Communicative Language Tea

ching (CLT)

Background
This approach is found in the changes in the British la
nguage teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s.
Recognition of inadequacy of traditional grammar/tra
nslation methods and also of 'structural' methods wit
h emphasis on meaningless pattern drills and repetiti
on.
Aims to make communicative competence (Hymes, 1
972) the goal of language teaching.
Communicative competence is what a speaker n
eeds to know in order to be communicatively compet
ent in a speech community.

Communicative Competence 1
Canale and Swain (1998) identify four dim
ensions of communicative competence:
Grammatical competence- the knowledge
we have of a language that accounts for o
ur ability to produce sentences in a langu
age. It refers to knowledge of the building
blocks of sentences (e.g., parts of speech,
tenses, phrases, clauses, sentence pattern
s) and how sentences are formed.

Communicative Competence 2
Sociolinguistic competence- understanding of th
e social context in which communication takes
place, including role relationships, the shared in
formation of the participants, and the purpose f
or their interaction

Discourse competence- the interpretation of

individual message elements in terms of coh
esion and coherence.
Strategic competence- the coping strategies t
o initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and re
direct communication.

Communicative Competence 3
Knowing how to use language for a range of different purpo
ses and functions.
Knowing how to vary our use of language according to the s
etting and the participants (e.g., knowing when to use form
al and informal speech or when to use language appropriat
ely for written as opposed to spoken communication).
Knowing how to produce and understand different types of
texts (e.g., narratives, reports, interviews, conversations)
Knowing how to maintain communication despite having li
mitations in ones language knowledge (e.g., through using
different kinds of communication strategies).

What Is Communicative Langua

ge
Teaching
(CLT)?
CLT can be understood as a set of principles a

bout the goals of language teaching, how learn

ers learn a language, the kinds of classroom ac
tivities that best facilitate learning, and the rol
es of teachers and learners in the classroom.
Richards and Rodgers (1986) described CLT as
an approach rather than a method, since it rep
resents a philosophy of teaching that is based
on communicative language use.

What do you understand by co

mmunicative language teaching
?
Which of the statements below do you think characterizes co
mmunicative language teaching?

1. People learn a language best when using it to do things rather than

through studying how language works and practicing rules.
2. Grammar is no longer important in language teaching.
3. People learn a language through communicating in it.
4. Errors are not important in speaking a language.
5. CLT is only concerned with teaching speaking.
6. Classroom activities should be meaningful and involve real commu
nication.
7. Dialogs are not used in CLT.
8. Both accuracy and fluency are goals in CLT.
9. CLT is usually described as a method of teaching.

The Goals of Language Teaching

Communicative language teaching sets as its go
al the teaching of communicative competence.
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 c
ommunication.

Task 2
Consider the following sentences that are all requests for someone to
open a door. Imagine that the context is normal communication betw
een two friends. Check if you think they conform to the rules of gram
matical competence (GC), communicative competence (CC), or both.

Please to opens door.

I want the door to be opened by you.
Would you be so terribly kind as to open the door for me?
Could you open the door?
To opening the door for me.
Would you mind opening the door?
The opening of the door is what I request.

View on Language Learning 1

It is seen as resulting from processes such as:
Interaction between the learner and users of th
e language.
Collaborative creation of meaning.
Creating meaningful and purposeful interaction
through language.
Negotiation of meaning as the learner and his o
r her interlocutor arrive at understanding.

View on Language Learning 2

Learning through attending to the feedback learners g
et when they use the language.
Paying attention to the language one hears (the input)
and trying to incorporate new forms into ones develo
ping communicative competence.
Trying out and experimenting with different ways of sa
ying things.
Based on the view on language learning above, what ki
nds of classroom activities best facilitate learning in th
e CLT classroom?

The Roles of Teachers and Learner

s in the Classroom
Learners have to participate in classroom a
ctivities that were based on a cooperative r
ather than individualistic approach to learn
ing. They are communicators.
Learners are to take on a greater degree of
responsibility for their own learning.
Teachers facilitate and monitor communica
tion in the classroom rather than being a
model for correct speech and writing.

