Communicative

Language Teaching
(CLT)

Approaches and Methods

Professor: Sergio Meza P., M.Ed.
October 2012

¡Formamos profesionales bilingües con Responsabilidad Social!

 Presentation’s outline

• Background
• Approach: Theory of Language and Theory of Learning.
• Design: Objectives, Syllabus, Types of Learning &
Teaching Activities, Learner & Teacher roles, and The Role
of Instructional Materials.
• Procedures
• Conclusion
 Background
• The origins of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) are found
in the changes in the British language teaching tradition in the late
1960s.
• Situational Language Teaching (SLT) was the major approach to
teaching English as a FL.
• Language was taught by practicing basic structures in meaningful
situation-based activities.
• British applied linguists rejected the theoretical assumptions
underlying SLL because the focus on language teaching was the
mastery of structures rather than on communicative proficiency.
 Background
• Scholars who advocated this view of language: British functional
linguist Halliday, American sociolinguist Dell Hymes and work in
philosophy J. Austin.
• There was a need in Europe to teach adults the major languages of
the European Common market, and in 1971 a group of experts
began to investigate the possibility of developing language courses,
in which learning tasks are broken into units.
• In 1972, D. A. Wilkins proposed a functional or communicative
syllabus for language teaching. His contribution was an analysis of
the communicative meanings that a language learner needs to
understand and express.
 Background
• Wilkins defined two categories of meanings: notional categories (concepts
such as time, sequence, quantity, location, frequency) and categories of
communicative function (requests, denials, offers, complaints). This was
the birth of notional syllabuses, which had a significant impact on CLT.
• The Council of Europe incorporated Wilkin’s semantic/communicative
analysis into a set of specifications for a first-level communicative language
syllabus.
• The work of the Council of Europe, the writings of Wilkin’s, Widdowson,
Candlin, Brumfit, Keith Johnson, and other British applied linguists on the
theoretical basis for a communicative or functional approach to language
teaching, the application of these ideas, the acceptance of these principles
by British language specialists came to be referred to as the Communicative
Approach or CLT.
 Background
• Communicative Approach aims to: make communicative competence the
goal of language teaching, and develop procedures for the teaching of
the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) that
acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication.
• There are two version of the CLT:
• The weak version stresses the importance of providing learners with
opportunities to use their English for communicative purposes (learning to
use English).
• The strong version advances the claim that language is acquired through
communication. That is not merely a question of activating an existing but
inert knowledge of language, but of stimulating the development of the
language system itself (using English to learn it).
 Approach
Theory Of Language
• The Communicative Approach in language teaching starts from a
theory of language as communication.
• The goal of language teaching is 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.
• In Hymes’ view, a person who acquires communicative competence
acquires both knowledge and ability for language use.
 Approach

Knowledge
1. Whether 2. Whether
something is formally and language something is
possible use respond convenient
to

3. Whether 4. Whether
something is something is in fact
appropriate in done, actually
relation to a context performed, and what
in which it is used its doing entails
 Approach
• 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 CLT is Halliday’s functional account of
language use. Halliday elaborated a powerful theory of the functions
of language. He described seven basic function that language
performs for children learning their L1:
 Approach

4. Personal function: 7. Representational

1. Instrumental
using language to function: using language
function: using language
express personal feelings to communicate
to get things
and meanings information

2. Regulatory function: 5. Heuristic function:

using language to control using language to learn
the behavior of others and to discover

3. Interactional
6. Imaginative function:
function: using language
using language to create
to create interaction with
a world of the imagination
others
 Approach
• Learning an L2 was viewed by proponents of CLT as acquiring the
linguistic means to perform different kinds of functions.
 Approach
• Another influential analysis of communicative competence was found in
Canale & Swain (1980), in which four dimensions of communicative
competence are identified:

Grammatical Competence Sociolinguistic Competence

Communicative
Competence

Discourse Competence Strategic Competence

 Approach
• Grammatical competence: it is the domain of grammatical and lexical
capacity.
• Sociolinguistic competence: an understanding of the social context in
which communication takes place, including role relationships, the shared
information of the participants, and the communicative purpose of the
interaction.
• Discourse competence: the interpretation of individual message elements
in terms of their interconnectedness and of how meaning is represented in
relationship to the entire discourse text.
• Strategic competence: refers to the coping strategies that communicators
employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and redirect communication.
 Approach
• At the level of language theory, CLT has a rich theoretical base.
Some of the characteristics of this communicative view of language
follow: language is a system for the expression of meaning, the
primary goal of language is to allow interaction and communication,
the structure of language reflects its functional and communicative
uses, the primary units of language are categories of functional and
communicative meanings.
 Approach
Theory of Learning
• Little has been written about learning theory in contrast to the
amount of that has been written about CLT literature.
• Elements of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in some
CLT practices as follows:
• One element is the communication principle: activities that involve
real communication promote learning.
• Another element is the task principle: activities in which language is
used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning.
• A third element is the meaningfulness principle: language that is
meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.
 Approach
• As a consequence, learning activities are selected based on how well
they engage the learner in meaningful and authentic language use
(rather than just mechanical practice of language patterns).
• Other accounts of CLT have attempted to describe theories of
language learning processes that are compatible with CLT. Savignon
(1983) surveys L2 acquisition research as a source for learning
theories and considers the role of linguistic, social, cognitive, and
individual variables in language acquisition.
 Design
Objectives
The following are levels of objectives in a communicative approach:
• An integrative and content level (language as a means of expression)
• A linguistic and instrumental level (language as a semiotic system and an
object of learning)
• An affective level of interpersonal relationships and conduct (language as a
means of expressing values and judgments about oneself and others)
• A level of individual learning needs (remedial learning based on error
analysis)
• A general educational level of extra-linguistic goals (language learning
within school curriculum)
 Syllabus
• One of the first syllabus models to be proposed was described as a
notional syllabus (Wilkins, 1976), which specified the semantic-
grammatical categories and the categories of communicative function
that learners need to express.
• The Council of Europe expanded and developed this into a syllabus
that included the following: description of the objectives of FL
courses, situations in which they might typically use an L2
(travel, business), topic they might need to talk about (education,
shopping), functions they needed language for (requesting
information, expressing agreement & disagreement), the notions
made use of in communication (time, frequency, duration), as well
as vocabulary and grammar needed.
Syllabus
 Types of learning and teaching
activities
• The range of exercise
types and activities
compatible with a
communicative
approach is unlimited.
 Types of learning and teaching
activities

