Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching, abbreviated as CLT, is a buzzword in the present-day world in the field of second or foreign language teaching. It is an approach to second or foreign language teaching, which emphasizes that the goal of language teaching is to enhance the communicative competence of the learners. This approach was developed particularly by British linguists as a reaction away from the grammar-based approaches like the aural-oral approach. Because of its many special characteristics, Communicative Language Teaching is different from all other methods and approaches. In this approach, a teacher does not play the traditional role of teaching in the lecture method. In a CLT class, students actively participate in all activities and the teacher supervises these activities and gives feedback.

The main goal of Communicative Language Teaching is to develop learners' communicative competence. Communicative competence is the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when, where and to whom to use these sentences. This suggests that CLT does not at all deemphasize the grammatical accuracy. It only says that mere grammatical accuracy does not make anybody communicatively competent. In order to be communicatively competent one has to be able to use correct sentences appropriately in different social circumstances maintaining the proper role relationship between the speaker and the person spoken to. CLT emphasizes that in order to communicate well, one has to know how to use and respond to different types of speech acts such as requesting, advising, thanking, apologizing, congratulating and so on.

Another aim of Communicative Language Teaching is to develop procedures for the teaching of all the four basic language skills — namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. In CLT all the skills are equally important for communication. It is, in fact, an integration of all skills. On the other hand, it is also an integration of grammatical and functional aspects of language. According to William Littlewood, "One of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language." Adherents of the communicative approach acknowledge that structures and Vocabulary are important but they feel that preparation for Communication will be inadequate if only these are taught. Students should be competent not only in language usage but also in language use. Therefore in CLT fluency and acceptable language is the primary goal and accuracy is often the secondary goal. Students should be able to manage the process of negotiating meaning with their interlocutors in everyday dialogues.

Communicative Language Teaching has many special characteristics, which differentiates it from other methods and approaches. For example, CLT puts more emphasis on meaning than on structure and form, whereas some traditional methods attend to structure and form more than meaning. In CLT, function is considered more important than form. The basic principle of CLT is that language is for communication. Secondly, proponents of CLT do not insist on native-speaker-like pronunciation on the part of non. native speakers of a language. They are for just comprehensible pronunciation. If a foreign language speaker can somehow manage to make others understand his or her messages, he or she will be considered a successful communicator. Thirdly, some conservative methods do not at all allow the use of students' native language and translation is also, totally forbidden in them but followers of Communicative Language Teaching do not have any objection to the judicious use of native language where it is absolutely necessary and they also permit translation where they think that students need or benefit from it. Fourthly, in some methods students' errors are prevented at all costs and accuracy is a primary goal but CLT suggests that learners should create language through trial and error, and their mistakes should be tolerated and manipulated in an unobtrusive way. These are, among others, the chief characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching.

There are two versions of the communicative approach — the weak version and the strong version. If the target language is English, the weak version stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use their English for communicative purposes. But they should prepare themselves to use it. On the other hand, the strong version claims that language is acquired through communication.. So students should learn English through the process of struggling to communicate in English. The weak version prescribes 'learning English to use it' but the strong version entails using English to learn it'.

In a CLT classroom, the teacher and the students play a different role. Here the teacher is mainly a facilitator of students' learning• One of his main responsibilities is to establish situations which are likely to promote communication. The role of the students here is that of a communicator. They engage themselves in all kinds of communicative activities. During these activities the teacher acts as an advisor, answering stuéents' questions and monitoring their performance. Sometimes, the teacher might also be a cocommunicator engaging himself or herself in the communicative activity along with the students. As the teacher's role in less dominant in a CLT class, students•are more responsible managers of their own learning. The teacher is only the initiator of the activities and communication mostly takes place between and among the students through pair work and group work.

Thus the main feature of Communicative Language Teaching as an approach to second or foreign language teaching is to help students develop their communicative competence. It is, obviously, different from other old as well as modern methods of ELT practised in different countries of the world. At present CLT is the most popular approach to teaching English. It is a student-centred approach in which students' participation in class is more active than that of the teacher.