Communicative Language Teaching

 Background:
The origins are to be found in the changes in the British Language teaching tradition dating
from the late 1960s. In Situation Language Teaching, language was taught by practicing basic
structures in meaningful situation-based activities. But just as the linguistic theory underlying
Audiolingualism was rejected in the United States in the mid-1960s, British applied linguistic began
to call into question the theoretical assumptions underlying Situational Language Teaching.

Chomsky had demonstrated that the current standard structural theories of language were
incapable of accounting for the fundamental characteristics of language- the creativity and
uniqueness of individual sentences. British applied linguistics emphasized other fundamental
dimensions of languages that were inadequately addressed in approaches to language teaching at
that time- the functional and communicative potential of language.

In 1971, a group of experts began to investigate the possibility of developing language courses on
a unit-credit system, a system in which learning tasks are broken down into “portion or units, each
of which corresponds to a component of a learner’s needs and is systematically related to all the
other portions” (van Ek and Alexander 1980:6).

Wilkins (1972), which proposed a functional or communicative definition of language that, could
serve as a basis for developing communicative syllabuses for language teaching. Wilkins’s
contribution was an analysis of the communicative meanings that a language learner needs to
understand and express. Wilkins attempted to demonstrate the system of meanings that lay
behind the communicative uses of language. He describes two types of meanings: notional
categories and categories of communicative functions.

Littlewood (1981:1) states, “One of the most characteristics features of communicative language
teaching are that pays systematic attention to functional as well structural aspects of language”.
For others, it means using procedures where learners work in pairs or groups employing available
language resources in problem-solving tasks.

Yalden (1983) discusses six Communicative Language Teaching design alternatives, ranging from a
model which communicative exercises are grafted onto an existing structural syllabus, to a learner-
generated view of syllabus design.

The wide acceptance of the Communicative Approach and the relatively varied way in which it is
interpreted and applied can be attributed to the fact that practitioners from different educational
traditions can identify with it, and consequently interpreted in different ways.

Common to all versions of Communicative Language Teaching is a theory of language teaching

that starts from the a communicative model of language and language use, and that seeks to
translate this into a design for an instrumental system, for materials, for teachers and leaner roles

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and behaviors, and for classroom activities and techniques. Let us now consider how this is
manifested at the levels of approach, design, and procedure.

 Approach:

Theory of language.
The Communicative Approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as
communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymes (1972) referred to as
“communicative competence”. Hymes coined this term in order to contrast a communicative view
of language and Chomsky’s theory of competence. Chomsky held that…
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener in a completely
homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such
grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and
interest, and errors in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance. (Chomsky
1965:3).

For Chomsky, the focus of linguistic theory was to characterize the abstract abilities speakers
possess that enables them to produce grammatically correct sentences in a language. Hymes’s
theory of communicative competence was a definition of what speaker needs to know in order to
be communicatively competent in a speech community.
In Hymes’s view, a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and
ability for language use with respect to:
1. Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible
2. Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation
available
3. Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful) in
relation of the context in which it is used and evaluated
4. Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed, and what it’s
doing entails
(Hymes 1972:281)
This theory of what knowing a language entails offers a much more comprehensive view than
Chomsky’s view of competence, which deals primarily with abstract grammatical knowledge.

Another linguistic theory of communication favored in CLT is Halliday’s functional account of

language use. “Linguistic is concerned with the description of speech acts or texts, since only
through the study of language in use are all the functions of language, and therefore all
components of meaning, brought into focus”. Halliday has elaborated a powerful theory of the
functions of language, which complements Hymes’s view of communicative competence for many
writers on CLT. He described seven basis functions that language performs for children learning
their first language:
1. The instrumental function: using language to get things
2. The regulatory function: using language to control the behavior of others
3. The interactional function: using language to create interaction with others

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4. The personal function: using language to express personal feelings and meanings
5. The heuristic function: using language to learn and to discover
6. The imaginative function: using language to create a world of the imagination
7. The representational function: using language to communicate information
Learning a second language was similarly viewed by proponents of proponents of Communicative
Language Teaching as acquiring the linguistic means to perform different kinds of functions.

Widdowson in his book Teaching Language as Communication (1978) presented a view of the
relationship between linguistic system and their communicative values in text and discourse. He
focuses on the communicative acts underlying the ability to use language for different purposes.

A more pedagogically influential analysis of communicative competence are identified:

grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic
competence.

o Grammatical competence refers to what Chomsky calls linguistic competence and what
Hymes intends what is “formally possible”. It is the domain of grammatical and lexical
capacity.
o Sociolinguistic competence refers to an understanding if the social context in which
communication takes place, including role relationships, the shared information of the
participants, ant he communicative purpose for their interaction.
o Discourse competence refers to the interpretation of individual message elements in
terms of their interconnectedness and of how meaning is represented in relationship to
the entire discourse or text.
o Strategic competence refers to the coping strategies that communicators employ to
initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and redirect communication.

Theory of learning.

