Communicative Approach in Teaching Foreign Languages

Бюллетень науки и практики / Bulletin of Science and Practice

UDC 372.881.111.1                                   

When we talk about “communicative competence”, we have to come to “communicative approach”. From the ancient times to the present, the foreign language teaching theories and approaches have always been in evolution, struggle and development in these two concepts of “language knowledge” and skills in the history of foreign language teaching approaches, people have experienced “grammar translation approach”, “direct approach” and “audio lingual approach”, after these teaching approaches, “communicative approach” stems from the late 60s of 20th century.

With the development of functional linguistics, “communicative approach” receives teachers and students’ favor. However, there are some dilemmas in current language teaching: some teachers always stress “communicative competence” and neglect “linguistic competence”. Teachers and students are always in search for fluent oral expression, but reading and written language is weak. Meanwhile, students often make errors in oral and written expression and lack basic knowledge of language. Obviously, this is the result of a one-sided understanding of communicative approach, so that foreign language teaching goes to an extreme. Therefore, we should have a comprehensive and all-sided understanding of the following theory of communicative approach. The communicative approach is a philosophy which encourages students to see themselves as multidimensional entities and as active participants in the learning process not merely passive recipients of knowledge. Thus, whole classes such as choral reading or Chamber Theater techniques which are but strategies enhancing reading skills and direct forms of communicative approach are presented to the class with the end view of encouraging reading habits to which common grouping can mean addressing the problem of common skills need and common interests. Linguists distinguish between a strong and a weak versions of communicative language teaching: There is, in a sense, a strong version of the communicative approach and a weak version. The weak version which has become more or less standard practice in the last ten years stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use their English for communicative purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities into a wider program of language teaching.

The strong version of communicative teaching, on the other hand, advances the claim that language is acquired through communication, so that it is not merely a question of activating an existing but inert knowledge of the language, but of simulating the development of the language system itself. If the former could be described as learning to use English, the latter entails using English to learn it.

In the communicative approach, language learning is seen primarily as learning to communicate; and the goal of the approach is the acquisition of communicative competence, which enables second language learners to use the target language for communication effectively and appropriately. This approach also argues that the target linguistic system will be learned best through the process of struggling to communicate and learners are expected to learn the target language through interaction with other people. CLT stresses the need to allow students opportunities for authentic and creative use of the language. It focuses on meaning rather than form; it suggests that learning should be relevant to the needs of the students; it advocates task-based language teaching. Students should be given tasks to perform or problems to solve in the classroom. What’s more, CLT emphasizes a functional approach to language learning (i. e. what people do with language, such as inviting, apologizing, greeting and introducing, etc.). Also, to be competent in the target language, learners should acquire not only linguistic knowledge, but also the cultural background of that language.

Richards and Rogers address the issue, saying that in practice there are some elements to be taken into account: the communicational principle (i. e. activities that involve real communication promote learning), the task principle (i. e. activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning) and the meaningfulness principle (i. e. language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process). Principles are following:

• 1.    Teaching is learner-centered and responsive to the students’ need and interests.

• 2.    The target language is acquired through interactive communicative use that encourages the negotiations of meaning.

• 3.    Genuinely meaningful language use is emphasized, along with unpredictability, risk-taking, and choice-making.

• 4.    The formal properties of language are never treated in isolation from use language forms are always addressed within a communicative context.

• 5.    There is exposure to examples of authentic language from the target language community.

• 6.    The students are encouraged to discover the forms and structures of language for themselves.

• 7.    There is a whole-language approach in which the four traditional language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) are integrated.

Your approach as a language teacher is a set of principles about learning and teaching on which you depend to form the way you operate as a teacher. It is not a permanent state, indeed, the good teacher knows that there is no perfect set of principles and that one’s approach can change drastically over the course of a career.

