communicative princuples and activities

7/29/2019 Communicative Princuples and Activities

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Unit 2 Communicative Principles and Task-based Language

Teaching

I. Language use in real life vs. traditional pedagogy

In real life In traditional pedagogy

How is Language

used/taught?

What parts of language

are used/ taught

Generally speaking language use in real life differs from traditional

language teaching pedagogy in the f ollowing aspects:

Traditional pedagogy Used in real life

Focus on forms rather than

functions

Perform certain communicative

functions

Focus on one or two skills Use all four skills

Isolate language from its context Language is used in a certain context

II. Fostering communicative competence

(1) Language competence and communicative competence

a. Chomskys theory: competence simply means knowledge of the

language system: grammatical knowledge in other words

b. Hymess theory: there are rules of use without which the rules of

grammar would be useless. Besides grammatical rules, language use

is governed by rules of use, which ensure that the desired or intended

functions are performed and the language used is appropriate to the

context.

c. Aspects of Communicative competence:

According to Hymes, communicative competence included four

aspects:

1). whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible;

2). whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of means of

implementation available;

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3). whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy,

successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated;

4). whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed and

what its doing entails.

d. Features of CLT

1). It stresses the need to allow students opportunities for authentic and

creative use of language.

2). It focuses on meaning rather than form

3). It suggests that learning should be relevant to the needs of students.

4). It advocates task-based language teaching.

5). It emphasizes a functional approach to language learning.

e. Principles of CLT

As far as learning theory is concerned, neither Brumfit and Johnson nor Littlewood,

for example, offers any discussion. However, several principles can be generalized as

follows

1. the communicative principle: Activities that involve real communication promote

learning.

2. the task principle: Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful

tasks promote learning (Johnson 1982).

3. the meaningfulness principle: Language that is meaningful to the learner supports

the learning process.

III. The implementation of language skills

(1) In listening and speaking, students should have the chance to

listen to and produce what is meaningful, authentic, unpredictable, and

reactive if ever possible.

(2) In reading. Since communicative courses focus on meaning rather

than on form, the reading skill is redefined to focus on the purpose of

reading.

(3) In writing, students should make the writing more meaningful and

authentic, that is to practice writing to express their own feelings or

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describe their own experience.

4. Communicative activities.

(1) Functional communicative activities and social interaction activities

There are mainly two types of activities applicable in communicative

lessons. The first type is f unctional communicative activities and the other

type is social interaction activities. Tasks such as learners comparing sets

of pictures and noting similarities and differences, working out a likely

sequence of events in a set of pictures, discovering missing features in a

map or picture, one learner communicating behind a screen to another

learner and giving instructions on how to draw a picture or shape, or how

to complete a map; following directions and solving problems from shared

clues all fall into the former category, while conversation and discussion

sessions, dialogues and role plays, simulations, skit, improvisations, and

debates belong to the second type.

a. Functional communicative activities

1) sharing information with restricted cooperation

The focus of activities is on meanings to be communicated not on linguistic

forms to be learnt.

pair-work, group work, discovering pictures, discovering identical pairs,

discovering sequences or locations, discovering missing information, discovering

missing features, discovering secrets

2) Sharing information with unrestricted cooperation

Communicating patterns and pictures, communicating models, discovering

difference, following directions

3) Sharing and processing information

Jigsaw, reconstructing story sequences, pooling information to solve a problem

for example to complete a table, a map, to decide on a route of travel or to decide on a

criminal

4) Processing information

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Deciding on food for a picnic, comment on different characters in a story, react

to disagreeable treat

b. social interaction activities

four approaches:

1) using the foreign language for classroom management

2) using the foreign language as a teaching medium

3) conversation and discussion sessions

4) basing dialogues and role-plays on school experience

Functional communication

activities

Social interaction activities

emphasis The functional aspect of

communication

The social as well as functional

aspects of communication

aim Use the language they know in

order to get meanings across

and effectively

1. convey meanings effectively;

2. pay greater attention to the

social context in which the

interaction takes place

standard for

success

Cope with the communicative

demand of the activity

1. functional effectiveness of the

language;

2. the acceptability of the forms

that are used in the particular

situation

typical

examples

Information gap activities Role-play activities

(2) Six criteria for evaluating communicative classroom activities:

1) Communicative purpose

2). Communicative desire

3). Content, not form

4). Variety of language

5). No teacher intervention

6). No materials control

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communicative princuples and activities

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