In contrast to the amount that has been written in Communicative Language Teaching literature
about communicative dimensions of language, little has been written about learning theory.
Neither Brumfit and Johnson (1979) nor Littlewood (1981), for example, offers any discus sion of
learning theory. Elements of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in some CLT practices,
however. One such element might be described as the communication principle: Activities that
involve real communication promote learning. A second element is the task principle: Activities in
which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning (Johnson 1982). A third
element is the meaningfulness principle: Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the
learning process. Learning activities are consequently selected according to how well they engage
the learner in meaningful and authentic language use (rather than merely mechanical practice of
language patterns). These principles, we suggest, can be inferred from CLT practices (e.g., Little-
wood 1981; Johnson 1982). They address the conditions needed to promote second language
learning, rather than the processes of language acquisition.
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More recent accounts of Communicative Language Teaching, however, have attempted to
describe theories of language learning processes that are compatible with the communicative
approach. Savignon (1983) surveys second language acquisition research as a source for learning
theories and considers the role of linguistic, social, cognitive, and individual variables in language
acquisition. Other theorists (e.g., Stephen Krashen, who is not directly associated with
Communicative Language Teaching) have developed theories cited as compatible with the
principles of CLT. Krashen sees acquisition as the basic process involved in developing language
proficiency and distinguishes this process from learning. Acquisition refers to the unconscious
development of the target language system as a result of using the language for real
communication. Learning is the conscious representation of grammatical knowledge that has
resulted from instruction, and it cannot lead to acquisition. It is the acquired system that we call
upon to create utterances during spontaneous language use. The learned system can serve only as
a monitor of the output of the acquired system. Krashen and other second language acquisition
theorists typically stress that language learning comes about through using language
communicatively, rather than through practicing language skills.

Johnson (1984) and Littlewood (1984) consider an alternative learning theory that they also see as
compatible with CLT-a skill-learning model of learning. According to this theory, the acquisition of
communicative competence in a language is an example of skill development. This involves both a
cognitive and a behavioral aspect:
The cognitive aspect involves the internalisation of plans for creating appropriate behaviour. For
language use, these plans derive mainly from the language system — they include grammatical
rules, procedures for selecting vocabulary, and social conventions governing speech. The
behavioural aspect involves the automation of these plans so that they can be converted into
fluent performance in real time. This occurs mainly through practice in converting plans into
performance. (Littlewood 1984: 74)
This theory thus encourages an emphasis on practice as a way of developing communicative skills.

 Design:
Piepho (1981) discusses the following levels of objectives in a communicative approach:

1. an integrative and content level (language as a means of expression)

2. a linguistic and instrumental level (language as a semiotic system and an object of learning);
3. an affective level of interpersonal relationships and conduct (language as a means of expressing
values and judgments about oneself and others);
4. a level of individual learning needs (remedial learning based on error analysis);
5. a general educational level of extra-linguistic goals (language learning within the school
curriculum).

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These are proposed as general objectives, applicable to any teaching situation. Particular
objectives for CLT cannot be defined beyond this level of specification, since such an approach
assumes that language teaching will reflect the particular needs of the target learners. These
needs may be in the domains of reading, writing, listening, or speaking, each of which can be
approached from a communicative perspective. Curriculum or instructional objectives for a
particular course would reflect specific aspects of communicative competence according to the
learner's proficiency level and communicative needs.

 The syllabus:

Discussions of the nature of the syllabus have been central in Communicative Language Teaching.
We have seen that one of the first syllabus models to be proposed was described as a notional
syllabus (Wilkins 1976), which specified the semantic-grammatical categories (e.g., frequency,
motion, location) and the categories of communicative function that learners need to express. The
Council of Europe expanded and developed this into a syllabus that included descriptions of the
objectives of foreign language courses for European adults, the situations in which they might
typically need to use a foreign language (e.g., travel, business), the topics they might need to talk
about (e.g., personal identification, education, shopping), the functions they needed language for
(e.g., describing something, requesting information, expressing agreement and disagreement), the
notions made use of in communication (e.g., time, frequency, duration), as well as the vocabulary
and grammar needed. The result was published as Threshold Level English (van Ek and Alexander
1980) and was an attempt to specify what was needed in order to be able to achieve a reasonable
degree of communicative proficiency in a foreign language, including the language items needed
to realize this "threshold level.

 Learner roles:
The emphasis in Communicative Language Teaching on the processes of communication,
rather than mastery of language

 Teacher roles: Several roles are assumed for teachers in Communicative Language
Teaching, the importance of particular roles being determined by the view of CLT adopted.
Breen and Candlin describe teacher roles in the following terms:
The teacher has two main roles: the first role is to facilitate the communication process between
all participants in the classroom, and between these participants and the various activities and
texts. The second role is to act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group.
The latter role is closely related to the objectives of the first role and arises from it. These roles
imply a set of secondary roles for the teacher; first, as an organizer of resources and as a resource
himself, second as a guide within the classroom procedures and activities.... A third role for the
teacher is that of researcher and learner, with much to contribute in terms of appropriate
knowledge and abilities, actual and observed experience of the nature of learning and organi -
zational capacities. (1980: 99)

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  Conclusion:

The communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language successfully
comes through having to communicate real meaning. When learners are involved in real
communication, their natural strategies for language acquisition will be used, and this will allow
them to learn to use the language.

Practicing question forms by asking learners to find out personal information about their
colleagues is an example of the communicative approach, as it involves meaningful
communication.

Classroom activities guided by the communicative approach are characterized by trying to

produce meaningful and real communication, at all levels. As a result there may be more
emphasis on skills than systems, lessons are more learner-center, and there may be use of
authentic materials.

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