Ph.D. Coursework
Paper - 3 Communicative Language Teaching
Preface
At present, the demand for good communication skills in English is found
in every field around the world. Millions of people want to improve their
command of English, essential in education and occupation, (why they want to
learn) this worldwide demand has created a need for quality language syllabus
and specific according to the various needs of the language learners, teaching materials,
methodology and resources. Learners want to master English with good
accuracy (linguistic competence) and fluency (communicative competence).
Employers also expect their employees to have good communication skills in English to work at
national and international level and fluency in English is a must for success
in every fields of employment in today’s world. The demand for an appropriate,
specific and need based syllabus and teaching methodology is therefore stronger
one.
What is Communicative Language Teaching?
Communicative language teaching is one of the approaches used to teach
second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as the main goal of
language learning where classroom activities should be meaningful and involve
real life communication. It is the result of dissatisfaction of linguists from
the audio lingual and grammar-translation methods which stressed more upon the
structures and forms of language with repetition and translation. It aims to
develop a process of teaching language through tasks that develop communicative
competence among learners. It promotes learning through activities having
meaningful conversations like group discussion, debate, role play etc.
Today, when most of the language teachers asked about teaching methodology,
they use to teach English in the classroom, their answer is 'communicative',
as it is the need of an hour. Communicative language teaching or communicative
approach is currently more in the demand as there is a great shift in language
teaching from language forms to actual language use. It emphasizes interaction
or conversation as the goal of language learning. Being able to communicate in
everyday situations or to perform various functions using target language is
the prime focus in this approach and it must be appropriate to the situation,
the roles of the speakers, the setting and the register. It was developed
around the 1970s as a reaction to structural or situational approaches that
focus on only formal structures like grammar. Generally, this approach stresses
upon developing communicative competence among learners of second language that
prepare them for meaningful conversations in real life situations.
The Background to
Communicative Language Teaching
British applied linguists emphasized another fundamental dimension of language
that is functional and communicative potential of language and need to
emphasize on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastery of
structure. Many Scholars advocate this approach like Christopher Candlin,
Henry Widdowson, John Firth, M. A. K. Halliday, Dell Hymes, William Labov
and so on. British linguist, D. A. Wilkins has proposed a functional or
communicative way of language teaching and his contribution was an analysis of
the communicative meanings that a language learner needs to understand and
express effectively. His book called 'Notional Syllabuses' had a
significant impact on the development of Communicative Language Teaching. It
aims to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and
develop procedures for the teaching of four language skills. (LSRW Skills)
Important
characteristics of Communicative approach
- Language can be learned when
using it to perform various functions where the learner practices the
rules by using it.
- Grammar is not totally
ignored but grammar is also taught with an inductive method or functional
approach by focusing on meaning not structure.
- Language learnt by using it
in communication where errors are not given much importance.
- Classroom activities should
be practical and meaningful that can be easily apply in real life usage
- Meaning in context is more
important.
- Learners create the language
by trial and error while using it.
- Language learning is
learning to communicate effectively.
- Intrinsic motivation in
learners is important as they expect to interact with people in various
situations.
Communicative Syllabus Design
A traditional language syllabus usually includes the vocabulary
and the grammatical items where students only develop knowledge of rules, forms
or structures of language and students can practice accuracy but what would be
communicative syllabus. Communicative syllabus is expressed not in terms
of language items, but in terms of what is communicated through language like
some tasks, activities or projects where language can be used. It provides a
model for identifying and selecting content relevant to the needs of different
learners. It teaches the language in the natural way as it is acquired
through communication. It is designed to fulfil both communicative needs as
well as linguistic needs of the learners.
Johnson (1982) defines Communicative syllabus as a syllabus that
‘links structures to meaning categories. As Noam Chomsky mentioned about
the importance of language competence and performance which clarify the
confusion regarding perceptions of people that communicative approach does not
include grammar or accuracy and only focus on fluency or speaking. Written
aspects or accuracy of language is equally important as fluency for
communicative competence.
Teaching English for specific purposes is an umbrella term under which we
can place English for Vocational/ Occupational purposes, the syllabus of
English for vocational purposes must be designed through careful analysis of
specific needs and target situations of various Vocations. Communicative
competence or skills is most important in various vocations but it's
vocabulary, specific language skills, register and context are different in all
the occupation. Syllabus should be designed with consideration of practicality
in teaching, applicability in a real work environment and appropriate to a
particular profession.
