Introduction to chapter 5
This chapter is one of four that deals with how a language is taught and learnt; these are issues of central concern to teachers. Juup Stelma’s chapter introduces a concept that has been important to English Language Teaching in particular since the 1970s: an approach to teaching known as Communicative Language Teaching (or CLT). It discusses three key issues: Communicative Competence, Communication used in classroom teaching, and controversies surrounding the introduction of CLT in non- Western countries.
Communicative Language Teaching was a new idea in the 1970s and was widely welcomed as the revolution that would transform language teaching. Like many rev- olutions, it arose out of a sense of dissatisfaction with the past. As Willis points out in chapter 1, many language teachers were frustrated by the fact that learners could master a grammar point when being drilled or tested but could not use the same item when speaking spontaneously. Learners were disappointed that having studied a language for many years, they still had difficulty managing day-to-day communication when they visited a country where that language was spoken. This was an age of growth for languages taught for specific purposes, and traditional syllabuses that proceeded through a language grammar point by grammar point were seen as far removed from the learners’ immediate needs.
At the same time, views about how languages should best be described, and what it meant to know a language, were changing as well. Whereas traditional language studies focused on what went on in the mind of the individual speaker, prioritizing grammar, the new approaches saw language as a social phenomenon that varied according to the speakers and the situation. Language was studied as a tool for com- munication rather than as a system in the mind. As a consequence, for the learner it was not enough to know the grammar of a language – to speak a language it was necessary to have ‘Communicative Competence’, knowing how to use the language appropriately in different contexts.
These two developments came together to inspire Communicative Language Teaching, where communication was both the goal of teaching (learning a language in order to communicate) and the method of teaching (learning a language by commu- nicating in it). The CLT revolution was hugely influential and eventually came to dominate the world of English Language Teaching. In spite of this (or maybe because of it), there is no real accepted definition of CLT, and no single methodology can claim to be the ‘correct’ version of CLT. In the early days it was often defined negatively – the CLT classroom did not focus on grammar; there was little or no teacher explanation; accuracy of language use was less important than fluency. As this chapter points out, however, CLT has in recent times become more focused and principled in terms of the classroom activities and teaching methods it encompasses.
The
background to
this chapter
CONTENTS The background to this chapter 51 Focusing on the argument 52 A language tip 52 To think about 52Some of the issues dealt with in this chapter are important to other chapters in this book. For example, Task-Based teaching methods (see chapter 6) are a form of Communicative Language Teaching. CLT recommends communication within the classroom; tasks are a way of motivating and managing that communication. As mentioned earlier, a criticism of CLT is that it tends to ignore things that are nonetheless important to learners, such as grammatical accuracy; the task cycle described by Jane and Dave Willis includes a language focus element designed to restore that balance.
You might also like to compare the views in this chapter with those expressed in chapter 12. In that chapter, Holliday argues that cultural stereotyping can have the effect of denigrating non-Western teachers of English. Communicative Language Teaching, developed in the West and (arguably) promoting Western concepts of what a classroom should be like, has often been recommended to teachers in non-Western countries as being necessarily better than the methods they might prefer. Stelma discusses a similar view and asks teachers simply to consider whether CLT is suitable for them and their students without insisting that it is better in all contexts.
The third paragraph under the heading ‘Communication as competence’ discusses three ‘challenges’ to CLT. In this paragraph Stelma describes three ways in which CLT may be regarded as ‘wrong’. In each case, a version of CLT appears to make an assumption which is incorrect. Stelma uses a variety of ways to indicate the assumption and the judgement that it is incorrect. Here is a paraphrase of Stelma’s main points in the paragraph – try matching them up with what Stelma wrote:
1
Assumption: Language can be represented in a few abstract constructs.This is wrong because: Language use across varieties and situations is complex.
2
Assumption: Communicative competence can be defined as a fixed thing. This is wrong because: Societies and communication constantly change.3
Assumption: It is possible to define learners’ needs.This is wrong because: A group of learners may have very different sets of needs, or may have no clearly defined needs.
You will notice that the second set is expressed most clearly in the paragraph. In the first set, the assumption and its correction are combined in a single sentence. In the third set, the assumption is not expressed explicitly at all.
1
If you are a teacher, do you consciously use communicative teaching methods? If you are a learner, have you been taught using them?2
To what extent do you agree with the argument that CLT is a ‘Western’ concept and should not be applied to other contexts?3
Can you explain how the concept of ‘negotiating meaning’ is different from those of ‘explaining’ and ‘understanding’?52 Introduction to chapter 5