Communicative language teaching (CLT)

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is generally regarded as an approach to language teaching (Richards and Rodgers 2001). It is based on the theory that the primary function of language use is communication. Its primary goal is for learners to develop communicative competence, or simply put communicative ability. In other words, its goal is to make use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. The communicative method was approved in language teaching under the influence of British applied linguists (such as John Firth, M.A.K. Halliday, who stressed the functional and communicative potential of language), sociolinguistics works (Dell Hyms, and W.Labov) and some philosophy work (J. Austin and J. Searle). It saw the need to focus on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastering of structures.

The communicative teaching method aims to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching, and develops procedures for teaching the four skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication. It encourages activities that involve real communication and carry out meaningful tasks. It believes that language is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process. Language learners are expected to be negotiators, teachers to be an organizer, a guide, an analyst, a counselor, or a group process manager.

It is no doubt that the communicative method developed quite fast, it dominates language teaching in many countries because it not only makes language learning more interesting, but helps learners develop linguistic competence as well as communicative competence. However, problems also arose in the initial wave enthusiasm about it. For example, Can this method be applied at all levels in ESP teaching? How such an approach can be evaluated? How suitable it is for non-native teachers? How it can be adopted in situations where students must continue to take grammar-base tests? Of course, these issues will help us have a better application of the communicative method.

The purpose of mine is to provide the overview to Communicative Language Teaching and furthermore describe general methodological principles that function as theoretical and practical guidelines when implementing CLT methodologies. So the main features of Communicative Approach are the followings:

• •    Communicative intent

• •    The use of authentic materials

• •    Activities are often carried out

Communicative approach could not be better motivated, its goal is to motivate learners to learn a foreign language by means of accumulation and enhance their knowledge and experience. Irradiated must be prepared to use the language for real communication outside the classroom, for example, during a visit to the country the language spoken, during the reception of foreign guests at home, in the correspondence, the exchange of audio and video cassettes, the results of the job and with schools and friends in the target language country.

The term communicative is not limited to the establishment by a speech of social contacts, to mastering the language of the tourist. This communion of the individual to the spiritual values of other cultures - through personal contact and by reading. This approach attracts learners by focusing on topics of interest to them and giving them a choice of texts and tasks to achieve the objectives of the program. Communicative ability of students developed through their involvement in a wide range of meaningful, realistic, meaningful and achievable targets, the successful completion of which brings satisfaction and increase their self-confidence. Communicative language teaching emphasizes the importance of developing students' ability and desire to accurately and appropriately used to study foreign languages for effective communication.

Communicative approach facilitates rapid mastery of the students speaking skills. This achieved due to the assimilation of different types of monologue speech, types of dialogs and forms of language modeling. Here, in the foreground is a specific language model. The basic unit of the whole lesson and learning strategies of this technique is the act of speaking.

Features of the communicative approach in teaching foreign languages most clearly expressed in the situation reflects the significant patterns of training activities that are used to construct a theory of learning, the basis for the development of an appropriate method and a guide for proper organization of training activities. Such provisions shall acquire the status of the principles of learning.

If we focus on the advantages of this approach it’s obvious to see that:

• •     (1) Students are more motivated

• •      (2) Students have opportunities to express

• •      (3) Student security is enhanced

And disadvantages that can be seen as:

• •     No environment of ESL

• •      Difficulty in evaluating students’ performance

• •    Ignore the training of reading and writing

  Communicative competence involves knowing how to use the grammar and vocabulary of the language to achieve communicative goals, and knowing how to do this in a socially appropriate way (Thornbury 2000: 18).

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) places a great deal of value on teaching language skills with the goal of enabling learners to communicate meaningfully both inside and outside of the classroom, as in, for example, asking for information, seeking clarification, relying on circumlocution when necessary, and in general, negotiating meaning by all linguistic and non-linguistic means at one's disposal. In their seminal publication on learners' coping strategies, Canale and Swain (1980) developed a three-component framework of language competence that learners needed to achieve: communicative competence, grammatical competence, and sociolinguistic competence.

As a conclusion I can say, that there is no one single best approach or method that meets the goals and needs of all learners and programs. Each of the different methods has contributed new elements and has attempted to deal with some issues of language learning. However, they derived in different historical context, stressed different social and educational needs and have different theoretical consideration. Therefore, in teaching practice, in order to apply these methods effectively and efficiently, practitioners should take these questions in mind: who the learners are, what their current level of language proficiency is, what sort of communicative needs they have, and the circumstances in which they will be using English in the future, and so on. In a word, no single method could guarantee successful results.

BIBLIOGRAPGY

*James, P. (2001). Teachers in Action. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. *Nunan, D. (1992). Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge and New York: CUP. Wajnryb, R. (1992). Classroom Observation Tasks. Cambridge and New York: CUP ^Wallace, M.J. (1998). Action Research for Language Teachers. Cambridge and New York: CUP

Vale, D and Feunteun, A (1995) Teaching Children English: A Training Course for Teachers of

English to Children Cambridge: "Cambridge University Press

McKay, P and Guse, J (2007) Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Lewis, G and Mol, H (2009) Grammar for Young Learners (Resource Books for Teachers) Oxford: Oxford University Press

Ioannou-Georgiou, S and Pavlou P (2003) Assessing Young Learners (Resource Books for Teachers), Oxford: Oxford University Press

McKay, H and Tom, A (1998) Teaching Adult Second Language Learners, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press