Professor Jack C.

Richards - Communicative language teaching

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Hello, today we're going to talk about the methodology known as communicative language
teaching. I want to look at its evolution since it was first developed in the 1970s and look at how
it's influenced approaches to language teaching today. You know, in my experience, many
language teachers, when you ask them to identify what methodology they use, they often
mention communicative as the methodology of choice.

However, when pressed to give a more detailed account of what they mean by communicative,
their explanations tend to vary. Does this mean teaching conversation? Does it mean an
absence of grammar in a course? Or perhaps an emphasis on open-ended discussion activities
as the main features of a course? So perhaps I could ask you, what do you understand by
communicative language teaching? Communicative language teaching can be understood as a
set of principles, first of all, about the goals of language teaching, assumptions about how
learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the
roles of teachers and learners in the classroom. So I'd like to examine each of these issues
perhaps in a little more detail.

Communicative language teaching sets as its goal the teaching of what is called communicative
competence. Communicative competence can be contrasted with linguistic or grammatical
competence, which really focuses on sentence formation and the ability to produce
grammatically correct sentences. Linguistic competence does not really describe how we use
language as a basis for communication.

This is the focus of communicative competence. And communicative competence includes a

number of different dimensions of language knowledge and use. For example, knowing how to
use a language for a range of different purposes and functions.

Knowing how to vary our use of language according to the setting who we're talking to and
whether a formal and informal or informal speech style is appropriate. It also refers to how we
can use language as a medium for cross-cultural communication, interacting with people from
different cultural backgrounds. It includes knowing how to produce different types of texts
such as narratives, reports, interviews, or conversations.

It also includes how we maintain communication despite having limitations in one's language
proficiency through perhaps using different kinds of communication strategies. Communicative
language teaching also reflects an understanding of what the processes of second language
learning consist of. And these processes include things such as the following.

Interaction between the learner and the users of the language. Collaborative creation of
meaning. Creating meaningful and purposeful interactions through language.
It includes learning through negotiation of meaning as the learner and the interlocutor arrive
at understanding. It includes learning through paying attention to the feedback learners get
when they use the language. It also includes noticing, paying attention to the language one
hears and trying to incorporate new forms into one's developing communicative competence.

And it also includes the ability to try out and experiment with different ways of saying things.
Now, when CLT began, there was a movement away from traditional lesson formats where the
focus was on mastery of different items of grammar and practice through controls activities
such as memorization of dialogues, drills, and the use of, in CLT, this moved towards the use of
pair work activities, role plays, group work activities, and project work. So a movement away
from accuracy-based activities, if you like, towards more fluency, communicative-based
activities.

The type of classroom activities proposed then also implied new roles in the classroom for
teachers and learners. Learners now had to participate in classroom activities that were based
on a cooperative rather than an individualistic approach to learning. They had to become
comfortable with listening to their peers in group work or pair work tasks rather than relying
solely on the teacher for a model.

They were expected to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning. And
teachers now had to assume the role of facilitator and monitor rather than being a model for
correct speech and writing, and one with the primary responsibility of making students avoid
errors, the teacher had to develop a different view of learners' errors and of his or her own role
in facilitating language learning. So under the influence of CLT theory, grammar-based
methodologies such as audio-lingualism gave way to more functional and skill-based teaching.

And at the same time, accuracy activities such as drilling were replaced by activities based on
interactive small group work. As you can imagine, communicative language teaching created a
great deal of enthusiasm and excitement when it first appeared as a new approach to language
teaching in the 1970s and 80s. And language teachers and teaching institutions all around the
world soon began to rethink their teaching, their syllabuses, their classroom materials.

And in planning language courses within a communicative approach, grammar was no longer
the starting point. New approaches to language teaching and language course development
were needed. The communicative approach prompted then a rethinking of classroom teaching
methodology.

It was argued that learners learn a language through the process of communication in it, and
that communication that's meaningful to the learner provides a better opportunity for learning
than through a grammar-based approach. New techniques were needed, as I mentioned, new
roles for teachers, new roles for the learner. So instead of focusing on accurate repetition and
memorization of sentences and grammatical patterns, activities that required learners to
negotiate meaning and to interact meaningfully were required.
Since the 1990s, the communicative approach has been widely implemented, but because it
describes a set of very general principles grounded in the notion of communicative competence
as the goal of second and foreign language teaching and learning, and as well as the use of a
communicative syllabus and methodology, because of these general goals, it's continued to
evolve as our understanding of the processes of second language learning has developed.
Current communicative language teaching theory and practice thus draws on a number of
different educational paradigms and traditions. And since it draws on a number of diverse
sources, there is no single or agreed upon set of practices that characterize current
communicative approaches.

Rather, CLT today refers to a set of generally agreed upon principles that can be applied in
different ways, depending on the teaching context, the age of the learners, their level, their
learning goals, and so on. So current approaches to methodology draw on earlier traditions in
CLT and continue to make reference to some extent to traditional approaches as well. So
classroom activities typically have some of these characteristics.

They seek to develop students' communicative competence through linking grammatical

development to the ability to communicate. So grammar is not taught in isolation, but often
arises out of a communicative task, thus creating a need for specific items of grammar.
Students might carry out a task and then reflect on some of the linguistic characteristics of their
performance.

In the classroom, activities requiring communication, interaction, and negotiation of meaning

are made use of. These include problem-solving activities, information sharing, role play, and
task-based activities. And these provide opportunities for both inductive as well as deductive
learning of grammar.

Activities also seek to employ content that connects to students' lives and interests. They also
allow students to personalize learning by applying what they've learned to their own lives. And
classroom materials typically make use of authentic texts, authentic sources to create interest
and to provide valid models of language.

Here, the internet is providing a great deal of source for language teaching materials. Different
syllabus types within a communicative orientation to language teaching employ different
routes to developing communicative competence. Since its inception in the 1970s, CLT has
passed through a number of different phases.

In the first phase, a primary concern was the need to develop a syllabus and teaching approach
that was compatible with early conceptions of communicative competence. As I said earlier, this
led to proposals for the organization of syllabuses in terms of functions and notions rather than
simply in terms of grammatical structures. Later, the focus shifted to procedures for identifying
learners' communicative needs.

And this resulted in proposals to make needs analysis an essential component of

communicative methodology. At the same time, as I noticed, methodologists focused on the
kinds of classroom activities that could be used to implement a communicative approach, such
as group work, task work, and information gap activities. So today, CLT can be seen as
describing a set of core principles about language teaching and learning which can be applied
in different ways and which address different aspects of the processes of teaching and learning.

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