The sudden rise of interest in language syllabus (content)
grew out of Communicative competence developed by Dell Hymes that aims
to make learners competent in communication. The crucial problem for syllabus
designers and material developers facing today due the lack of rigorous process
to identify communicative needs, is how to specify target communicative
competence, what to be taught and how to convert these needs into syllabus
content. It requires a systematic attention in designing ESP syllabus
that became a major focus in Communicative syllabus design based on target
situation analysis.
Needs Analysis
Before designing the syllabus, designers or teachers should conduct need
analysis to understand the requirements or needs of language learners. It is
considered as the first stage of syllabus design which helps to design more
appropriate syllabus. It is a useful tool to understand the
students' specific needs and it can guide in selection of the specific
content or topics. It examines what learners already know and what they need to
know through a specific language course. Purpose is to find out which language
skills learners need to master in order to perform a particular role. Target
situation analysis is used to measure target situations where learners are
expected to use language after the completion of the course. The suggestions
can be taken from learners on whether to develop a completely new syllabus or
modify the existing syllabus.
The needs analysis of the demands of the market seems important too,
because the learners are at the tertiary level and after this, they must find
jobs and face the market. So, the syllabus must prepare them for the needs and
requirements of the market. This is a lengthy process as the requirements of
the market vary in various fields and the learners belong to different fields.
Types of syllabi based on the Communicative Approach
There are various types of syllabi available which are ultimately based
on the characteristics or the aspects of communicative approach that focus on
teaching language through actual use of it in various contexts and meaning is
more important than the structures. It develops language skills through tasks
and activities that are provided to the students during language courses where
they use target language and develops the competence to use language.
Situational syllabus
According to Yalden, this syllabus comprises units indicating specific
situations where learners have to use English to communicate in a particular
context, such as 'at the Post Office', 'Buying an Airline Ticket', or 'The Job
Interview'. In this approach, the use of dialogues is common as it is based on
communication within a specific situation. However, the use of dialogues in the
situational syllabus is quite different from the use of dialogues in a
structural syllabus such as the Audiolingual Method. In the Audiolingual Method,
specific structured dialogues are memorized while in the situational approach
is "aimed at meaningful conversational interchange in specific
contexts" (Norris as quoted by Yalden). This means that the dialogues used
in the situational syllabus don't have language structures as their focus, but
communicative effectiveness within a given situation.
Yalden describes examples of situational syllabi in which students are
initially presented with a specific situation that is followed by drills
and inventions and then by practicing those situations. The Situational
Syllabus includes language structures to be learnt but the main aim is
communicative competence, the nature of its contents will not necessarily lead
to total communicative competence. This shortcoming led to the development of
the Functional-Notional syllabus.
Functional - Notional syllabus
This syllabus is designed according to the functions the learner has to
perform in English, such as expressing likes and dislikes, offering and
accepting apologies, introducing someone, persuading customers, complaining about
late delivery goods and so on. Communicative competence is viewed as mastery of
functions needed for communication in different situations. Functional
syllabi were often used as the basis for speaking and listening courses.
According to Finocchiaro and Brumfit, the term "function' refers to the
communicative purpose of the speaker and notions will depend basically on three
factors: the functions, the elements in the situation and the topic which is
being discussed.
David Wilkins in his work the 'Notional Syllabus' has criticized two
types of syllabus grammatical and situational where language is divided into
different parts and taught separately like grammar and vocabulary. He promoted
notional syllabus that contains desired communicative capacity with the focus
on what it is they communicate through language. First step of a notional
syllabus designer is to choose the different types of meanings that the
learner wants to learn, then select the language forms through which this
meaning can be delivered. But to select specific meanings, it is important to
understand the needs of learners by having relevant information collected
through the Communicative Needs Processor (CNP). Through communicative needs
processors, we can have the profile of needs in terms of specific language
skills that are required to realise the events or activities. Then,
communicative needs can be converted into Micro-functions where appropriate
linguistic forms can be selected.
Advantages of this type of syllabus
- It
develops the language through realistic communicative tasks
- It
allows learners to learn varieties of language and aspects of language
like vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and LSRW language skills by using
it in everyday life conversations
- It
focuses on grammatically and semantically appropriate language used by
learners in specific social context and situations
- Teachers
or syllabus designers can use the eclectic approach which relates to the
naturally developed method of teaching from direct, audio lingual,
structural etc.
