Communicative language teaching
If you’ve been to a language class within the last 40 years, you probably already know what this approach is. This isn’t so much a particular pedagogical method, but rather simply the way things are done by most trained second language teachers. Whilst audio-lingualism had a monomaniacal focus on linguistic competence, CLT is more concerned with teaching communicative competence. This means the ability to cope with different situations and styles.
By situations we mean real-life communicative scenarios in which information must be exchanged. This could be in order to get something done, like getting a coffee or checking into a hotel. But it could also be something like going out for a meal with some new colleagues and speaking your second language or engaging in a bit of small talk at a bus stop. This is why lots of second language courses are arranged by theme or situation: “holidays”, “at the office”, “moving house”.
By styles, we mean adjusting our language so that it’s appropriate for a given context. This could be recognising when “Good evening, Sir!” might be appropriate: perhaps because you’ve got a job in a pretentious London restaurant or because you’re saying it to a close friend for the purposes of humour or irony. Knowledge of styles can take some getting used to. For example, understanding that swearing in America is seemingly unacceptable but in Sweden you can swear away in English or Swedish as much as you like.
Another central aspect of communicative competence is how to negotiate communication breakdowns which are themselves caused by a lack of communicative competence. Put simply, good communicative competence is when you can carry on going when you can’t find a word or you get stuck. CLT teacher often teach strategies learners can employ to get themselves out of a linguistic rut or ditch.
One such strategy is using a circuitous description when you can’t find the noun you are after. For example, I want to say the word corkscrew in Portuguese (extremely unlikely I’d forget this vital bit of vocab… but for the purposes of illustration… ). I don’t want to lapse back into English because I’ll either lose momentum or the person to whom I’m speaking might not know the English word. So instead, I’ll describe it:
Me: A senhora tem uma coisa para abrir uma garrafa de vinho? (Have you got a thing for opening bottles of wine?)
Waitress: Um saca-rolhas?
(A corkscrew?)
Me: Sim! Um saca-rolhas... esqueci a palavra em Português
(Yes! A corkscrew... I forgot the word in Portuguese)
Waitress: Aqui tem (Here you are)
Me: Obrigado (thanks)
CLT-oriented sessions don’t have a great deal of focus on grammar, instead they focus on communicating ideas and keeping going when things go wrong. CLT-style classroom tasks typically include lots of dialogues and paired speaking work like barrier tasks. This is where your partner has some information on a sheet of paper that you have to ask for and vice versa. It’s also very common for CLT teaching to involve lots of role playing. Generally learners have to work cooperatively. They’re not sitting passively to the teacher, but instead are actively listening and responding to their fellow learners, typically in small groups.
The focus on communicative competence and speaking, means that CLT teachers don’t really do much teaching. The academic jargon for this is to say that they are ‘facilitators’, meaning that they really just set up a situation in which learners can practise. If you’re faithful to the CLT approach as a teacher and doing it well, you’ll spend more time preparing tasks for your learners than you do actually talking or doing anything in the classroom. You just sit back and take notes on things which are proving tricky for review in other lessons, stroll about listening in on individual groups and intervening occasionally when they’re stuck. You spend fleeting minutes at the front of the class and the rest of the time you’ll let your learners take the lead. Learners are working cooperatively. They’re relying on each others’ language instead of depending on the teacher as a model.
The focus of all teaching and learning in a CLT classroom, then, is communication. The central idea is that you’ll learn by negotiating and conveying meaning in situated, real-life scenarios or by considering authentic texts.
CLT-oriented sessions don’t have a great deal of focus on grammar, instead they focus on communicating ideas and keeping going when things go wrong. CLT-style classroom tasks typically include lots of dialogues and paired speaking work like barrier tasks. This is where your partner has some information on a sheet of paper that you have to ask for and vice versa. It’s also very common for CLT teaching to involve lots of role playing. Generally learners have to work cooperatively. They’re not sitting passively to the teacher, but instead are actively listening and responding to their fellow learners, typically in small groups.
The focus on communicative competence and speaking, means that CLT teachers don’t really do much teaching. The academic jargon for this is to say that they are ‘facilitators’, meaning that they really just set up a situation in which learners can practise. If you’re faithful to the CLT approach as a teacher and doing it well, you’ll spend more time preparing tasks for your learners than you do actually talking or doing anything in the classroom. You just sit back and take notes on things which are proving tricky for review in other lessons, stroll about listening in on individual groups and intervening occasionally when they’re stuck. You spend fleeting minutes at the front of the class and the rest of the time you’ll let your learners take the lead. Learners are working cooperatively. They’re relying on each others’ language instead of depending on the teacher as a model.
The focus of all teaching and learning in a CLT classroom, then, is communication. The central idea is that you’ll learn by negotiating and conveying meaning in situated, real-life scenarios or by considering authentic texts.
Some positives about CLT: There are whole books on CLT, but it simply makes intuitive sense, doesn’t it? Unless you’ve got your sights set on becoming a member the Académie Française, talking is ultimately what it’s all about. The emphasis on personal opinions and experiences is a real plus too. It’s so important to find your own voice in the language you’re learning so that it becomes a medium through which you can express yourself. The language becomes something you use to talk about you and your world.
CLT sessions are also the most engaging and interesting. When you leave a CLT session you should feel exhausted because you’ll’ve been talking a lot, perhaps up on your feet moving about the room. It’s simply more interesting than lots of other approaches to language teaching.
Some negatives about CLT: It’s often done badly which means that there’s quite a bit of learning in chunks that happens. You might be expressing your own thoughts, but you’re typically very heavily prompted with stock phrases in which to carry these thoughts.
The use of role plays is a case in point. I often see these being done in a scripted way. Two people sit and fervently flick through paper dictionaries or jab away at Google translate in order to write out a long dialogue which is then read aloud. This isn’t a communicative task because this isn’t an example of something you will ever have to do outside of a classroom context. Instead, it’s better to do these dialogues in an off-the-cuff kind of way. Have words and phrases at hand, perhaps a few tricky phrases on the whiteboard, but don’t read it aloud. Do it in real time and fumble through the hard bits, because this is what you’ll have to do out there in the world outside.
Unless everyone is at the same level and progressing in unison, CLT teaching really doesn’t really work. When I did my secondary PGCE it was explained that in mixed ability sets those of lower ability can learn from those of higher ability, whilst the more able students consolidate their own understanding by explaining things to their peers. I’m highly suspicious of this idea and in the context of adult second language learning reject it entirely. Language learners must be placed in classes according to their current ability and clear criteria for entry into a particular class need to be outlined (for example using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). Otherwise those of lower ability simply have their confidence continually knocked by those of higher proficiency. Whilst more proficient communicators do not benefit as they have to simplify their language in order to felicitously complete a task.
Another problem with completely CLT-based approach is- that like it not- we all need a bit of direct grammatical input in order to progress. This is known as the Noticing Hypothesis, the subject of my next pedagogical blog post!