• Exercises enable Ss to
attain communicative
objectives of the
curriculum, engage Ss in
communication, require
the use of communicative
processes like
information sharing,
negotiation of meaning,
and interaction.
 Types of learning and teaching
activities
• Classroom activities
are often designed to
focus on completing
tasks that are
mediated through
language or involve
negotiation of
information and
information sharing.
 Types of learning and teaching
activities
• Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between functional communication activities and
social interaction activities.

• Comparing sets of pictures and noting similarities and

differences, discovering missing features in a map or
Functional picture, one learner communicating behind a screen to
another one giving instructions on how to draw a picture
Communication Activities or shape.

• Conversation and discussion sessions, dialogues, role

plays, simulations, skits, improvisations and debates.
Social Interaction
Activities
 Learner roles

• The learner is a negotiator

(between himself, the learning
process, and the object of
learning). The implication is that
the learner should contribute as
much as he gains, and learn in an
interdependent way.
• Ss are expected to interact
primarily with each other rather
than with the teacher.
• Ss give and receive information.
 Teacher roles

Group process
Needs analyst Counselor
manager
• CLT teacher assumes a • The CLT teacher-counselor, as • CLT procedures require
responsibility for determining in the Community Language teachers to acquire less
and responding to Ss language Learning, is expected to teacher-centered classroom
needs. exemplify an effective management skills.
• CLT teacher administer a needs communicator seeking to • CLT teacher organizes the
assessment instrument to maximize the speaker intention classroom for communication
determine an individual’s and hearer interpretation, and communicative activities.
motivation for studying the through the use of paraphrase,
language. confirmation, and feedback.
• Based on needs assessment
results, CLT teacher plan
instruction and activities that
respond to Ss needs.
 The Role Of Instructional
Materials
• A wide variety of materials have been used to support
communicative approaches to language teaching.
• CLT view materials as a way of influencing the quality of classroom
interaction and language use.
• The primary role of materials is to promote communicative language
use.
• There are three kinds of material currently used in CLT: text-based,
task-based, and realia.
 The Role Of Instructional
Materials

Text-based materials
There are numerous
textbooks designed to
direct and support CLT.
Their table of contents
suggest a kind of grading
and sequencing of
language practice.
The Role Of Instructional
Materials
Task-based materials
A variety of games, role
plays, simulations, and
task-based
communication activities
have been prepared to
support CLT classes.
They are in the form of
exercise handbooks, cue
cards, activity cards, and
interaction booklets.
 The Role Of Instructional
Materials

Realia
Many proponents of CLT
have advocated the use of
“authentic,” “from life”
materials in class. These
include: signs, magazines,
advertisements,
newspapers, pictures,
symbols.
 Procedure
The methodological procedures reflect a sequence of activities
represented as follows:
Pre-
Communicative
communicative
Activities
Activities

Functional
Structural
Communication
Activities
Activities

Quasi- Social
Communicative Interaction
Activities Activities
Pre-communicative Activities
Communicative Activities
 Conclusions
• CLT is best considered an approach rather than a method.
• Approach refers to a diverse set of principles that reflect a
communicative view of language and language learning used to support
a variety of classroom procedures.
• CLT has passed through a number of different phases to apply its
principles to different dimensions of the teaching/learning process.
• The first phase was the need to develop a syllabus that was compatible
with the notion of communicative competence. This led to proposals of
syllabuses in terms of notions (a context in which people communicate)
and functions (a specific purpose for a speaker in a given context).
 Conclusions
• The second phase, CLT focused on procedures for identifying
learners’ needs and this resulted in proposals to make needs
analysis an essential component of communicative methodology.
• In the third phase, CLT focused on the kinds of classroom activities
that could be used as the basis of a communicative methodology,
such as group work, task-work, and information-gap activities.
 Conclusions
There are five core identified characteristics that support current applications
of communicative methodology:

1. Appropriateness: language 2. Message focus: learners need

use reflects the situations of its to be able to create and 3. Psycholinguistic processing:
use and must be appropriate to understand messages, hence the CLT activities seek to engage
that situation, the roles of the focus on information sharing and learners in the use of cognitive
participants, and the purpose of information transfer in CLT and other processes in SLA.
communication. activities.

5. Free practice: CLT encourages

the use of “holistic practice”
4. Risk taking: learners are
involving the simultaneous use of
encouraged to make guesses and
a variety of subskills, rather than
learn from their errors.
practicing individual skills at a
time.
Thank you!
 Bibliography
Richards, J. & Rodgers, T. 2010. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Larsen-Freeman, D. & Anderson, M. 2011. Techniques and principles in Language

Teaching. Oxford: New York.

McCarthy, M., McCarten, J. & Sandiford, H. 2005. Touchstone: student book, level 1.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Communicative
Language Teaching
(CLT)

Approaches and Methods

Professor: Sergio Meza P., M.Ed.
E-mail: [email protected]
Mobile: 3012698958

¡Formamos profesionales bilingües con Responsabilidad Social!