ApproachThe Com…

Approach

The Communicative Approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop communicative competence (Richards & Rodgers, 2001:159). Another linguistic theory of communication favored in CLT is Halliday’s functional account of language use. Linguistic is concerned with the description of speech acts of texts, since only through study of language in use are all the function of language and therefore all components of meaning brought into focus.

 Learner’s Role

Discussing about learner role, Breen and Candlin in Richards & Rodgers (2001:166) describe the learner’s role within CLT is as negotiator between the self, the learning process, and the object of learning, emerges from and interacts with the role of joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom procedure and activities which the group undertakes.

 Teacher’s Role

According to Breen and Candlin in Richards & Rodgers (2001:167) that teacher has two main roles in CLT. First, to facilitate the communication process between all participants in the classroom, and between these participants and the various activities and text. Second, to act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group. Other roles assumed for teachers are need analyst, counselor, and group process manager.

Characteristics of Communicative Methodology

According to Johnson & Johnson in Richards & Rodgers, (2001:173) there are five core characteristics that underlie current applications of communicative methodology. They are:

1.  Appropriateness: Language used reflects the situations of its used and must be appropriate to that situation depending on the setting, the roles of participants, and purpose of the communication.

2. Message focus: Learners need to be able to create and understand messages, that is, real meanings. Hence the focus on information sharing and information transfer in CLT activities.

3. Psycholinguistic processing: CLT activities seek to engage learners in the use of cognitive and other processes that are important factors in second language acquisition.

4. Risk taking: Learners are encouraged to make guesses and learn from their errors. By going beyond what they have been taught, they are encouraged to employ a variety of communication strategies.

5. Free practice: CLT encourages the use of “holistic practice” involving the simultaneous use of a variety of sub-skills, rather than practicing individual skills one piece at a time.

Advantages and Disadvantages of CLT

1.  Advantages

Communicative teaching emphasis on “task-oriented, student-centered” language teaching practice, asked to show the life of the actual needs of the English language to simulate a variety of life contexts, emotional, and to provide students with comprehensive use of English language, for communication of opportunities, its focus is not only a language in the form, grammatical accuracy, more emphasis on the appropriateness of language use, feasibility, communication skills, as well as training students in communicative activities in the strain and problem-solving ability.

Specifically, the communicative approach of teaching has the following three advantages:
(1) The interaction between students and teachers. Communicative teaching is becoming increasingly clear feature is the change in the way as the internship, students develop the subject, initiative and become increasingly important. Teacher-student relationship is an interactive, harmonious relationship, rather than the traditional education, the kind of master-servant relationship. (2) To impart the basic knowledge and ability to skillfully combine the development. Traditional classroom teaching of English in the main body of the expense of home study, only emphasized the teachers on the knowledge of the systematic and integrity, which is a teacher-centered, knowledge-centered from the medieval “scholastic” teaching methods inherited One consequence of the neglect of student ability. The communicative teaching emphasizes the learner’s cognitive ability and operational capabilities, which allow the students themselves to think about and express their views, thus trained in real life the ability to use language to communicate.
(3) Greatly enhanced the student’s interest. Communicative teaching students to participate in, sometimes accompanied by scenes or simulated scenarios, so that students more close to life, the students became the main character, naturally they were interested in the English language, to learn English as a pleasure.

2. Disadvantages

a.  Although it can be successfully argued that the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach does enable learners to interact, it is possible that the activities undertaken in the classroom may be perceived by learners as being too abstract. Despite teachers’ best efforts, classroom activities are not actually real-life, and it can be difficult to reproduce truly authentic language use and to facilitate genuine interaction.

b.  It may also be a difficult method to use in very large classes, where it may be easier to monitor and guide students by adopting a more didactic approach.

c.  Students with low levels of proficiency in the target language may find it difficult to participate in oral communicative activities and, if the exams used by an institution are grammar based, communicative fluency may not be appropriate.

d.  It is also worth considering that CLT may not be appropriate in EFL classrooms where English is rarely heard or used outside of the classroom – where all the situations in which English is used in the classroom are ‘pretend’ and are therefore difficult to place in any authentic context.

e.  Some people believe that with CLT there is a danger of focusing too much on oral skills at the expense of reading and writing skills, and that there may be too much focus on meaning at the expense of form. It is felt that there is not enough emphasis on the correction of pronunciation and grammar errors.

f.  Li (2001) also cites the difficulties faced by teachers and EFL students in Korea when attempting to introduce a communicative approach. Difficulties reported included: students’ lack of motivation for developing communicative competence, low English proficiency, and resistance to class participation, teachers’ misconceptions and lack of training in CLT combined with deficiencies in sociolinguistic competence and little time for developing materials for communicative classes and large classes. Other difficulties cited included grammar based examinations, insufficient funding and lack of support.