Communicative language teaching: Difference between revisions

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== Background ==

=== Societal influences ===

The rise of CLT in the 1970s and the early 1980s was partly in response to the lack of success with traditional language teaching methods and partly by the increase in demand for language learning. In Europe, the advent of the [[European Common Market]], an economic predecessor to the [[European Union]], led to migration in Europe and an increased number of people who needed to learn a foreign language for work or personal reasons. Meanwhile, more children were given the opportunity to learn foreign languages in school, as the number of secondary schools offering languages rose worldwide as part of a general trend of curriculum-broadening and modernization, with foreign-language study no longer confined to the elite academies. In Britain, the introduction of [[comprehensive schools]], which offered foreign-language study to all children, rather than to the select few of the elite [[grammar schools]], greatly increased the demand for language learning.<ref name=":0" />

Language teaching was originally considered a cognitive matter that mainly involved memorization. It was later thought instead to be socio-cognitive: language can be learned through the process of social interaction. Today, however, the dominant technique in teaching any language is communicative language teaching (CLT).<ref name=":8" />

The increased demand included many learners who struggled with traditional methods such as [[grammar translation]], which involves the direct translation of sentence after sentence as a way to learn the language. Those methods assumed that students aimed to master the target language and were willing to study for years before expecting to use the language in real life. However, those assumptions were challenged by adult learners, who were busy with work, and by schoolchildren who were less academically gifted and so could not devote years to learning before they could use the language. Educators realized that to motivate those students an approach with a more immediate reward was necessary,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Communicative Language Teaching in Practice|last=Mitchell|first=Rosamond|publisher=Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research|year=1988|isbn=978-0-948003-87-5|___location=Great Britain|pages=23–24, 64–68}}</ref> and they began to use CLT, an approach that emphasizes communicative ability and yielded better results.<ref>Richards, Jack C. ''Communicative language teaching today''. SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 2005.</ref>

=== Academic influences ===

Already in the late 19th Century, the American educator [[John Dewey]] was writing about learning by doing<ref>1897 My Pedagogic Creed</ref>, and later that learning should be based on the learner's interests and experiences.<ref>1910. How We Think.</ref> In 1963, American psychologist [[David Ausubel]] released his book ''The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Learning'' calling for a holistic approach to learners teaching through meaningful material. American educator Clifford Prator published a paper in 1965 calling for teachers to turn from an emphasis on manipulation (drills) towards communication where learners were free to choose their own words. <ref>Prator, Clifford H. "Development of a Manipulation-Communication Scale. NAFSA Studies and Papers." English Language Series 10 (1965).</ref> In 1966, the sociolinguist [[Dell Hymes]] posited the concept of [[communicative competence]] considerably broadening out [[Noam Chomsky]]'s syntactic concept of competence. Also, in 1966, American psychologist Jerome Bruner wrote that learners construct their own understanding of the world based on their experiences and prior knowledge, and teachers should provide scaffolding to promote this.<ref>1966. Toward a Theory of Instruction.</ref> Bruner appears to have been influenced by [[Lev Vygotsky]], a Russian psychologist whose [[zone of proximal development]] is a similar concept.

Later in the 1970's British linguist [[M.A.K. Halliday]] studied how language functions are expressed through grammar.<ref name=":8">Littlewood, William. ''Communicative language teaching: An introduction''. Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 541-545</ref> The rise of CLT in the 1970s and the early 1980s was partly in response to the lack of success with traditional language teaching methods and partly by the increase in demand for language learning. In Europe, the advent of the [[European Common Market]], an economic predecessor to the [[European Union]], led to migration in Europe and an increased number of people who needed to learn a foreign language for work or personal reasons. Meanwhile, more children were given the opportunity to learn foreign languages in school, as the number of secondary schools offering languages rose worldwide as part of a general trend of curriculum-broadening and modernization, with foreign-language study no longer confined to the elite academies. In Britain, the introduction of [[comprehensive schools]], which offered foreign-language study to all children, rather than to the select few of the elite [[grammar schools]], greatly increased the demand for language learning.<ref name=":0" />

