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Communicative Language Teaching (Top down) (Comprehension & Production based)
When we think about Communicative Language Teaching, we should immediately see its similarities to the Natural Approach and the Direct Method. Why? This is the case because Natural Approach, Direct Method and Communicative Language Teaching all are in the same family as Innatism. Like family, they tend to have the same values. For instance, in CLT the focus is in communication, which includes concepts like using comprehensible input, listening activities, authentic speaking activities, fun, discussions, games...etc. However, there are aspects of CLT that are different than Direct Method and the Natural Approach.
Firstly, CLT requires students to produce language that can be natural or unnatural. These unnatural speaking activities are called Guided Practice. There is a difference between a Guided Practice and Communicative Task. See the chart below to see the difference between a communicative task and a guided task: One of the important features to notice is that during a guided practice, accuracy is important. This is something that Direct Method and Natural Approach do not allow.
Taken from http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/speaking/01/index.php
Another important aspect of communicative language teaching is concept of communicative competence. This means that there is much more to good language use than fluency and accuracy. In addition to fluency and accuracy, CLT teachers place a lot of emphasis on using language in a socially and culturally correct way. This means that some language may not be OK even though it is grammatically correct. How could this be? Different cultures have different social rules for language use, and if we do not pay attention to these, we could not be communicating very effectively. Consider this dialog of a student talking to a teacher.
Student: Teacher, I want to talk to you.
Teacher, Oh, really...
Student: Today, I will come to your desk at 10:00 a.m
Teacher: I am sorry, but I can not be there.
Student: Teacher, I want to talk to you.
Actually, this dialog with the teacher demonstrated grammatical correctness (linguistic correctness) and fluency. However, it does not show Communicative Competence because the student's language was actually rude. Why was it rude? It was rude because the speaker used words like WANT instead of WOULD. WOULD shows politeness but WANT sounds like the student is demanding that the teacher be there. In addition, the student used the word WILL. WILL is also a demanding word sometimes in English. So, really, this grammatically correct conversation was actually a social disaster. CLT considers this important issue. In contrast, Direct Method and the Natural Approach do not mention it.
Finally, in the CLT classroom they have created strategies for correcting students' errors during a communicative language lesson. One very common type of error correction that can be used in the communicative classroom is called the Recast. In this style the teacher simply repeats what the student said but with the accurate form, which causes no interruption in the communication. Here is a video example of how it works. Another example of a technique that does not interrupt the flow of communication is called a Clarification Request. With this type of feedback,the teacher simply asks for clarification to get the student to possibly correct the error on her own. Here is a video example of how it works.
In the end, Communicative Language Teaching is a great approach to help with the balance between fluency and accuracy. There are many (many) type of activities that can be used in the CLT classroom:
1. Role Plays
2 Songs
3. Games
4. Reciprocal teaching
5. Interviews
6. Games shows
7. Dialogs
The list can be very long, but I think you can see the pattern. As long as the activity is creating opportunity for real communication, it should work. However, there is one type of activity that I would like us to learn about, and that is the Information Gap Activity. This type of activity can be a great way to get students engaged in speaking to each other.
Here is a pdf file that will give you lots of ideas about this Information Gap Activity.
This video could be helpful for your understanding of an
Information Gap Activity.
Here is an EXCELLENT video from the British Council about
Speaking techniques and advice. In this video, you can see
various teaching strategies and SLA concepts in action.
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