Module 4

APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Communicative Language Teaching
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Handout 1

FEATURES OF CLT

Read the following statements and decide whether they are TRUE or FALSE of
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Think of reasons for your choices.

Statements True False

1. Grammar is no longer important in language teaching

2. People learn a language through communicating in it

3. Accuracy in terms of correct grammatical forms is emphasized.

4. Fluency and acceptable language are the primary goals.

5. Drilling may occur, but it is not central.

6. CLT is only concerned with teaching speaking

7.Classroom activities should be meaningful and involve real

communication

8. Learners’ own experiences are enhanced as contributing elements

to classroom learning.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 2A

PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Below is the brief description of a lesson based on (CLT). Read it carefully and
answer the questions.

A teacher sets up a situation creating a need for students to communicate. In this lesson,
she teaches students to use “going to” for future plans, through the following steps:

1. The teacher asks students where they often go on holiday, and then elicits 4 holiday
destinations in Vietnam and puts them on the board:
e.g. Ha Long Bay Hue
Da Lat Hoi An

2. She gets students to tell her what they can do in each destination and write some
suggestions on the board:
e.g. Ha Long Bay - take a boat trip/eat seafood/take photos
Da Lat - go for a walk/ visit Xuan Huong Lake/ride a horse
Hue - visit the Citadel/eat local food/ visit pagodas
Hoi An - visit ancient houses and pagodas/go shopping…

3. She prepares students for a guessing game. First, each student takes a piece of paper
and copies the sentence on the board but fills in the gap with an activity and a place. The
teacher also copies the sentence on a piece of paper and fills in the information about her
holiday.
I’m going to__________________________ in __________

e.g. “I’m going to take a boat trip in Ha Long Bay.

She then gets students to ask her what and where she’s going to do next summer holiday.
e.g. T: I’m going on a holiday in Ha Long Bay next summer holiday.
S1: Are you going to go for a walk in Ha Long Bay?
T: No, I’m not.
S2: Are you going to eat a a lot of seafood?
T: No, I’m not.
…………
The teacher elicits yes/no questions from the class until someone asks “Are you going to
take a boat trip in Ha Long Bay?” “T: Yes, I am”

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________

4. In groups of 8, students play the game with the sentences they have written. Students
are encouraged to ask the teacher about other activities they can do in some holiday
destinations. The teacher walks around, observes the class and provides cues when
needed.

5. In the same groups, students design their own holiday plans for a specific destination.
The teacher uses the following table to help students structure their groupwork discussion:

Which How long How Stay

Place Clothes Activities
month? for? (bus/car,...) where?
Ha Long June 1 week minibus hotel swimsuit boat trip

6. Students present their holidays to other groups using “going to”. As students present,
the teacher listens and makes notes of common errors.
To finish, the teacher may point out good language students have used and mention some
mistakes that need corrections.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 2B

PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Think – pair - share

1. What is the language focus/aim of the lesson?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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2. How does the teacher set the context for the lesson? Is the context meaningful and
realistic?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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3. What activities does the teacher organize to help her students the structure “going to”?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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4. Is the drill in step 3 mechanical or meaningful?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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5. What are the common characteristics of practice activities in steps 4, 5 &6?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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6. What is the role of the teacher in the lesson? What is the role of the students?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 3

CLT PRINCIPLES

How are CLT principles realized in steps of the lesson plan?

1. The goal of learning language is to communicate in the target language.

2. Language- as it is used in a real context- is introduced.

3. A variety of linguistic forms are presented, since the focus of the method is on real

language use.

4. Real situations are used to give a social context for language learning.

5. The social context of the communicative situation is essential to give meaning to

the utterances.

6. Communicative interaction in the target language is essential in encouraging

cooperation among students and giving students an opportunity to work on

negotiating meaning.

7. In communication, learners have a choice not only about what to say but also how

to say it. Fluency is the primary goal and errors are tolerated.

8. The teacher acts as an advisor and a facilitator during communicative activities.

9. Learners’ own experiences are enhanced as important contributing elements to

classroom learning.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 4
FLUENCY VS ACCURACY ACTIVITIES
One of the goals of CLT is to develop fluency in language use. Fluency is natural
language use occurring when a speaker engages in meaningful interaction and maintains
comprehensible and ongoing communication despite limitations in his or her
communicative competence. Fluency is developed by creating classroom activities in
which students must negotiate meaning, use communication strategies, correct
misunderstandings, and work to avoid communication breakdowns.
Fluency practice can be contrasted with accuracy practice, which focuses on creating
correct examples of language use.
a. In the box below there are the features of fluency and accuracy activities, but
they are mixed. Work in pairs to identify which are the features of fluency activities and
which are the features of accuracy activities.
Write you answers in the suitable column.
+ Do not require meaningful communication + Reflect natural use of language
+ Focus on achieving communication + Require meaningful use of language
+ Reflect classroom use of language + Focus on the formation of correct
+ Seek to link language use to context examples of language
+ Control choice of language + Practice small samples of language
+ Produce language that may not be + Require the use of communication
predictable strategies
+ Practice language out of context

Fluency activities Accuracy activities

Reflect natural use of language Reflect classroom use of language

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
b. Now work in pairs. Read the activities taken from the new English textbooks and
decide whether they are fluency or accuracy activities.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 5A

TYPES OF PRACTICE IN CLT

Study the following examples of mechanical, meaningful and communicative

practice, then match each type of practice with its features(on the next page):

1. Mechanical practice:
Practise saying the sentences, adding "if you don't mind".
Example: Let's go to the Village Fair.
Let's go to the Village Fair if you don't mind.
1.We'll ride together in a bumper car.
2.Let's cross the street to the bookshop.
3. I'll keep the door closed.

