Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching

            The assumption about language which says that language is means of communication causes some teachers involve more interactive activities in the classroom. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is one of approach used by some teachers. Related to CLT, three definitions talking about it arise from some experts.  

            The first definition comes from Jack Richards. Richards (2006:2) says that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) can be understood as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom. He thinks that the goal of language teaching is to make the learners being able to communicate using the target language written or oral. Besides, Richards also talks about the way of the learners learn a language which is not merely about memorizing of some grammar patterns, but it also involves interaction beetween the learners, creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language, and having the feedbacks after performing something. Another principle of CLT according to Richards is about the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning. He suggests some classroom activities to be used in learning, such as role plays, group work activities, and project work. The last consideration of CLT based on Richards is the role of teachers and learners in the classroom. He proposes the learners to be cooperative and responsible rather than individualistic approach to learning by listening to their peers in group work tasks. On the other side, teacher is expected to be the role of facilitator and monitor rather than being model for correct speech and writing. So, Richards sees that CLT is the engaged approach can be used for language learning.

The second definition is from Sandra J. Savignon. Savignon (2002:1) argues that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) refers to both processes and goals in classroom learning. The processes according to Savignon’s definition are the activities which will be held in a communicative classroom language which concurrently developed in Europe by doing exercises. The sistematic collection of exercise types for communicatively oriented English language teaching was used in teacher in-service courses and workshops to guide curriculum change in the early 1970s. Exercises were designed to exploit the variety of social meanings contained within particular grammartical structures. So, the process encourages the learners and teachers to define their own learning path through principled selection of relevant exercies. Another point of Savignon’s definition about CLT is the goals. The goals here that is the students will have communicative competence which is defined in terms of the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning and looks to both psycholingusistic and sociocultural perspectives in second language acquisition (SLA) to account for its development. So, Savigno proposes that CLT is an approach which has  some goals and processes in language teaching-learning.

The last definition comes from Patricia A. Duff. According to Duff (2012:2), Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes learning a language first and foremost for the purpose of communicating with others. In his definition, communication is the center of CLT. Duff illustrates his CLT by having teaching experience of an English as a second language class (ESL). In that experience, teacher opens the class by having a  casual conversation about learners’ weekend. After the learners have been encouraged to have deeper conversation about their weekend, the teacher gives a task for the students to make a group of conversation talking about the same topic.  At that class, communication includes finding out about what learners did on the weekend or on their last vacation and learning about classmates’ interests, activities, preferences, and opinions. Beside that, communication also involves explaining daily routines to others who want to know about others, discussing current events, writing an email message with some personal news, or telling others about interesting book or article or YouTube clip. So, Duff’s concept of communcation underlying CLT may seem self-evident as a goal for language education.

            Thus, three theories about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) coming from three experts. From those definitions, I conclude that Communicative Language Teaching is an approach which sets out the goal of learning language which is communication by having the process which are some interactive activities in the class brought by teachers then played by the learners enjoyably.  

References :

Language PDF

Richards, Jack. 2006. Communicative Language Teaching Today. Cambridge, www.cambridge.org/.../Richards-Communicative-...

Savignon, Sandra. (Ed). 2002. Interpreting Communicative Language Teaching: Contexst and Concerns in Teaching Education. yalepress.yale.edu/excerpts/0300091567_1.pdf

Duff, Patricia. 2012. Communicative language teaching. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. Brinton, & M.A. Snow (Eds.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (4th ed.). faculty.educ.ubc.ca/pduff/.../DuffCR_Feb_26_20..