History of communicative language teaching. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): Concept, Characteristics, History, Merits, Demerits, Activities 2022-11-02

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Communicative language teaching (CLT) is an approach to teaching language that emphasizes the use of the language for communication. It has its roots in the 1960s and 1970s and has since become a widely influential approach to language education.

The origins of CLT can be traced back to the British Council's Modern Language Teaching Research Unit, which was established in the 1960s. At the time, traditional language teaching methods focused on grammar and vocabulary, and there was a growing recognition that these methods were not effective in helping students develop the ability to communicate in the target language.

In response to this, the British Council's Modern Language Teaching Research Unit developed the "notional-functional syllabus," which proposed a new approach to language teaching that focused on the functional use of language. This approach was based on the idea that language is used to accomplish certain tasks or functions, such as requesting, negotiating, and expressing feelings. The notional-functional syllabus was designed to help students develop the ability to use language for these functions.

In the 1970s, the communicative approach to language teaching began to emerge. This approach was based on the idea that language should be taught through communicative activities that involve authentic language use. The goal of communicative language teaching is to help students develop the ability to use language for communication in real-world situations.

One of the key principles of CLT is the use of authentic materials, such as newspapers, magazines, and recordings of native speakers, in the language classroom. This helps to expose students to the language as it is actually used by native speakers, rather than just teaching them grammar and vocabulary in isolation.

Another important principle of CLT is the focus on task-based language teaching (TBLT). In TBLT, students are given a task to complete, such as describing a picture or role-playing a conversation, and they are required to use language to complete the task. This helps students to develop their language skills in a more authentic and meaningful way.

CLT has had a significant influence on language education and is now widely used in language classrooms around the world. While there are some criticisms of the approach, it remains an important and influential approach to language teaching.

Overall, the history of communicative language teaching demonstrates the evolution of language teaching from a focus on grammar and vocabulary to a focus on the functional use of language for communication. It is a widely influential approach that has helped to improve the effectiveness of language education and has contributed to a greater understanding of how languages are learned and used.

Communicative Language Teaching

history of communicative language teaching

In our next post, we explore the murky waters of the post method condition, in hopes of shining some more light on what it means for CLT. The principal characteristicis of the Grammar Translation Method were these: The goal of foreign language study is to learn a language in order to read its literature or in order to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result from foreign language study. Communicative approach has been characterized as extensive teaching method and not just one with clearly defined sets of classroom practices. Communicating in the target language is encouraged from early years. These included: careful selection of what is to be taught, imposing limits on what is to be taught, arranging what is to be taught in terms of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and grading materials from simple to complex.


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Communicative language teaching

history of communicative language teaching

While he agrees that output is paramount to language development, he is skeptical about whether language structures can be acquired through this alone. CLT also uses groups or pairs for activities, which allows for collaboration to be instilled in the language-learning classroom. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Background The origins of Communicative Language Teaching CLT are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching 3nded.

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History of Communicative Language Teaching

history of communicative language teaching

Students are expected to interact primarily with each other rather than with the teacher, and correction of errors may be absent or infrequent. Most students are more comfortable speaking in pairs rather than in front of the entire class. While CLT has enjoyed decades in the spotlight in language classrooms, it seems that its days at the forefront could be numbered. The communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators Sandra J. Wilkins and Henry Widdowson linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audiolingual and grammar-translation methods and Situational Language teaching approach. If a student has a strong opinion about a certain topic, then they will speak up and share. Fluency and acceptable language is the main goal: accuracy is examined in context.

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The Communicative Language Approach in ESL Education

history of communicative language teaching

Students read or listen to authentic texts related to real-world contexts Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of CC communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence. The goal is to enable students to communicate in the target language. Ridge also notes that CLT has nonspecific requirements of its teachers, as there is no completely standard definition of what CLT is, which is especially true for the teaching of grammar, the formal rules governing the standardized version of the language in question. In this, empirical findings that directly support the approach are sparse. The L2 linguistic feature is learned through engaging in communication.

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History Of Language Teaching Timeline

history of communicative language teaching

Cook 1997 asserts that the authentic speech of native speaking adults is a poor model for learners to imitate, as they are unlikely to ever reach such levels of authenticity themselves. This allows for multiple skills to be practiced at once, which is beneficial to a student's ability to communicate effectively with others. Exploring English language teaching: Language in action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CLT can also be very time-consuming for teachers, as the less formal approach and learner-centered nature of it can take away from lessons that may work to prioritize coherence in speaking and writing. For example, students in the classroom may want to talk about a major pop culture moment that happened. Students might engage in role-playing based on real-life scenarios such as discussing hobbies and popular culture, negotiating prices when shopping or describing the plot of a book or movie they have recently enjoyed.


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History of Communicative Language Teaching

history of communicative language teaching

Wilkins published a document that proposed a radical shift away from using the traditional concepts of grammar and vocabulary to describe language to an analysis of the communicative meanings that learners would need in order to express themselves and to understand effectively. That method might also be focused on teaching students how to communicate, but the actual work in the classroom the teacher explaining, the worksheets is not communication, so it's not the communicative approach. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 19 3 : 221-246. Communicative and task-based language teaching in East Asian classrooms. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. I served as a replacement to the popular method known as Situational language teaching which is based on the structural view of language. Gouin is perhaps the best known of these century reformers.

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A Brief History of ELT: Part 2

history of communicative language teaching

Led by Prabhu, the project is notably the first attempt to deliver a language course based solely on a Task-Based syllabus. There are certain practices under the communicative approach. Communicative competence is considered the main aim. A group of experts saw the need to focus in communicative proficiency rather than mastery of structures. It may also be time-consuming to create lessons that are more individualized.

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Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): Concept, Characteristics, History, Merits, Demerits, Activities

history of communicative language teaching

Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Looking at transcripts from communicative classrooms, Nunan 1989 concluded that interaction was anything but communicative. He asserts that the cognitive faculty required for negotiating meaning may overload students, making it unlikely that they will consolidate their accomplishments. This board definition makes it such that any teaching practice that aims to help students develop their communicative competence in practical and usable contexts is considered as a form of instruction. ELT Journal, 50 4 , 279—288. Nonetheless, early empirical findings from Allwright, Prabhu, and Swain and Lapkin do support CLT.

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Communicative Language Teaching (Chapter 14)

history of communicative language teaching

Communicative language teaching has both strengths and challenges, which is why not everyone uses it to teach. CLT essentially aims to have students learn a new language by actually using the language to communicate with those around them. Wilkins 1972 proposed a functional or communicative definition of language that served as a basis for developing communicative syllabuses for language teaching. Demerits of Communicative Language Teaching there is no text, grammar rules are not presented, classroom arrangement is nonstandard. Communicative language teaching has both strengths and challenges.


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