Content introduction chapter I. Communicative language teaching prioritizes developing students’ communication and interaction skills

Object of the research is the process of teaching English
Subject of the research is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study.

CHAPTER I. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING PRIORITIZES DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATION AND
INTERACTION SKILLS

1. 
   The main principles of the Communicative Approach in English teaching
   

The main principles of the communicative approach in teaching English are as follows.The target language is used to communicate for language learning.The learner must be able to differentiate between a formal and informal style.The activities performed should have a communicative purpose.Learners must be exposed to and interact constantly in the target language.The development of the four skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing must be incorporated from the very beginning.The topics being taught must suit the needs and interests of learners.The teacher acts as a guide and a facilitator or instructor. Communicative Language Teaching or CLT is widely recognised across language classrooms globally as a highly applicable and effective teaching and learning approach. But why is the CLT approach so effective and what are the advantages of the communicative language teaching approach for educators and students? Given that the teacher will not be available to help students when they’re out in the real-world, it’s appropriate that they should take the lead in developing their core language skills and find ways to prioritise communication and conversation. Oxford believes that this is: “essential to the active development of the new language.”In this light, CLT also has a highly positive impact on the relationships between teachers, students and their peers. At the highest level, CLT requires all participants to move away from the traditional teacher / student model to be successful. In the language classroom, learners also need to engage in learning activities in a cooperative rather than individualistic manner – it’s vital that they work together to build effective conversations and to complete the pair / group tasks that are at the heart of the CLT approach. As such, teachers can develop more creative language learning activities that go beyond the traditional repetition and the memorization of sentences grammatical patterns. As a result, evidence suggests that the CLT approach usually increases the students’ engagement and enjoyment of their lessons. Where classroom resources and tasks are grounded in everyday situations with immediately evident real-world application, students come alive. They become the protagonists at the centre of learning rather than the audience on the sidelines watching on (Dos Santos, 2020). Furthermore, students are also immediately able to take their learning and put it into practice in their engagement with native speakers outside of the classroom.As well as offering clear advantages to the student, the CLT approach can also offer significant benefits to educators by fundamentally changing their role in the classroom. The educator is both a “facilitator, a guide and a helper” as well as being a “coordinator, an idea-person and a co-communicator” (Oxford, 1990). Teachers talk less and listen more as well as being more focused on students’ individual learning journeys and working closely with them to achieve their goals. As adopting the CLT approach usually means that traditional, repetitive Instructional tasks become less important, teachers have more scope to be creative in the classroom. Although this means that additional time is needed to prepare appropriate teaching resources, there’s significant benefit in increased student engagement and motivation.Finally and perhaps most importantly, CLT is a powerful teaching approach to encourage the development of the four macro skills in language learning— speaking, listening, reading and writing. These are a core part of CLT from the very start, since active communication serves to integrate the different skills. The use of authentic or real teaching materials (brochures, flyers, timetables, menus and magazines) also helps ensure that students develop relevant grammar and vocabulary while working through activities that build these core skills. The advantages of CLT include learning with a clear purpose, fostering a student-centered approach, increasing student engagement, promoting lesson variability and creativity, and developing all core language skills. Teachers in a CLT classroom take on roles as facilitators, guides, and co-communicators, enhancing the learning experience for students.Despite the numerous advantages, it’s important to consider the challenges or limitations of CLT when determining if it’s the right approach for your specific context. Overall, CLT has proven to be a valuable and versatile method for language teaching, equipping learners with practical communication skills and fostering a supportive and engaging learning environment. Communicative English is an approach to language teaching in which a student learns from real life interaction, which can help to reinforce the value of their studies. Our below blog post explores exactly what Communicative English is, some techniques on how to improve your English Communication Skills, as well as exploring the Communicative Approach, a tried and tested method for improving your English skills as effectively as possible. In CLT approach, meaning is given prime importance. The main focus of the approach is to make the learners able to understand the intention and expression of the writers and speakers. In this approach, it is believed that communicative functions are more important rather than linguistic structures. Littlewoold states that’’ one of the most characteristics features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language, combine these into a more fully communicative view’’ (1981:1). Each language has limited number of sentence patterns. Mastering only those sentence patterns does not help the learners to communicate in the target language. The learner needs to learn the communication functions of those structures.
While using CLT approach in teaching language, the target language is used in the classroom. The target language is a vehicle for class room communication, not just the object of study (LarsenFreeman, 2000:125). Because if the learners continue to use their native languages, they are not able to communicate in the target language. It is believed that native language should be used judiciously. Appropriate use of language is emphasized rather than accuracy. Accuracy comes at the later stage. It is believed that when the learners learn to use the language appropriately accuracy comes automatically. Language should be taught by integrating all language skills and not by only one skill. It means communication approach is not limited to only speaking skill; reading and writing skills should be developed. Language cannot be learnt through rote memorization. It cannot be learnt in isolation. It should be learnt through social interaction. To communicate in the target language, there is a need to struggle with language. Richards & Rodgers state that the target linguistic system will be learned best through the process of struggling to communicate (1986:67). While using this approach, the major focus is to make the learner able to communicate in the target language. Errors are tolerated by the teacher because what is more important is to make them able to speak in the target language. Teacher should not correct them during the activities in which they are using target language. The teacher can note the errors of the learners and make it correct after the activities are over. CLT approach provides the opportunities to communicate in the target language to the learners. It encourages teacher-student and student – student interaction. It helps to encourage the cooperative relationship among students. The teacher should give work in group or in pair which give opportunities to share the information among them. It also helps to promote the communication among them. Richards & Rodgers state that students are expected to interact with other people, either in the flesh, through pair and group work, or in their writings (1986:68). CLT approach provides the opportunities to the learners not only about what to say and but also about how to say. The teacher should create situations which help to promote communication. The teacher should teach them how language should be used in a social context. Teacher should give activities such as role play which help the learners to learn the language in social context. Language teaching techniques should be designed in such way that it encourages the learners to use the target language. Functional aspects of language should be given importance. Dramas, role plays, games should be used in the class room to promote the real communication. Communicative Language Teaching” or CLT is a set of goals and processes in learning, where the main theoretical concept is the acquisition of communicative competence (Liao and Zhao, 2012). The theory emerged between the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was developed by theorists like Hymes (1971), Kajobovits (1970), and Habermas (1970) (Liao and Zhao, 2012). These theorists began addressing language teaching from the communicative and functional potential of the language. In the U.S.A., the theory has its roots in the audio-lingual approach, and in the U.K.’s situational language teaching method (Brown, 2000). Communicative language theory also has its roots in the 1957 Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky (Liao and Zhao, 2012). From Chomsky’s characterization, the american education system adopted his distinction between performance and competence which were described by the term “communicative competence.” This evolved into CLT since those terms could not effectively account for the uniqueness and creativity of the language. The next section explores the CLT approach, practices, and applications ineffective teaching methods.