The Ministry wanted to employ Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) as the basis of their curriculum. This is “an approach to foreign or second language teaching which aims to develop communicative competence.”[1] A fairly new practice, this teaching method focuses on communicative competence, a term coined by Dell Hymes, a linguist, in 1966.[2] It is in response to Noam Chomsky’s[3] distinction of competence, or, grammatical knowledge, and performance, or, speaking. Performance was often inadequate when compared to competency. Chomsky saw performance as separate from linguistic ability as speakers would often make errors while speaking. Hymes believed that Chomsky’s definition of performance to be too narrow and his definition for competency too idealized. With Chomsky’s model, distinctions among different communities didn’t occur. It was not as simple as Chomsky proposed, linguistic competency is not the only factor in language.
A communicative approach allows students to gain a better grasp of the language. There is a difference in robotically translating or writing a passage and communicating with another speaker of the target language. Learners are forced to think on their feet and adapt to the conversation at hand. They are forced to use feedback from another speaker and to reformulate their responses. This can often be lost as the grammar-translation method only allows language learners to be grammatically competent, but it does not take into account that language use must be “appropriate in relation to the context it is used.”[5] Often, pronunciation can be an issue that is never addressed in the classroom. A professor can mispronounce a word once and students will grasp onto that mispronunciation if they are not further exposed to the language. Or the professor may never say the word and the students will have to make their own assumptions, particularly difficult to do when English has words whose pronunciations are far from their spelling. Language learners are also unable to cope when introduced to different dialects. This in particular became Hymes’s issue with Chomsky’s idealized situation. English is introduced in the classroom as a universal language, and to some as a “lingua franca”[6] but the reality is that it transforms from country to country, and even region to region. In the U.S. alone, the word for soda depends on where the speaker grew up, varying from different regions. This is an overly simplified example, but the same point can be made when discussing different English dialects, which have differences that cannot be found inside of a written passage. Although there is a “Standard English,” when communicating with native English speakers, this standard can be practically non-existent. Language learners will have an extremely difficult time if they are not exposed to spoken English in different environments.
A communicative approach also changes the dynamics in a classroom. In a grammar-translation classroom, the teacher is the focus of the lesson. Students take cues from the teacher as he/she explains grammar points. In a communicative language class, students become the center of the lessons. Their understanding on how to effectively communicate with others becomes the focus. Teachers become mediators or facilitators, helping students to gain fluency in the conversation, reminding students to not worry about making grammatical errors as much as about properly expressing themselves. The shift in focus actively engages the student and, for some students, may help them retain knowledge of the language even more so than rote-memorization can. Their purpose of learning also changes. In the grammar-translation method class, students study with the purpose of passing an exam to get into a highly ranked school. However, in a communicative classroom, students are able to see the benefit of learning English outside of exams and can be drawn to it more. One issue of language learning is that students cannot find a purpose in studying the language outside of passing an exam. When communication is included in the curriculum, students can find a reason to continue studying outside of school. Even outside of language learning, this approach can create a sense of community or camaraderie among students that exams may have hindered.
[1] Takako Nishino. “Japanese Secondary School Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Regarding Communicative Language Teaching: An Exploratory Survey.” JALT Journal. 30.1 (2008): 29.
[2] Dell Hymes. “On Communicative Competence.” In J.B. Pride & J. Holmes (eds), Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. (1972): 269-293.
[3] Also a famous linguist of the time, creating other concepts such as universal grammar.
[5] Ibid,.
[6] A bridge, or common language