This syllabus emphasizes mainly on contextual
meaning, dialogues, drilling, comprehensible
pronunciation, communicative competence, linguistic variations, fluency in
speaking, intrinsic motivation and target needs.
Task based syllabus
Another syllabus that focuses on meaningful communication is Task-based
syllabus where language learners are assigned various tasks such as solving a
problem or planning an activity that is carried out in the classroom as well as
outside the classroom by using the target language to perform those tasks and
language learnt from linguistic demands of the activity. A task-based syllabus
is structured around a series of these tasks.
Example
A teacher uses a series of tasks on Indian cultural diversity as a
syllabus for adult learners in language courses and applies the task-based
approach to the work of the learners.
According to Skehan (1998:268), a task is an activity that base on the
following criteria:
1.
Meaning is primary.
2.
There is a goal which needs to be worked towards.
3.
The activity is outcome evaluated.
4.
There is a real-world relationship.
Under these criteria, activities are chosen which focus on meaning. Real
world tasks are a more authentic resource for language learning that help
learners to acquire language. This Task based syllabus allows teachers to adapt
an eclectic approach to teach a second language where teachers can use
multiple approaches or methods according to the learners needs or the contexts
in which they will use the second language.
In procedural task-based syllabus, a teacher or syllabus designer is the
decision maker where students choose the tasks as well as the process in which
they do these tasks. According to Loschky and Bley-Vroman, tasks can be divided
into three categories - possible, useful and necessary.
They propose that "if a teacher wants to make progress, one has to use the
third of these conditions’. This means all the benefits of a task based on
communication that make acquisition of language possible. In this syllabus,
first students should be introduced with real life tasks which lead them to the
natural acquisition process of language and then that experience can help them
in completing some classroom tasks.
Skill-based syllabus
This syllabus focuses on developing important four language skills LSRW
and other skills that a learner needs to communicate effectively in specific
situations. Each language can be divided into micro-skills in process of
teaching like listening can be divided as
- Recognizing key words and
information in conversations
- Understand the topic of a
conversation Identify speakers' thoughts, opinions and attitude toward a
topic
Types of reading
- Getting
general overview of the passage (skimming)
- To
find specific facts and information (scanning)
Besides, Yalden (1983) lists ten essential components of any
communicative syllabus to comprises
- Purpose
Specific language
- Target
situation in which language will be used.
- The
socially defined role of the learner in the target language.
- Communicative
events in which the learner will participate.
- Communicative
functions involved in these events.
- The
notions involved in these events.
- Discourse,
register and specific skills involved.
- The
target level and the variety of the target language required.
- The
required grammatical and lexical content
Apart from, Jenice Yalden explains six types of communicative syllabus
as follows:
1.
Structural-Functional
2.
Structures and Functions
3.
Variable Focus
4.
Functional
5.
Fully Notional
6.
Fully Communicative
Communicative Pedagogy
What do we mean by pedagogy?
Generally, pedagogy is considered as art and science of teaching or profession
of teaching. Mostly, it is misunderstood as only a method of teaching but
it is more than a method as it refers to the whole process of teaching or
education including the interactions between teachers and students, the
learning environment and tasks, classroom management, lesson planning and
understanding the psychology of students. This broad term includes how teachers
and students relate together as well as the instructional approaches
implemented in the classroom. Pedagogy studies how knowledge and skills are
imparted in any educational context, it refers to the theory and practice of
teaching in different social, political and cultural contexts.
Classroom methodology used by the teachers is one of the aspects of the
whole concept of pedagogy and when we talk about the pedagogy to teach language
with a communicative approach it requires different methods and
activities or tasks used to teach language.
Communicative methodology
Communicative approach refers to the methodology that focuses on
meaning. Activities would be seen as communicative, because learners are
expected to acquire language by using it in the conversation, not only get
knowledge of linguistic form. To prepare learners for real life communication
or conversation, innovative techniques or activities used in the classroom like
role play, discussion debates, dialogue presentations, giving speeches and so
on.
Important elements of communicative methodology
- Emphasis
on pair/group work (collaboration)
Learners are assigned some tasks or group projects where they work with
their classmates to complete those tasks and projects in a group, so through
group work they can learn language from each other and peer learning happens.
It also developed soft skills like teamwork, leadership, problem solving,
negotiation etc along with language.
