What Is Communicative Language Teaching?

1. It consists of the teaching of the English language and the development of procedures to teach the four language skills, which include listening, speaking, reading and writing.

1.1. ORIGIN

1.2. 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 (and not a method) that aims to: make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and develop procedures for teaching the four language skills that recognize interdependence. of language and communication.

1.3. ATTACHED

1.4. Often, the communicative approach is deemed a success if the teacher understands the student. But, if the teacher is from the same region as the student, the teacher will understand errors resulting from an influence from their first language. Native speakers of the target language may still have difficulty understanding them. This observation may call for new thinking on and adaptation of the communicative approach. The adapted communicative approach should be a simulation where the teacher pretends to understand only what any regular speaker of the target language would and reacts accordingly

2. Some characteristics of the communicative method:

2.1. It emphasizes communication in the foreign language through interaction.

2.2. Introduce real texts in the learning situation.

2.3. It offers students opportunities to think about the learning process and not just about the language.

2.4. It gives importance to the personal experiences of the students as elements that contribute to the learning of the classroom.

2.5. Try to relate the language learned in the classroom with activities carried out outside of it.

3. To ensure real communication, tasks are governed by these three principles:

3.1. Information gap: Between the interlocutors there is a real need for communication, since each one has to find out something that only his partner knows, and if he does not find out, he will not be able to carry out his own task.

3.2. Freedom of expression: The speaker decides the content (what he is going to say), the form (how he is going to say it), the tone, the moment, etc.

3.3. Feedback: The verbal and non-verbal reactions of the interlocutor tell the student to what extent he is reaching his goal in the conversation.

4. The communicative approach based on some principles

4.1. 1. The focus must be meaning-centered and meaningful to the learner 2. Controlled practice activities should be included 3. The approach must contain an explicit initial input component 4. Attention must be paid to the formal aspects of the second language: an optimal balance must be reached between activities focused on meaning and activities focused on form. 5. Formulaic sequences must be practiced and recycled intensively 6. The student should be exposed to large amounts of input through pre-task activities. 7. Opportunities should be offered to participate in genuine second language interactions, always focused on some specific formal or functional aspect.

5. ADVANTAGES

5.1. Communicative approach is much more pupil-orientated, because it is based on pupils’ needs and interests.

5.2. Communicative approach seeks to personalise and localise language and adapt it to interests of pupils. Meaningful language is always more easily retained by learners.

5.3. Seeks to use authentic resources. And that is more interesting and motivating for children.

5.4. Children acquire grammar rules as a necessity to speak so is more proficient and efficient.

5.5. DISADVANTAGES

5.6. It pays insufficient attention to the context in which teaching and learning take place

5.7. 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.

5.8. 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.