Communicative Language teaching (CLT) & post-method era

• Sociolinguistics: Dell Hymes’ criticism of Chomsky’s notion of linguistic competence (1972)

• From grammatical to communicative competence

• Theory of Language: The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse

• use language for a range of different purposes and functions

• vary our use of language according to the setting and the participants

• produce and understand different types of texts

• maintain communication despite having limitations in one’s language knowledge

• Aim: Elicit meaningful communication

• Means:

– information sharing (e.g. using information gap activities)

– negotiation of meaning

– interaction

• Communicative outcome: a product (a piece of comprehensible information, written, spoken, or presented in a nonlinguistic form)

1) Language learning is language use: Communication is the means to and the purpose of language learning

2) Teaching and topic have to be meaningful and student oriented

3) Fluency and comprehensibility are more important than accuracy

4) The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses

5) Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error

• Functional communicative activities

– Learners have to overcome an information gap or solve

a problem

– Communicative outcome/goal: solution or decision

Which activities do you remember from your English lessons in school?

• Information-gap activities

• Jigsaw activities

• Task-completion activities

• Information-gathering activities

• Opinion-sharing activities

• Information-transfer activities

• Reasoning-gap activities

• CLT is an approach rather than a method

• CLT did change ELT

-> From mechanical rendering of pattern practices towards a largely communicative orientation that relies upon meaningful exchanges likely to happen outside the classroom

• CLT cannot be described in all its different facets

• One way or another, EFL teachers adhere to CLT today as an underlying mindset

• Putting CLT into practise can be challenging (e.g. amount of learner talk)

Strong CLT:

Focus on meaningful communication alone (“using English to learn it” (Howatt 1984))

vs.

Weak/Balanced CLT:

Linguistic means of communication can be taught in order to enable communication (“learning to use English” (Howatt 1984))

• Meaning focus; content driven curriculum

• Language Learning (Müller Hartmann & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2011) – tasks = one element of a language course

• Learning to communicate through interaction

• Linking classroom language learning with language use outside the classroom (real world language use)

• Focus on the learning process (after task completion) (Nunan 2004: 1)

• Listing /Ranking: list and then agree on your most hated household chores

• problem solving: allocate funds from a sponsored walk to improve your school

• opinion gap: plan an ideal meal that shows off your country's cuisine

• information gap: read different news stories. Which one is fake?

• sharing experiences: discuss summer holiday from childhood. Were your experiences different or similar?

• creative task: draw your dream room and label all pieces of furniture and objects

• Dissatisfaction of practicing teachers with strong CLT

• Low degrees of accuracy in French immersion programme in Canada (Merril Swain)

-> Need to draw the learner’s attention to linguistic forms in the context of meaningful communication

• Learners notice then process the target grammar structure in communicative input – Input enhancement (van Patten) (e.g. highlighting, italicization)

• FonF through corrective feedback – Repetition of erroneous utterance – Metalinguistic feedback (e.g. ‚he, she, it …‘)

• Incidental or proactive • Expansion of the scale on which FonF can take place – Grammatical – Lexical – Phonological

• language learning is language use

– tasks in ELT resemble real life language use

• learning = active construction process

– language learning draws on general cognitive processes (hypothesis testing, restructuring, topdown & bottom-up processes)

• limited value of form-focussed slot & filler exercises

• explicit language focus does not contradict CLT

• Lack of consensus and certainty in practice among EFL teachers around the world

– “Different people focus on different features in characterizing CLT”

– “These same elements are found in other approaches which are not explicitly described as CLT” (Littlewood 2013 p. 5)

• Indefinable nature of CLT

– “addresse[s] very general aspects of language learning and teaching that are now largely accepted as self-evident and axiomatic throughout the profession” (Richards & Rogers 2001 p. 173)

“Students in a remote village in rural China were asked to talk about their weekend activities through examples such as “go to see a movie, go to an art museum, go to piano lessons in a coaching school”. None of these opportunities existed in their lives and, not surprisingly, they had nothing to talk about.” (Littlewood 2013 p. 17, cf. Gong & Holliday 2013)

• “Toolbox Approach“

– overcome rivalry between methods and approaches: principles – The one “best method“ does not exist

– Teachers are not are not obligated to use only one method or approach

-> Context-sensitive Language Teaching (COLT)

„Many teachers are in fact using situated methodologies in their classrooms, rejecting any particular method in favour of a selection of principles and procedures that accord with their own sense of plausibility and are appropriate to the local context.“

-> situated methodology

1. Maximize learning opportunities

2. Minimize perceptual mismatches

3. Facilitate negotiated interaction

4. Promote learner autonomy

5. Foster language awareness

6. Activate intuitive heuristics

7. Contextualized linguistic input

8. Integrate language skills

9. Ensure social relevance

10. Raise cultural consciousness

• Teachers (knowledge, beliefs, values, aims, motivation, self regulation)

• Learners (individual prerequisites, motivation, language learning aptitude, interest for the subject, parents and their expectations)

• Colleagues (team spirit and/or competition, individuality and/or collaboration)

• Spatial and temporal circumstances (classrooms, sociocultural aspects, type of school, school programme, slot in the timetable)

• Media and textbooks

• Administrative requirements for the EFL class (curricula, core competences, Bildungsstandards KMK)