A Communicative Syllabus 1
In order to be able to develop a learners
communicative competence, it was arg
ued that a syllabus should identify the foll
owing aspects of language use rather tha
n simply specifying the grammar and voc
abulary learners needed to master :

Aspects Of Language Use 1

1. The purposes for which the learner wishes to acquire the targ
et language; for example, using English for business purposes,
in the hotel industry, or for travel.
2. The setting in which they will want to use the target language;
e.g., in an office, on an airplane, or in a store.
3. The role the learners will assume in the target language, as we
ll as the role of their interlocutors; for example, as a traveller,
as a salesperson talking to clients, or as a student in a school.
4. The communicative events in which the learners will particip
ate: everyday situations, work situations, academic situations,
etc.; for example, making telephone calls, engaging in casual c
onversation, or taking part in a meeting

Aspects Of Language Use 2

5. The language functions involved in those events, or
what the learner will be able to do with or through th
e language; for example, making introductions, giving
explanations, or
describing plans
6. The notions or concepts involved, or what the lear
ner will need to be able to talk about; for example, lei
sure, finance, history, religion
7. Discourse and rhetorical skills; for example, storyt
elling, giving an effective presentation
8. The grammatical content that will be needed
9. The lexical content, or vocabulary, that will be neede
d

Communicative Syllabus 2

Several new syllabus types were proposed by advocates of CLT. These in

cluded:
A skills-based syllabus: This focuses on the four skills of reading, writi
ng, listening, and speaking, and breaks each skill down into its compone
nt micro-skills.
For example, the skill of listening might be further described in terms of
the following micro-skills:

Recognizing key words in conversations

Recognizing the topic of a conversation
Recognizing speakers attitude toward a topic
Recognizing time reference of an utterance
Following speech at different rates of speed
Identifying key information in a passage

Advocates of CLT however stressed an integrated-skills approach to the

teaching of the skills. Since in real life the skills often occur together, th
ey should also be linked in teaching.

Communicative Syllabus 3
A functional syllabus: This is organized according t
o the functions the learner should be able to carry ou
t in English, such as expressing likes and dislikes, offe
ring and accepting apologies, introducing someone, a
nd giving explanations. Vocabulary and grammar are
then chosen according to the functions being taught.
A notional syllabus is one based around the conten
t and notions a learner would need to express, and a
task syllabus specified the tasks and activities student
s should carry out in the classroom.

CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF CLT

Ten Core Assumptions of Current Co

mmunicative Language Teaching 1
1. Second language learning is facilitated when learners are
engaged in interaction and meaningful communication.
2. Effective classroom learning tasks and exercises provide
opportunities for students to negotiate meaning, expand
their language resources, notice how language is used, a
nd take part in meaningful interpersonal exchange.
3. Meaningful communication results from students proces
sing content that is relevant, purposeful, interesting, and
engaging.
4. Communication is a holistic process that often calls upon
the use of several language skills.

Ten Core Assumptions of Current Co

mmunicative Language Teaching 2
5. Language learning is facilitated both by activities that inv
olve inductive or discovery learning of underlying rules o
f language use and organization, as well as by those invol
ving language analysis and reflection.
6. Language learning is a gradual process that involves crea
tive use of language, and trial and error. Although errors
are a normal product of learning, the ultimate goal of lea
rning is to be able to use the new language both accurat
ely and fluently.
7. Learners develop their own routes to language learning,
progress at different rates, and have different needs and
motivations for language learning.

Ten Core Assumptions of Current Co

mmunicative Language Teaching 2
8. Successful language learning involves the use of
effective learning and communication strategies.
9. The role of the teacher in the language classroo
m is that of a facilitator, who creates a classroo
m climate conducive to language learning and pr
ovides opportunities for students to use and pra
ctice the language and to reflect on language use
and language learning.
10. The classroom is a community where learners
learn through collaboration and sharing.

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES IN
COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Characteristics of CLT Classroom Activiti

es
Grammar is not taught in isolation but often arises out of a communic
ative task. Students might carry out a task and then reflect on some of
the linguistic characteristics of their performance.
They create the need for communication, interaction, and negotiation
of meaning through the use of activities such as problem solving, info
rmation sharing, and role play.
They provide opportunities for both inductive as well as deductive lea
rning of grammar.
They make use of content that connects to students lives and interest
s.
They allow students to personalize learning by applying what they hav
e learned to their own lives.
Classroom materials typically make use of authentic texts to create int
erest and to provide valid models of language.