- Use
of authentic materials/situations
Language materials and situations selected as resources to teach or
learn language should be authentic like poems, short stories, novels or dramas
that have the authenticity of language and situations like talking with
international customers, complaining regarding a defective goods, inquiry
regarding flight schedule etc can be used as techniques for tasks performed
outside the classroom.
- Provides
cultural information
When we talk about language, culture is always connected to it. Both are
interconnected as every culture affects the language people use culture like we
have varieties of English in Indian culture where we have a lot of cultural
words and different pronunciation systems that developed in heterogeneous
states. India has cultural diversity and English spoken in various ways in the
cultures of Tamilnadu, Kerala, Bangalore, Bengal, Maharashtra and
Gujarat. Similarly, learners should be aware of western culture to
understand English in a better way and teachers should provide cultural knowledge
of the target language.
- Process
vs. product oriented
When we talk about a communicative way of language teaching, it is a process-oriented
approach that emphasizes how students learn language, not what
they learn at the end of the language course. The procedural approach employed
various tasks and activities that can be given to the students to learn
language in an effective manner.
- Focus
on social aspect of learning
Sociolinguistics is one of the branches of linguistics that study
how language is used in various social contexts and situations. As most of the
languages developed first in spoken form, people started to speak the language
then it developed in the written form so the language actually used by the
people is different from the written form of language. There are various
aspects that impact on students' learning of language like cultural, social,
psychological and so on. Thus, students should be aware about social aspects of
learning where people learn from each other's behaviours/skills and share their
understanding, experiences, ideas that construct meaning.
- Embedding
real-life context
It is very important in language learning to bring real life context or
give real life tasks in and out of class because when they complete the
language course they are expected to speak that language or use it in real life
context like in the workplace they have to speak with people from other states
and countries. English has become part and parcel of our life in official or
unofficial matters, so it is a prerequisite for students to understand the real
context of a language being used.
- Focus
on negotiation of meaning vs. accuracy
This approach focuses on meaning rather than structures as it encourages
people to communicate, interact or converse with each other to share the
meaning and negotiate exact meaning through communication.
Classroom Activities
- Role-play
- Interviews
- Information
gap
- Games
- Language
exchanges
- Surveys
- Pair-work
- Learning
by teaching
- Grammar
quizzes
- Social
interactions
- Homework
exercises can also be occasionally used.
Task-based language teaching/learning
TBLT is an approach to language learning that was popularized in the
1980s by N. S Prabhu. He mentioned that language learning is a skill
like swimming that can be learned by doing or practicing. Once we start using
it in meaningful conversations, it can be easily and naturally acquired through
tasks using target language in real life situations and particular context like
scheduling a doctor’s appointment and using small talk with colleagues.
N. S Prabhu in a book 'Second Language Pedagogy' has
talked about his Bangalore project on communicative language teaching based on
research carried out during a five-year classroom experiment from which he
discussed the language pedagogy known as Task based language learning or
teaching (TBLT). It focuses on target language fluency and students' confidence
that can be developed through various real-life tasks. It is based on the
concept that effective learning occurs when students are fully engaged in a
language task, rather than just learning about language in a formal
setting.
According to David Nunan, there are two kinds of tasks: Target tasks
and Pedagogical tasks. Target tasks are kind of tasks that are provided for
language learners to perform in the real world like negotiate or bargain with
sellers while Pedagogical tasks used in the classroom to teach language like
group discussion.
Conclusion
Thus, we can say that communicative language teaching is a very
prominent approach today for second language teaching and widely used by many
teachers and trainers of language with a key focus on developing communication
skills in English according to the needs of learners and demands of markets. To
achieve better communication skills in English the syllabus and methodology of
any language course should be designed with utmost care by considering specific
needs and context of learners where they expect to use the language in various real-life
situations and social contexts.
References
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Methodology in Language Teaching . Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Feezel, Jerry D. "The
Evolution of Communication Pedagogy." 2018. ResearchGate. <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326005849_The_Evolution_of_Communication_Pedagogy>.
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Language Teaching : An Introduction. Cambridege University Press, 1981.
Melrose, Robin. The
Communicative Syllabus : A Systemic-Functional Approach to Language Teaching.
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.
Munby, John. Communicative
Syllabus Design: A Sociolinguistic Model for Designing the Content of
Purpose-Specific Language Programmes. Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Prabhu, N S. Second language
pedagogy. Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York : Oxford University Press,
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