Assignment
2- Nur Hasanah
The
history of Communicative Language Teaching
What is Communicative
language teaching?
Communicative
language teaching is a
compromise solution that aims to reconcile form-oriented with meaning-oriented
learning and teaching. Communicative language teaching is both processes
and goals in classroom learning. The central concept of communicative language
teaching is the “communicative competence”. The definition of the competence
here are expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning.
How communicative
language teaching appears?
In the last 50
years, there have been many changes in ideas about the methodology of language
teaching. In this period of time, based on Richard (2006) there are three
phases of trends in language teaching.
The three of them are:
The following
are the consideration from the traditional approaches to what we call
communicative language teaching in the recently.
Phase 1
Traditional
Approaches (up to late 1960)
From the 19th
century, the education of foreign language was getting less dynamical. At this
time, the teaching of foreign language were emphasizing on the written language
than spoken language. In addition, the teaching process of this approach was
showed a formal, passive, and mechanical education where the teacher had a
traditional role (Stridsberg, 2007).
A big perception
of the language teaching in the traditional approaches is a ability to build up
a kind of sentences and grammatical learning. The learning process in this
approach is learning to produce the sentences accurately and quickly. The
famous techniques of giving commands of the language are through memorizing the
dialogue, oral drilling and controlled practice. Great attention to accurate
pronunciation and accurate mastery of grammar was stressed from the very
beginning stages of the language
learning.
Some
methodologies are included in the traditional approaches, such as Grammar Translation Method, Direct Method, Substitutions
/ Transformation Drilling, Audio-lingual Method. All of those methods or
approaches were assumed that errors of any kind were to be avoided, so the
learner of the foreign language were not establish bad habit in their learning.
For these reason, the trainee or the teacher of the foreign language must be
perfect one. Due to overcorrection of students’ errors by the teacher, anxiety
levels were often quite high among students.
The methodologies
that are included in the traditional approaches widely brought forward some
problems, that are the learners lacked engagements in meaningful language use
and the learners also had only limited opportunities to use language creatively
while they interacting with other (in the teaching process’ case, the peers).
As Willis (2004) on Pearson (2007) points out, “This was because the emphasis
was on eradication of errors and accurate production of the target forms, not
on communication of meanings”.
Phase 2
Classic
Communicative Language Teaching
In
early of 1970s, a change of perspective gave way to the possibility of
developing new strategies in the teaching a foreign language for communication,
with the aim of communicating in daily situations. From the new perspective
showed that there was possibility to analyze communication with the concern of
language in the daily context. Teaching and learning could focus mainly on the
context of the communication as a means of daily life.
The
perspective of new learning approaches came from the statement that it was
needed an approaches in teaching foreign language that more than focus on the
grammatical competence, besides the teaching foreign language that can be used
in the communication in the context of daily life. The approaches that give a
competence are showing “when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about
and with whom, when, where, in what manner”, Hymes (1972) (in Richard (2006).
The
communicative language teaching answered the teacher’s awareness about the
approaches that can give a competence in communication in the context of the
daily life or in short “communication competence”. The appearance of the
communication language teaching was in the 1970s were accepted enthusiasly as
an alternative of their teaching process. From these situations, the teachers
began to rethink their teaching. Grammar was no longer the starting point of
their teaching process’ planning, besides the communication one. And in this
period of time, in teaching foreign language was based on the social context.
Some
of these classic communicative language teaching includes comprehension-based
methods such as the Total Physical
Response (TPR), the Natural Approach, the Silent Way, or Suggestopedia.
Phase 3
Current
Communicative Language Teaching
The classic
communicative language teaching is not completely satisfied the teacher in their
teaching. In the late of 1990s, the classic methodologies were upgraded in
order to find the better way in teaching foreign language. The current communicative
language teaching was appeared. This is generally regarded as an approach to
teaching foreign language that reflects a certain model. The basic principle of
this approach is the primary function of language, which is language uses in
communication. The essential goal of the communicative language teaching is to
develop the communication competence of the learners, or simply put the
communicative ability in using the language fluently. In other words, the goal
of this approach is to make use of real-life situations that necessitate the communication.
The process of
the learning in communicative language teaching is changing, different with the
traditional one. The development of communicative skill is placed at the
firefront, while the grammar is now introduced only as much as needed to
support the development of these skills.
Current
communicative language teaching requires the active involvement of the learners
in the production of the target language. The teaching process include some
abilities to be mastered by the learners as the goals of the learning foreign
language: linguistic competence, the
knowledge of grammar and vocabulary; sociolingistic
competence, the ability to say the
appropriate thing in a certain social situation; discourse competence, the ability to start, enter, contribute to,
and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent
manner; strategic competence, the
ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication
breakdowns (Pearson, 2007).
The current
communicative language teaching offer a new way, that is the learner learn or
study a foreign language through social interaction. This way allows the
students to work toward a clear goal, share the information and opinions,
negotiate meaning, get the interlocutor’s help in comprehending input, and
receives feedback on their language production (Pearson, 2007). In the process
of the communicative learning, the learners not only use the inter-language but
also modify the language.
The current
communicative language teaching looks at the quality of classroom learning
interaction and language use. Some of the material that include in these
approaches are: text-based,
task-based, and realia.
References
Pearson. 2007. Principles of Communicative Language
Teaching and Task-Based Instruction [online]. [Accesed 30th
March 2012]. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/0131579061.pdf
Richard, J C. 2006. Communicative
Language Teaching Today [online]. [Accesed 30th March 2012].
Retrieved from http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Richards-Communicative-Language.pdf
Stridsberg, L. 2007. Communicative
Language Teaching: English as a second language (L 2) in Swedish primary school
– as seen by a small group of teachers [online]. [Accesed 30th
March 2012]. Retrieved from http://dooku.miun.se/engelska/englishC/C-essay/VT07/Final/Ling/Lars%20Stridsberg_final%20essay.pdf
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