Accuracy Versus Fluency Activities

One of the goals of CLT is to develop fluency in lang
uage use. Fluency is natural language use occurring
when a speaker engages in meaningful interaction a
nd maintains comprehensible and ongoing commu
nication despite limitations in his or her communica
tive competence.
Fluency is developed by creating classroom activitie
s in which students must negotiate meaning, use co
mmunication strategies, correct misunderstandings,
and work to avoid communication breakdowns.

 The following are examples of fluency acti

vities and accuracy activities.
Both make use of group work, reminding
us that group work is not necessarily a flu
ency task (see Brumfit 1984).

Fluency Tasks
A group of students of mixed language abilit
y carry out a role play in which they have to a
dopt specified roles and personalities provid
ed for them on cue cards.
These roles involve the drivers, witnesses, an
d the police at a collision between two cars.
The language is entirely improvised by the st
udents, though they are heavily constrained
by the specified situation and characters.

 The teacher and a student act out a dialog in whi

ch a customer returns a faulty object she has pur
chased to a department store. The clerk asks wha
t the problem is and promises to get a refund for
the customer or to replace the item.
In groups, students now try to recreate the dialog
using language items of their choice. They are ask
ed to recreate what happened preserving the me
aning but not necessarily the exact language. The
y later act out their dialogs in front of the class.

Accuracy Tasks
Students are practicing dialogs. The dialogs contain
examples of falling intonation in Wh-questions. The
class is organized in groups of three, two students p
racticing the dialog, and the third playing the role of
monitor. The monitor checks that the others are usi
ng the correct intonation pattern and corrects them
where necessary.
The students rotate their roles between those readi
ng the dialog and those monitoring. The teacher mo
ves around listening to the groups and correcting th
eir language where necessary.

Accuracy Tasks
Students in groups of three or four complete
an exercise on a grammatical item, such as ch
oosing between the past tense and the prese
nt perfect, an item which the teacher has prev
iously presented and practiced as a whole cla
ss activity. Together students decide which gr
ammatical form is correct and they complete
the exercise.
Groups take turns reading out their answers.

Fluency Or Accuracy? 1
Teachers are recommended to use a balance of f
luency activities and accuracy and to use accurac
y activities to support fluency activities.
Accuracy work could either come before or after
fluency work.
For example, based on students performance o
n a fluency task, the teacher could assign accura
cy work to deal with grammatical or pronunciati
on problems the teacher observed while student
s were carrying out the task.

Fluency Or Accuracy? 2
Does fluency work develops fluency at the expense of
accuracy?
In doing fluency tasks, the focus is on getting meaning
s across using any available communicative resources
. This often involves a heavy dependence on vocabula
ry and communication strategies, and there is little m
otivation to use accurate grammar or pronunciation.
Fluency work thus requires extra attention on the part
of the teacher in terms of preparing students for a flu
ency task, or follow-up activities that provide feedback
on language use.

Information-Gap Activities 1
An important aspect of communication in
CLT.
This refers to the fact that in real commu
nication, people normally communicate i
n order to get information they do not po
ssess.

Information-Gap Activities 2
Students go beyond practice of language f
orms for their own sake and use their ling
uistic and communicative resources in or
der to obtain information.
In so doing, they will draw available vocab
ulary, grammar, and communication strat
egies to complete a task.

Information-Gap Activity
Students are divided into A-B pairs. The teac
her has copied two sets of pictures. One set
(for A students) contains a picture of a grou
p of people. The other set (for B students) c
ontains a similar picture but it contains a nu
mber of slight differences from the A-pictur
e. Students must sit back to back and ask q
uestions to try to find out how many differe
nces there are between the two pictures.

Today is picture B.
What has happened
since yesterday
(picture A)?

35

 Students practice a role play in pairs. One

student is given the information she/he n
eeds to play the part of a clerk in the railw
ay station information booth and has info
rmation on train departures, prices, etc. T
he other needs to obtain information on
departure times, prices, etc. They role-pla
y the interaction without looking at each
others cue cards.

