The Communicative Approach

Origins of Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Is an English teaching approach created in the 60s 70s in Great Britain that makes use of real-life situations than necessitate communication. If students are involved in meaning-focused communicative tasks, then language learning will take care of itself (Allwright 1979, p.170)

Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Hymes (1972)

Theory

language

communication

(Linas Semistraitis (Vilnius Pedagogical University) Peculiarities of the Communicative Approach in Teaching English.

The communicative method

defines objectives

Why CLT is a good way to learn a language?

Language is interaction; it is an interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context, both its linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together to speak. (Berns 14, p.5)

Ventajas de la pantalla panormica

Communication can be divided into two categories:
Input Reading Listening
Communication involves the integration of different language skills

OUTPUT Speaking

Writing

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Language need not be laboriously monotonous and 'medium' orientated.

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

Communicative approach is not just limited to oral skills. Reading and writing skills need to be developed to promote pupils' confidence in all four skill areas

In the communication, the answer is unexpected and related to the questions only associatively. During a language lesson, such dialogues can reflect spontaneous situations.

Unlike the audio-lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise

Communicative Language Teaching characteristics:

1. Focuses on language as a medium of communication. 2. Classroom activities maximize opportunities for learners to use target language in a communicative way for meaningful activities. 3. CLT is much more pupil-orientated because dictated by pupils needs and interests. 4. Errors are a natural part of learning language process.

Communicative Language Teaching characteristics:

5. 6. 7. 8.

CLT is not just limited to oral skills. Grammar can still be taught, but less systematically. Important not to be restricted to textbook. Use of visual stimuli.

Activities in CLT typically involve students in real or realistic communication where the successful achievement of the communicative task they are performing is at least as important as they accuracy of their language use.

REALIA
Many proponents of Communicative Language Teaching have advocated the use of "authentic," "from-life" materials in the classroom. These might include language-based realia, such as signs, magazines, advertisements, and newspapers, or graphic and visual sources around which communicative activities can he built, such as maps, pictures, symbols, graphs, and charts. Different kinds of objects can be used to support communicative exercises, such as a plastic model to assemble from directions. (Rogers, w/d)

Role of the teacher in CLT



They become active facilitators of their students learning.

Teacher sometimes acting as referee or monitor.

Role of the learners in CLT



The student participation in classroom activities increase.

Students are more responsible managers of their own learning.

Role of instructional materials in CLT

A wide variety of materials have been used to support teaching. In CLT view materials is a way of influencing the quality of classroom interaction and language use. Materials thus have the primary role of promoting communicative language use. communicative approach to language

Conclusions
Communicative Language Teaching is best considered an approach rather than a method. CLT appealed to those who sought a more humanistic approach to teaching, one in which the interactive processes of communication received priority. The adoption of a communicative approach raises important issues for teacher training, materials development, and testing and evaluation. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain confidence in using the target language in general.

References
Harmer, Jeremy. (2008) The practice of English language teaching. England: Pearson Longman. Rogers, Carl. (w/d) Alternative Methods. Available in: http://www2.vobs.at/ludescher/Alternative/methods/alternative/methods.index.htm