2. Meaningful practice:
Describe the two rooms in the pictures. What is there …
1. on Mary's desk? on John's desk?
2. next to Mary's bed? next to John's bed?
3. under Mary's table? under Jon's table?

3. Communicative practice:
In pairs, one student is given picture A, one picture B. Without looking at each other's
picture they have to find the differences by asking and answering the questions about the
pictures.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________

FEATURES OF CLT ACTIVITIES

Read the description of CLT activities and match each type of practice with its
features
A. refers to an activity where language control is still
provided but where students are required to make
meaningful choices when carrying out practice. For
example, in order to practise the use of prepositions to
describe locations of places, students might be given a
street map with various buildings identified in different
1. Mechanical practice locations. They are also given a list of prepositions such
as across, from, on the corner of, near, on, etc.. They then
have to answer questions such as "Where is the book
shop? Where is the cafe?" etc. The practice is now
meaningful because they have to respond according to the
location of places on the map.
B. refers to activities where the focus is practice in using
language within a real communicative context, where real
information is exchanged, and where the language used is
not totally predictable. For example, students might have
2. Meaningful practice to draw a map of their neighbourhood and answer
questions about the location of different places in their
neighbourhood, such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest
cafe, etc.
C. refers to a controlled practice activity which students
can successfully carry out without necessarily
3. Communicative practice understanding the language they are using. Examples of
this kind of activity would be repetition drills and
substitution drills designed to practise particular
grammatical or other items.
Richards, J.C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge: CUP

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 5B

Now work in pairs. Read the following activities taken from the new Tieng Anh
textbooks and identify which type of practice each activity is.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 6A

TYPES OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES

1. Jig-saw
2. Task-completion
3. Information gathering
4. Opinion-sharing
5. Information-transfer
6. Reasoning-gap
7. Role-plays
8. Information gap

Work in pairs. Read the description of each activity and decide which
communicative activity it is. Write the name in the space provided.

A. ......................................
These require learners to take information that is presented in one form, and represent it
in a different form. For example they may read instructions on how to get from A to B, and
then draw a map showing the sequence, or they may read information about a subject and
then represent it as a graph.

B. .......................................
Activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a scene or exchange based
on given information or clues.

C. .......................................
Activities where students compare values, opinions, beliefs, such as a ranking task in
which students list six qualities in order of importance which they might consider in
choosing a date or spouse.

D. .......................................

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Student- conducted surveys, interviews and searches in which students were required to
use their linguistic resources to collect information.

E. .......................................
These are also based on the information-gap principle. Typically the class is divided into
groups and each group has part of the information needed to complete an activity. The
class must fit the pieces together to complete the whole. In so doing they must use their
language resources to communicate meaningfully and so take part in meaningful
communication practice.

F. .......................................
These involve deriving some new information from given information through the process
of inference, practical reasoning, etc. For example, working out a teacher's timetable on
the basis of given class timetables.

G........................................
This refers to the fact that in real communication, people normally communicate in order to
get information they do not possess. More authentic communication is likely to occur in
the classroom if students go beyond practice of language forms for their own sake and
use their linguistic and communicative resources in order to obtain information.

H. .......................................
Puzzles, games, map-reading and other kinds of classroom tasks in which the focus was
on using one's language resources to complete a task.

Richards, J.C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge: CUP

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 6B

The following activities are taken from the new Tieng Anh books. In pairs, read each
activity and decide which type of communicative activity it is. Write your answer in
the space provided.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1
 Module 4
APPROACHES & METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching
___________________________________________________________________
Handout 7

ROLES OF CLT TEACHERS

Read the following passage about roles of communicate teachers
In general, the communicative approach suggests that teachers should not be imposing
their own views of the learners' needs and aspirations. Instead, they need to talk to
students to gain an understanding of who their learners are, what they bring to class,
why they are taking the course and what expectations they have of the course.

Furthermore, teachers should withdraw themselves and not create an environment in

which, following a discussion, students look for the 'right' answer from the teacher.

The following are a list of roles that the teacher has. Keep in mind there are many more!
As controllers, they relax their grip on the class.
As assessors, they resort to gentle correction.
As organisers, they set activities in motion and then stand aside.
As prompters, they perform with discretion.
As participants, they play second fiddle.
As resources, they help only when requested.

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English Language Teaching Methodology 1