Jigsaw activities
These are also based on the information-gap p
rinciple. Typically, the class is divided into grou
ps 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 reso
urces to communicate meaningfully and so tak
e part in meaningful communication practice.
The following are examples of jigsaw activities:

 The teacher plays a recording in which three people with

different points of view discuss their opinions on a topic
of interest.
The teacher prepares three different listening tasks, one f
ocusing on each of the three speakers points of view.
Students are divided into three groups and each group li
stens and takes notes on one of the three speakers opini
ons. Students are then rearranged into groups containing
a student from groups A, B, and C.
They now role-play the discussion using the information t
hey obtained.

 The teacher takes a narrative and divides it i

nto twenty sections (or as many sections as t
here are students in the class).
Each student gets one section of the story.
Students must then move around the class, a
nd by listening to each section read aloud, de
cide where in the story their section belongs.
Eventually the students have to put the entir
e story together in the correct sequence.

Other Activity Types in CLT 1

Task-completion activities: puzzles, games, map-readin
g, and other kinds of classroom tasks in which the focus i
s on using ones language resources to complete a task.
Information-gathering activities: student-conducted s
urveys, interviews, and searches in which students are re
quired to use their linguistic resources to collect informat
ion.
Opinion-sharing activities: activities in which students
compare values, opinions, or beliefs, such as a ranking ta
sk in which students list six qualities in order of importan
ce that they might consider in choosing a date or spouse.

Other Activity Types in CLT 2

Information-transfer activities: These require learners to tak
e information that is presented in one form, and represent it in
a different form. For example, they may read instructions on h
ow to get from A to B, and then draw a map showing the seque
nce, or they may read information about a subject and then re
present it as a graph.
Reasoning-gap activities: These involve deriving some new in
formation from given information through the process of infer
ence, practical reasoning, etc. For example, working out a teach
ers timetable on the basis of given class timetables.
Role plays: activities in which students are assigned roles and
improvise a scene or exchange based on given information or c
lues.

OTHER ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION IN CL

T

Choice
In communication, the speaker has a choi
ce of what she will say & how she will say
it.
If the exercise is tightly controlled. So that
the students can only say something in on
e way, the speaker has no choice and the
exchange is not communicative.

Feedback
True communication is purposeful.
A speaker can evaluate whether or not h
er purpose has been achieved based upo
n the information she receives from the li
stener. If the listener does not have an op
portunity to provide speaker with such fe
edback, then the exchange is not really co
mmunicative.

The Push for Authenticity 1

Clarke and Silberstein (1977, 51) argued: Classr
oom activities should parallel the real world a
s closely as possible.
Real communication is a defining characteristic
of CLT & the language classroom is intended as
a preparation for survival in the real world.
Whenever possible, authentic language- langua
ge as it is used in a real context-should be intr
oduced. E.g. sports column from a newspaper.

The Push for Authenticity 2

Arguments in favour of the use of authent
ic materials include:
They provide cultural information about the t
arget language.
They provide exposure to real language.
They relate more closely to learners needs.
They support a more creative approach to te
aching.

The Push for Authenticity 3

Others (e.g., Widdowson 1987) argued that it is not impor
tant if classroom materials themselves are derived from a
uthentic texts and other forms of input, as long as the lea
rning processes they facilitated were authentic.
Critics of the case for authentic materials point out that:
Created materials can also be motivating for learners.
Created materials may be superior to authentic materials becau
se they are generally built around a graded syllabus.
Authentic materials often contain difficult and irrelevant langua
ge.
Using authentic materials is a burden for teachers.

Emphasis on Pair and Group Work

Through completing activities in pairs or small gr
oups, it is argued, learners will obtain several ben
efits:
They can learn from hearing the language used b
y other members of the group.
They will produce a greater amount of language t
han they would use in teacher-fronted activities.
Their motivational level is likely to increase.
They will have the chance to develop fluency.

Summary
The most obvious characteristic of CLT is that alm
ost everything that is done is done with a commu
nicative intent. Students use the language throug
h communicative activities & problem-solving task
s. True communication is purposeful.
The activities that truly communicative have featu
res of information gap, choice, and feedback.
Authentic materials should be used.
Activities are better carried out in small groups in
which interaction among students are maximized.

Task 1
How useful do you think authentic materi
als are in the classroom? What difficulties
arise in using authentic materials?

Task 2
What are some advantages and limitation
s of pair and group work in the language c
lassroom?