COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT)

Communicative language teaching (CLT) is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. It is also referred to as “communicative approach to the teaching of foreign languages” or simply the “communicative approach”. CLT is based on a theory that language is communication.

The objectives in CLT are general and can be applied to any teaching situation. CLT focuses on the needs of students.

Principles:

 The principles of this method are:

1. Language as it is used in real context should be introduced.

2. Students should be able to figure out the speaker’s or writer’s intentions.

3. The target language is the vehicle for classroom communication.

4. One function may have many different linguistic forms.

5. Opportunities should be given to students to express their ideas and opinions.

6. Errors are seen as the natural outcome of the development of communication skills.

7. Fluency is much more important than accuracy.

8. Creating situations to promote communication is one of the teacher’s responsibilities.

9. The social context of the communicative events is essential in giving meaning to the utterances.

10. The teacher acts as an advisor during communicative activity, a facilitator of students’ learning, a manager of classroom activity, or a co-communicator.

11. When communicating, a speaker has a choice about what to say and how to say it.

12. Students should be given opportunities to develop strategies for interpreting language as it is actually seen by native speakers.

13. Students are communicators and are actively engaged in negotiating meaning.

14. Language is used a great deal through communicative activities such as games, role-play, problem solving.

15. Communicative activities have three features: information gap, choice and feedback.

Techniques

The techniques that are derived from the principles of this method are:

1. Before presenting the material, a discussion of the function and situation is made between students and teacher.

2. The teacher asks students to re-order sentences within a dialogue or a passage.

3. Students are involved in language games and role-play.

4. The class works in groups.

5. The teacher gives instructions in the target language.

6. A problem solving task is used as a communicative technique.

7. Questions and answers are of two types: those which are based on the material given and those which are related to the student’s personal experiences and are centered around the material theme.

Advantages

1.  It allows learners to use the target language in meaningful contexts, thus bringing the real world into the classroom.

2. This approach can be adapted to any level ranging from.

3. The CLT approach enables the teacher to step back and take on the role of ‘facilitator’. The teacher is able to observe individual learning through various tasks and is able to determine and respond to student’s needs.

Disadvantages

1. The communicative approach focuses on the use of language in everyday situations, or the functional aspects of language, and less on the formal structures.

2. The approach relies extensively on the functional-notational syllabus which places heavy demands on the learners.

3. The various categories of language functions are overlapping and not systematically graded like the structures of the language.

4. A major premise underlying this approach is its emphasis on learners' needs and interests. This implies that every teacher should modify the syllabus to correspond with the needs of the learners.

Here is an example with this method:

 What activities can we do with this method?