Communicative Language Teaching CLT Kristina Makayla Laura Danielle

History & Origin The origin of CLT can be traced back to the mid-1960s when Situational Language Teaching was dominant in Britain. While American linguist Chomsky was challenging the structural linguistic theory of the Audiolingual Method in the United States, British applied linguists such as Christopher Candlin and Henry Widdowson started to see the need of focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastery of structures. This theoretical development was accompanied by the practical need for greater efforts to teach adults the major languages of the European Common Market and the Council of Europe. This and many other factors worked together to make it possible for a different approach to foreign language teaching to develop. This approach was CLT and it became a dominant method in foreign/second language teaching in most parts of the world in the 1970s and 1980s. The movement of CLT began as a largely British innovation with a focus on alternative conceptions of a syllabus in the mid-1970s; it soon extended its scope, eventually becoming the most open and most comprehensive method in the history of language teaching methodology.

How Does This Approach Work? Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has enormous intuitive appeal. A great deal of CLT is based on essentially a view of second language acquisition. CLT sets as its goals the teaching of communicative competence. Grammatical competence refers to the knowledge of a language that accounts for our ability to produce sentences in a language. It refers to knowledge of the building blocks of sentences (e.g. parts of speech, tenses, phrases, clauses, sentence patterns) and how sentences are formed. Grammatical competence is the focus of many grammar practice books, which typically present a rule of grammar on one page, and provide exercises to practice using the rule on the other page. The unit of analysis and practice is typically the sentence. While grammatical competence is an important dimension of language learning; it is clearly not all that is involved in learning a language since one can master the rules of sentence formation in a language and still not be very successful at being able to use the language for meaningful communication. It is the latter capacity which is understood by the term communicative competence.

Classroom Activities in CLT Since the advent of CLT, teachers and materials' writers have sought to find ways of developing classroom activities that reflected the principles of a communicative methodology. The main activity types that were one of the outcomes of CLT are: * Accuracy versus fluency activities * Mechanical, meaningful and communicative practice * Information-gap activities * Jig-saw activities

Underlying Theories & Beliefs According to Malathis the main reason that CLT works is because people learn better when they are learning how to use language for practical communication rather than spending time focused on the grammatical structure. Teachers who use CLT believe that the main goal of learning a second language is communicative competence Communicative competence is the ability to communicate even when you don’t know everything. Also knowing how to understand texts and conversations that are important and relevant. Source: (Maltathi, 2013)

Notion of Learning CLT involves a lot of experimentation because students most likely do not know all the answers, but they are challenged to do the best with what they know in order to make a successful form of communication. (Often times word boxes will be provided to students for words that are necessary for the topic to be communicated.) This type of learning is done collaboratively with peers it is believed that getting feedback from peers and interacting with other learners will increase their understanding. The lessons done in this activity are supposed to be more natural and discovery based rather than predictable, it is thought that this more natural approach is more engaging than following a script or reading a text. Source: (Maltathi, 2013)

The Role of the Teacher and Student Teacher: role is to facilitate the creation of a classroom environment that welcomes language practice. Student: role is be open to sharing and participating with other peers Source: (Maltathi,2013)

An Effective Approach? Community Language Teaching instructs second language learning (L2) from a “humanistic approach”, meaning that the learning is connected to the student through their existing feelings, thoughts and knowledge. This approach to L2 learning is extremely effective because it incorporates the entire student. Language learning is viewed as a social endeavor, allowing the students to engage in meaningful conversations about their world in a mix of L1 and L2. The lateral movement between both languages solidifies fluency and comfort in L2, especially when the conversations are centered around meaningful topics. The type of students who usually participates in this approach are adult language learners, who might be fearful of appearing incompetent. The role of the TEACHER is critical in this approach, because they facilitate the level of comfort between the languages. By appearing to the students as a “counselor” of the L2, the socio-emotional needs of the students are met, often times by lowering the anxiety of the situation.

Critiques Misconception: CLT teaches only speaking CLT is based on communicative competence, which includes the components of: grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, sentence organization Misconception: CLT uses only pair/group work in the classroom Teachers who use CLT tend to use a lot of pair and group work, but individual work is also apart of the classroom Critique: There is a lack of teacher training and practice among teachers using effective CLT strategies

Our Thoughts I am not a second language learner, but in researching this approach, I would say that the effectiveness is clear. I have often heard that the best way to learn a L2 is to immerse yourself. Basically just jump in, and surround yourself in the culture and conversational norms. The CLT approach does just that, by encouraging practical use of the target language. It is a “top down” approach, meaning that the specifics (grammar, inflections, etc.) of the L2 will develop as basic conversational skills are solidified. I think that this approach has potential to be great. At first I thought this was a daunting approach because students who know nothing will feel very insecure and overwhelmed. But I am realizing is that this approach allows for scaffolding such as providing a word box, which reduces the amount of anxiety in the classroom. The focus of CLT is on meaningful communication rather than structure, and I think that is a great aspect. I think that the best way to learn, understand and comprehend a language is to be fully engaged in it. If you’re going into a new language situation and you are apprehensive and you don’t fully participate and utilize all of the resources around you, you are taking apart of yourself out of that situation and losing valuable tools. CLT allows a second language to develop as conversations happen.

Resources http://www2.vobs.at/ludescher/Alternative%20methods/community%20language%20teaching.htm http://www.nadasisland.com/communitylearn.html Malathi, R. R. (2013). Language Acquisition Forum through Communicative Language Teaching. Language In India, 13(4),160-166.http://0- search.ebscohost.com.iii.sonoma.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=87738780&site=ehost- live&scope=site http://epi.sc.edu/~alexandra_rowe/FOV3-001000C1/S0017DD4D http://www.academia.edu/4743392/Communicative_Language_Teaching_theories_lesson_plan_and_ application