Criticism against the Communicative Language Teaching Approach

In the 1970s and 80s several alternatives to language teaching emerged and
communicative methodologies were the most popular ones. One of these methodologies
was the Communicative Language Teaching approach, also known as CLT.
The CLT is based on the idea that the main function of language use is
communication and its goal is to be able to make use of real-life situations (Brandl,
2007). This means that students learn how to communicate by being exposed to certain
situations that they may find in their daily routine such as inviting somebody to have
dinner, asking for information, shopping and so on.
Jeremy Harmer talked about two aspects for this methodology: the what to
teach and the how to teach. He (p. 84, 2001) states that the first aspect of the
Communicative approach stressed the significance of language functions rather than
focusing solely on grammar and vocabulary.
On the other hand, the second aspect is related to the idea that language learning
will take care of itself, and that plentiful exposure to language in use and plenty of
opportunities to use it are vitally important for a students development of knowledge
and skill (Harmer, p. 85, 2001).
Therefore, this shows one negative aspect which is the fact that grammar and
vocabulary are left aside with the purpose of achieving fluency instead of accuracy.
As the main goal is to communicate, sometimes this methodology does not pay
attention to a right use of the language because what really matters is that students
manage to say something to communicate with others.
However, if we have all students in a classroom that achieve fluency but not
accuracy, they will have problems in the future because they will have a lack of
confidence in grammar and vocabulary. Besides, if they always interact with the same
peers, they will not be able to learn from their mistakes and their peers can also copy
these mistakes leading to misunderstandings inside and outside the classroom.
On the other hand, we as teachers may encounter students that may not be so
outgoing and confident to speak fluently. Some students may have problems in social
interaction and feel anxious because they are too shy to speak in public so they may
have a difficult time in class.
Furthermore,

Richards

(2006)

states

that

some

other

principles

of

communicative language teaching are that it provides opportunities for learners to

experiment and try out what they know, is tolerant of learners errors as they indicate
that the learner is building up his or her communicative competence, and let students
induce or discover grammar rules.
Nevertheless, in this approach teachers should provide materials and some
phrases that students use to communicate in certain situations but if learners come
across with a different moment in life they are not used to, they will not know what to
say so they will be completely lost.
It shows that although students become fluent enough to communicate no matter
the mistakes they make, they are used to speak following a pattern but not thinking
about what they want to say, because they do not have neither a clear grammatical
competence fixed in their brains nor a wide range of vocabulary to employ and being
able to improvise at any moment. Hence, every time students need to say something
different they may need to ask their teachers depending on them to produce language.
Also, as this approach is tolerant of learners errors, learners are making
mistakes without realising about that so they may think they are doing well when they
speak but indeed, they are producing the language badly. It provokes that they do not
learn from their mistakes and keep using the same structures.
This may be due to the fact that students may be autodidactic at some point since
learners have to discover grammar and vocabulary by themselves so giving them the
autonomy to do things by themselves can be a double edge sword. They must be
independent but we may find either curious and intelligent learners that work hard or
others that have a hard time since they are not so skilful and depend on the teacher.
Moreover, it leads to another point which is the idea that this approach could not
be used for young learners since they first need to know some aspects of grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation and so on. As a result, it will be used for teenagers, adults or
people with a good command of the target language.
Another important feature of this approach is that students should be exposed as
much as possible to the target language so Richards (2006) claims that the input
provided needs to be as rich as possible. This input may come from the teacher,
multimedia resources or other authentic language discourses.
Therefore, CLT favours native teachers as a source of more authentic material to
create this rich input in a classroom.
As a conclusion, although Communicative Language Teaching approach
emerged as a new way of teaching a second language by means of communicative

strategies based on fluency and exposure to the language focusing on functions, it needs
some improvements.
This approach needs to polish some problematic areas such as the loss among
students in accuracy in the pursuit of fluency, the lack of feedback provided, the
adjustment to all kinds of learners, and the availability of structures that learners have to
use in each real-life talk exchanges.
RESOURCES:
Harmer, J (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching. 3th ed. Harlow:
Pearson-Longman. Retrieved from:
http://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?
id=53c8bdf6d4c1185f198b45b9&key=b79a1a24-bc57-440a-9c0538287944ba81&assetKey=AS%3A273601113067522%401442242996719.
Richards, J. (2006). Communicative Language Teaching Today. CUP. Retrieved
from:

http://www.cambridge.org/elt/teacher-support/pdf/Richards-Communicative-

Language.pdf.

Ana Mara Collado Lpez