The development of communicative language teaching was bolstered by newthese academic ideas. Before the growth of communicative language teaching, the primary method of language teaching was situational language teaching, a method that was much more clinical in nature and relied less on direct communication. In Britain, applied linguists began to doubt the efficacy of situational language teaching, partly in response to Chomsky's insights into the nature of language. Chomsky had shown that the structural theories of language then prevalent could not explain the variety that is found in real communication.<ref name=":10">{{Cite book|title=Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching|last1=Richards|first1=Jack|last2=Rodgers|first2=Theodore|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-1-107-67596-4|___location=Cambridge|pages=23–24, 84–85|edition=3nd}}</ref> In addition, applied linguists like Christopher Candlin and [[Henry Widdowson]] observed that the current model of language learning was ineffective in classrooms. They saw a need for students to develop communicative skill and functional competence in addition to mastering language structures.<ref name=":10" />

The increased demand included many learners who struggled with traditional methods such as [[grammar translation]], which involves the direct translation of sentence after sentence as a way to learn the language. Those methods assumed that students aimed to master the target language and were willing to study for years before expecting to use the language in real life. However, those assumptions were challenged by adult learners, who were busy with work, and by schoolchildren who were less academically gifted and so could not devote years to learning before they could use the language. Educators realized that to motivate those students an approach with a more immediate reward was necessary,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Communicative Language Teaching in Practice|last=Mitchell|first=Rosamond|publisher=Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research|year=1988|isbn=978-0-948003-87-5|___location=Great Britain|pages=23–24, 64–68}}</ref> and they began to use CLT, an approach that emphasizes communicative ability and yielded better results.<ref>Richards, Jack C. ''Communicative language teaching today''. SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 2005.</ref>

Additionally, the trend of [[progressivism]] in education provided further pressure for educators to change their methods. Progressivism holds that active learning is more effective than passive learning.<ref name=":0"/> As that idea gained traction, in schools there was a general shift towards using techniques where students were more actively involved, such as group work. Foreign-language education was no exception to that trend, and teachers sought to find new methods, such as CLT, that could better embody the shift in thinking.<ref name=":0"/>

=== Academic influences ===

The development of communicative language teaching was bolstered by new academic ideas. Before the growth of communicative language teaching, the primary method of language teaching was situational language teaching, a method that was much more clinical in nature and relied less on direct communication. In Britain, applied linguists began to doubt the efficacy of situational language teaching, partly in response to Chomsky's insights into the nature of language. Chomsky had shown that the structural theories of language then prevalent could not explain the variety that is found in real communication.<ref name=":10">{{Cite book|title=Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching|last1=Richards|first1=Jack|last2=Rodgers|first2=Theodore|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-1-107-67596-4|___location=Cambridge|pages=23–24, 84–85|edition=3nd}}</ref> In addition, applied linguists like Christopher Candlin and [[Henry Widdowson]] observed that the current model of language learning was ineffective in classrooms. They saw a need for students to develop communicative skill and functional competence in addition to mastering language structures.<ref name=":10" />

In 1966, the linguist and anthropologist [[Dell Hymes]] developed the concept of [[communicative competence]], which redefined what it meant to "know" a language. In addition to speakers having mastery over the structural elements of language, they must also be able to use those structural elements appropriately in a variety of speech domains.<ref name=":9" /> That can be neatly summed up by Hymes's statement: "There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless."<ref name=":0" /> The idea of communicative competence stemmed from Chomsky's concept of the [[linguistic competence]] of an ideal native speaker.<ref name=":9" /> Hymes did not make a concrete formulation of communicative competence, but subsequent authors, notably Michael Canale, have tied the concept to language teaching.<ref name=":11">{{cite journal |doi=10.1093/applin/I.1.1 |title=Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing |year=1980 |last1=Canale |first1=M. |last2=Swain |first2=M. |journal=Applied Linguistics |pages=1–47 }}</ref> Canale and Swain (1980) defined communicative competence in terms of three components: grammatical competence, [[sociolinguistic]] competence, and strategic competence. Canale (1983) refined the model by adding discourse competence, which contains the concepts of [[cohesion (linguistics)|cohesion]] and [[coherence (linguistics)|coherence]].<ref name=":11" />