Do you already have your own approach? To find out, consider these options, using your own assumptions about teaching:

• 1.    Language classes should focus on:

• a)    meaning

• b)    grammar

• 2.    Students learn best by using plenty of:

• a)    analysis

• b)    intuition

• 3.    It is better for a student to:

• a)    think directly L2

• b)    use translation from L1

• 4.    Language learns need:

• a)    immediate rewards

• b)    long-term award

• 5.    With new language learns teachers need to be:

• a)    tough and demanding

• b)    gentle and empathetic

• 6.    A teacher’s feedback to the student should be given

• a)    frequently

• b)    infrequently (to develop student autonomy)

• 7.    A communicative class should give special attention to:

• a)    accuracy

• b)    fluency

Your choices above constitute an approach. Can you say that you have always felt this way about these options?

Language teaching is hundreds of years old, and the communicative approach is a very recent phenomenon. In fact, the communicative approach did not emerge as the most widely accepted form of language instruction until the late 1980s and early 1990s. So, here are a set of defining characteristics

Communicative Approach:

• 1.    Classroom goals combine the organizational aspects of language with the pragmatic.

• 2.    Classroom techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes. Teaching grammar enables only the learner to accomplish those purposes.

• 3.    Fluency and accuracy work together and are seen as equal in value.

• 4.    Students are expected to have to use the language fully in unrehearsed situations outside the classroom.

• 5.    Students are encouraged to explore and exploit their own learning styles.

• 6.    The teacher is a guide, not a sage.

Things to keep in mind before adopting this approach as your own

Beware of claiming to love the approach without actually examining your methods to make sure they fit. It is of supreme importance to make your classroom techniques are in harmony with your intellectual principles.

Remember that it is a big term. Most people who claim to believe in it have very different approaches than one another. There are many different ways to interpret the approach.

Different aspects of the communicative approach:

Learner-centered instruction: As opposed to teacher centered, it assumes the student is the most importance person in the class. Thus, it assumes:

• a.    learner needs, styles and goals must be considered

• b.    students need some control over the lesson (group- or pair-work)

• c.    course design is not pre-set, but takes the learners into consideration

Cooperative and collaborative learning: This is opposed to a competitive classroom, where students work against each other to achieve a goal.

• a.    To cooperate, students work together to share their ideas and experiences in order to further each other’s and their own language skills

• b.    With collaboration, students work with a more capable assistant (the teacher, for example) to achieve a goal.

Interactive learning: Because communication is interactive, so then must be language instruction. This means that we both listen and speak when we communicate, and that both affect each other. Thus, we should prepare our students to be able to engage in negotiation of meaning with another person in a series of gives and takes in the real world. In interactive lessons:

• a.    There is a good deal of pair- and group-work

• b.    Language input is in a real-world context

• c.    Language production is intended to have genuine meaning

• d.    Classroom tasks are intended to prepare the student for communication in the real world

• e.    Activities encourage spontaneous give-and-take situations

• f.    Writing is designed for a specific audience

Whole language education: An overused term, this basically assumes that language instruction should focus on all aspects of language use in the real word, from reading and writing to listening and speaking, with a unifying theme that language is social. Important to remember these:

• a.    Research has shown that learners acquire sentences, intonation patterns and emotions in a language before they learn the individual parts. Thus, a language cannot be the sum of its individual parts. Teachers must approach it from the top down, not only from the bottom up.

• b.    Because we use language to construct meaning and to define reality, language as a whole is a tool to help people to understand the society in which they live. With this, they have more power over their place in society and can better control their destiny.

Content-based instruction: This is the study of content at the same time as the study of language. For example, students can learn about a topic that is important to them while they develop their language skills. This is beneficial because:

• a.    It allows the students intrinsic motivation to learn something meaningful in the L2.

• b.    It removes the traditional wall that has been built between the learning of a language and the learning of useful information.

• c.    Students can look beyond grades and tests and focus their language learning on the acquisition of knowledge.

Task-based instruction: This is a method of instruction that provides for students to problem-solve, write and perform role-plays or come to an agreed conclusion alone, in groups or pairs with the goal always being meaningful communication.

They are:

• a.    based on real-world problems and issues

• b.    contributes to overall communicative goals

• c.    designed to meet specific pre-set goals by the teacher.