METHODS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Nadja Mifka Profozic, PhD Second Semester 2013 Wednesday 5pm 6pm (March 20th)

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

What is communicative language teaching?

Communicative language teaching is teaching that

encourages learners to engage in meaningful communication in the target language communication that has a function over and above that of language learning itself. Any approach that encourages learners to communicate real information for authentic reasons is, therefore, a communicative approach.
Classroom-based language instruction will inevitably be

artificial in some respects. However, those who subscribe to the ideals of communicative language teaching aim to keep such artificiality to a minimum and avoid language exercises that are out of context and essentially meaningfree.

Holistic approach
The Communicative Approach recognizes that language

learning involves much more than control of language forms. It involves:

Fluency as well as accuracy

Listening and speaking as well as reading and writing

Sensitivity to what is culturally and linguistically

appropriate in different contexts Awareness of how conversations progress and how different types of text are constructed It is unrealistic to expect error-free production at all times errors help learning.

Active engagement and relevance

Students reach higher levels of competence in L2 when

they are actively engaged in the language, that is, when they are taking part in activities that involve listening, speaking reading, and writing about subjects that they find genuinely interesting and relevant.
Students confidence will grow as they learn to use the

resources of the language (including its structures and vocabulary) with increasing accuracy and appropriateness in relevant, meaningful contexts.

To encourage students to use L2 for meaningful communication

Teachers should make sure that: Students should be given opportunities to:

L2 is used as much as

Speak as well as to listen,

possible in the learning environment Interactive, learnercentred activities are central to the programme Language structures are introduced and practised in meaningful contexts

and to initiate communication as well as to respond, focusing sometimes on fluency and sometimes on both fluency and accuracy Work together in pairs and groups to share information and solve problems

To encourage students to use L2 for meaningful communication

Teachers should make sure that: Students should be given opportunities to:

All aspects of

Discuss topics of genuine

communicative effectiveness are considered. Students develop strategies for interpreting messages that include some unfamiliar language.

interest to them. Discuss the roles that body language, tone and voice, and intonation play in communication. Make use of context and visual clues, such as gesture, to work out the meanings of new words.

Weak versions of CLT

From time to time it is necessary to use communicative

grammar activities, which encourage students to practice grammar inn contexts that reflect real-life communication as realistically as possible.
A notional-functional syllabus provides a kind of short-cut

to communication by basing the syllabus, from the outset, not on abstract grammatical categories but on items with much more immediate potential for being put into use.
The notional-functional approach is sometimes labeled

Weak communicative language teaching; it is productoriented

Strong versions od CLT

Strong versions of CLT are process-oriented.

The central feature: learners use language through their

own linguistic choices, designed to be appropriate to the particular context in which they are engaged. It is the learner (rather than the teacher/syllabus designer) who ultimately determines what language forms to choose. A strong communicative approach give much greater prominence to how learners create contextual appropriateness through their own discourse choices, whereas a weak approach is more likely to provide learners with ready-made language

Authentic language-learning activities

Students should have as many opportunities as possible

to practise, and experiment with, new and assimilated language in meaningful contexts. It is useful to encourage students to work in pairs and groups and to provide students with computer-based resources that are appropriate to their specific needs and interests. The activities should always take place in a context with a genuine reason for exchanging information. Authentic language-learning activities are those in which learning is adequately contextualised in realistic ways and where a genuine need for communication is established.

TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING

Origins of TBLT
Over the past several decades, task-based language

teaching (TBLT) has increasingly attracted the worldwide attention of SLA researchers, curriculum developers, educationalists, teacher trainers, language testers, and language teachers. In the 1980s, the term was coined, and the concept developed, by SLA researchers and language pedagogues, largely in reaction to broad consensus that had emerged around what were seen as shortcomings in teacher-centred, form-oriented second language classroom practice.

Definitions
An activity in which meaning is primary; there is some sort

of relationship to the real world, task completion has some priority and the assessment of the task performance is in terms of task outcome (Skehan, 1998)
An activity which requires learners to use language, with

emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective (Bygate, Skehan and Swain, 2001).

What are the features of a task?

A task has the following features :
a task constitutes a plan for learner activity, a task involves a primary focus on meaning, a task involves real-world processes of language use, a task can involve any of four language skills, a task engages cognitive processes such as selecting,

classifying, ordering, reasoning and evaluating information, a task has a clearly defined communicative outcome (Ellis, 2003)

Developing fluency and implicit knowledge

The basic rationale for TBLT derives from SLA research,

particularly descriptive and experimental studies comparing tutored and naturalistic learning.
When engaged in tasks learners need to communicate

and use the language according to their own linguistic choices - which will help them develop implicit knowledge, fluency and automaticity (Long and Crookes, 1992)

Why do learners benefit from TBLT?

Classroom tasks should be designed in order to stimulate

particular cognitive aspects of the learning process. Task-based language teaching fits well into the theory that learning requires active engagement of a learner and that learners acquire knowledge through their own efforts and through the process of self-discovery. TBLT takes account of the nature of language learning: of the notion of inter-language, of the fact that language learning is a process, and of the existence of implicit and explicit knowledge as two dimensions of knowledge resulting from language learning.

Principles of TBLT
General principles that inform task-based language teaching:
1. Task-based teaching offers the opportunity for natural

learning inside the classroom. 2. It emphasizes meaning over form but can also cater for learning forms. 3. It is intrinsically motivating. 4. It is compatible with a learner-centred educational philosophy. 5. It can be used alongside a more traditional approach.

Focused and unfocused tasks

Focused tasks can be structure-based production tasks,

comprehension tasks and consciousness-raising tasks Unfocused tasks are divided into two groups: pedagogic and real world tasks. Typical pedagogic tasks: information-gap , opinion-gap tasks, reasoning-gap tasks, personal tasks, role-play.

Advantages of tasks over other types of classroom activities

1) Task-based instruction in a classroom provides an 2)

3)

4)

5)

environment which is naturalistic-like. It takes account of the developmental patterns: the order and sequence in L2 acquisition and the learners built-in syllabus. Although focused on meaning primarily, TBLT provides the opportunities for noticing , so while being engaged in communication learners attend to form too. TBLT enables social interaction and provides opportunities for negotiation for meaning and focus-onform TBLT provides opportunities for negotiated help within the learners zone of proximal development.

Scaffolding within ZPD

In Vygotskian socio-cultural perspective knowledge is

defined as social in nature and is constructed through a process of collaboration, interaction and communication among learners in social settings and as the result of interaction within the zone of proximal development.
The notion of guided support provided to the less

knowledgeable partner, known as scaffolding differs from the idea of helping the learner in an unidirectional way (characteristic of traditional teaching-learning activities). Scaffolding is a joint collaboration of both the learner and the expert operating within the learners ZPD.