

and not on the teacher.

The interaction should usually be the

student to student and should include the

teacher only where necessary.

During most classroom activities the

teacher will monitor and intervene only

where necessary.

A Model for Part of A Communicative

Lesson Presentation – Practice -

Production Stage 1

Teacher (T) gives a short presentation of a grammar or vocabulary point. T then gives students (Ss) opportunity to practise the point in a controlled exercise. (Interaction: T›Ss)

Stage 2

Ss carry out the controlled exercise while T monitors and intervenes where appropriate. (Interaction: S‹›S)

Stage 3

The Ss are asked to take part in an activity designed to get them to produce the vocabulary and grammar they have been taught. T monitors and notes errors and interesting points. T intervenes only when asked or when absolutely necessary. (Interaction: S‹›S)

Stage 4

Feedback session, in which T feeds back in a non-threatening way the errors s/he noted during the activity. Ss also have the opportunity to clear up puzzling points. (Interaction: T‹›Ss)

There are many different types of activities. They

provide speaking, listening, writing and reading

practice as well as aiding production.

A few ideas for activity

types

Games Role-plays Simulations Information Gaps

ACCURACY vs FLUENCY

Exercises

Discrete

Form

Predictible

Close-ended

Contrived

Correctness

Full-class work

Open-pair work

* Tasks

* Integrative

* Meaning

* Unpredictible

* Open-ended

* Realistic / Life-like

* Message

* Closed-pair work

* Group work

The characters of fluency-oriented

activities… Students put their hands up to speak

Students speak without putting their hands up

Students’ utterances are single sentences addressed to the teacher

Students use paraphrase or other communication strategies

Students make comments on other students’ contributions

The teacher uses prompts (suggests ideas)

The teacher uses clues (for guided responses)

The teacher asks for alternative answers

A student is asked to repeat another student’ response

students’ remarks are addressed to their peers

The characteristics of accuracy-

oriented activities…

requests / enquiries from students

correction and discussion of written answers to comprehension

question tasks

Practice in full class of new structures, functions and lexis

Oral answers to inferential comprehension questions

Closed pair-work activities with an information-gap

Open pair-work in full class

Oral answers to comprehension questions of a literal type

Memorization and recitation of dialogs

Reading isolated sentences aloud

Some recomendations… Teachers were recommended to use a

balance of fluency activities and accuracy

Accuracy work could either come before or

after fluency work.

While dialogs, grammar, and pronunciation

drills now appeared as part of a sequence of

activities that moved back and forth between

accuracy activities and fluency activities

Pre-communicative VS Communicative activities

* Structural activities, functional communication

activities, quasi - communicative activities, social

interactional activities, and functional communication

activities require students to use their language

resources to overcome an information gap or solve a

problem.

* Social interactional activities require the learner to

pay attention to the context and the roles of the

people involved, and to attend to such things as formal

versus informal language.

Information-Gap Activities

More authentic communication is likely to occur

in the classroom if students go beyond practice of

language forms for their own sake and use their

linguistic and communicative resources in

order to obtain information. In so doing, they will

draw available vocabulary, grammar, and

communication strategies to complete a task.

Jigsaw Activities

These are also based on the information-

gap principle. Typically, the class is divided into

groups and each group has part of the

information needed to complete an activity. The

class must fit the pieces together to complete

the whole. In so doing, they use their language

resources to communicate meaningfully and

part in meaningful communication practice.

Other Activity Types in CLT

Many other activity types have been used in

CLT, including the following:

Task-completion activities: puzzles, games, map-reading, and

other kinds of classroom tasks in which the focus is on using

one’s language resources to complete a task.

Information-gathering activities: student-conducted

surveys, interviews, and searches in which students are

required to use their linguistic resources to collect

information.

Opinion-sharing activities: activities in which students compare values, opinions, or beliefs.

Information-transfer activities: These require learners to take information that is presented in one form, and represent it in a different form.

Role plays: activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a scene or exchange based on given information or clues.

Where do I find activities?

They can be found in books containing supplementary material such as the Reward Resource Packs.

Many teachers enjoy creating their own activities, which can be tailored specifically to their classes needs.

Activities used in the classroom must be selected carefully as if they are above the level of the students they can destroy self-confidence and if below they can bore the students.

Activities usually involve the students working together either in pairs or in small groups.

Materials

Materials fall into three broad categories:

text-based,

task-based

realia.

They can be used as the basis for classroom

activities. Once again not only must the activity

be appropriate to the level of the students but

the materials used must be appropriate too.

Text-based materials

For example practice exercises, reading

passages, gap fills, recordings, etc. can be

found in almost any course book as well

as in books containing supplementary

materials. They form an essential part of

most lessons.

Task-based materials

These include game boards, roleplay

cards, materials for drilling, pairwork

tasks, etc.

They might be used to support 'real life'

tasks such as role playing booking into a

hotel, or a job interview.

Realia This includes such things as magazines, newspapers, fruit

and vegetables, axes, maps - things from the real world outside the classroom.

They can be used in many activities.

For example, fruit and vegetables could be used in a shopping activity, an axe could be used to show the effect of using the present perfect continuous on a short action verb.

So what does the communicative

approach mean in practical terms? We should now understand that the teacher's job is to

get their students to communicate using real language by providing them with instruction, practice, and above all opportunities to produce English in activities which encourage acquisition and fluency.

CLT should be fun for both teacher and students.

Enabling students to communicate successfully is also

very rewarding.

In Conclusion