英語(yǔ)教學(xué)理論與方法6.ppt

英語(yǔ)教學(xué)理論與方法,5. Communicative Language Teaching,5. Communicative Language Teaching,INTRODUCTION You may have noticed that the goal of most of the methods we have looked at so far is for students to learn to communicate in the target language. In the 1970s, though, educators began to question if they were going about meeting the goal in the right way. Some observed that students could produce sentences accurately in a lesson, but could not use them appropriately when genuinely communicating outside of the classroom.,Others noted that being able to communicate required more than mastering linguistic structures. Students may know the rules of linguistic usage, but be unable to use the language (Widdowson 1978). It became clear that communication required that students perform certain functions as well, such as promising, inviting, and declining invitations within a social context (Wilkins 1976).,In short, being able to communicate required more than linguistic competence; it required communicative competence (Hymes 1971)-knowing when and how to say what to whom. Such observations contributed to a shift in the field in the late 1970s and early 1980s from a linguistic structure-centered approach to a Communicative Approach (Widdowson 1990).,Communicative Language Teaching aims broadly to apply the theoretical perspective of the Communicative Approach by making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and by acknowledging the interdependence of language and communication. What this looks like in the classroom may depend on how the tenets are interpreted and applied. Nevertheless, we will follow our usual way of understanding the theory and associated practices by visiting a class in which a form of Communicative Language Teaching is being practiced.,The class we will visit is one being conducted for adult immigrants to Canada. These twenty people have lived in Canada for two years and are at a high-intermediate level of English proficiency. They meet two evenings a week for two hours each class.,EXPERIENCE,The teacher greets the class and distributes a handout. There is writing on both sides. On one side is a copy of a sports column from a recent newspaper, in which the reporter discusses who he thinks will win the World Cup. The teacher asks the students to read it and then to underline the predictions the reporter has made. He gives all instructions in the target language.,When the students have finished, they read what they have underlined. The teacher writes the predictions on the blackboard. Then he and the students discuss which predictions the reporter feels more certain about and which predictions he feels less certain about.,Malaysia is very likely to win the World Cup this year. Italy can win if they play as well as they have lately. France probably will not be a contender again. England may have an outside chance.,Then he asks the students to look at the first sentence and to tell the class another way to express this same prediction. One student says, Malaysia probably will win the World Cup. Yes, says the teacher. Any others? No one responds. The teacher offers, Malaysia is almost certain to win the World Cup. What about the next? he asks the class. One student replies, It is possible that Italy will win the World Cup.,Another student offers, Theres a possibility that Italy will win the World Cup. Each of the reporters predictions is discussed in this manner. AII the paraphrases the students suggest are evaluated by the teacher and the other students to make sure they convey the same degree of certainty as the reporters original prediction.,Next, the teacher asks the students to turn to the other side of the hand-out. On it are all the sentences of the article that they have been working on. They are, however, out of order. For example, the first two sentences on this side of the handout are: England may have an outside chance. In the final analysis, the winning team may simply be the one with the most experience.,The first sentence was in the middle of the original sports column. The second was the last sentence of the original column. The teacher tells the students to unscramble the sentences, to put them in their proper order by numbering them. When they finish, the students compare what they have done with the original on the other side of the handout.,The teacher next announces that the students will be playing a game. He divides the class into small groups containing five people each. He hands each group a deck of thirteen cards. Each card has a picture of a piece of sports equipment. As the students identify the items, the teacher writes each name on the blackboard: basketball, soccer ball, volleyball, tennis racket, skis, ice skates, roller skates, football, baseball bat, golf clubs, bowling ball, badminton racket, and hockey stick.,The cards are shuffled and four of the students in a group are dealt three cards each. They do not show their cards to anyone else. The extra card is placed face down in the middle of the group. The fifth person in each group receives no cards. She is told that she should try to predict what it is that Dumduan (one of the students in the class) will be doing the following weekend. The fifth student is to make statements like, Dumduan may go skiing this weekend. If one of the members of her group,has a card showing skis, the group member would reply, for example, Dumduan cant go skiing because I have her skis. If, on the other hand, no one has the picture of the skis, then the fifth student can make a strong statement about the likelihood of Dumduan going skiing. She can say, for example, Dumduan will go skiing. She can check her prediction by turning over the card that was placed face down. If it is the picture of the skis, then she knows she is correct.,The students seem to really enjoy playing the game. They take turns so that each person has a chance to make the predictions about how a classmate will spend his or her time. For the next activity, the teacher reads a number of predictions like the following:,In 2011, Quebec will vote to remain part of Canada. By 2020, solar energy will replace the worlds reliance on fossil fuels. By 2050, people will be living on the moon.,The students are told to make statements about how probable they think the predictions are and why they believe so. They are also asked how they feel about the prediction. In discussing one of the predictions, a student says he does not think that it is like that a world government will be in place by the twenty-second century. The teacher and students ignore his error and the discussion continues.,Next, the teacher has the students divide into groups of three. Since there are twenty students, there are six groups of three students and one group of two. One member of each group is given a picture strip story. There are six pictures in a row on a piece of paper, but no words. The pictures tell a story. The student with the story shows the first picture to the other members of his group, while covering the remaining five pictures.,The other students try to predict what they think will happen in the second picture. The first student tells them whether they are correct or not. He then shows them the second picture and asks them to predict what the third picture will look like. After the entire series of pictures has been shown, the group gets a new strip story and they change roles, giving the first student an opportunity to work with a partner in making predictions.,For the final activity of the class, the students are told that they will do a role-play. The teacher tells them that they are to be divided into groups of four. They are to imagine that they are all employees of the same company. One of them is the others boss. They are having a meeting to discuss what will possibly occur as a result of their company merging with another company. Before they begin, they discuss some possibilities together.,They decide that they can talk about topics such as whether or not some of the people in their company will lose their jobs, whether or not they will have to move, whether or not certain policies will change, whether or not they will earn more money. Remember, reminds the teacher, that one of you in each group is the boss. You should think about this relationship if, for example, he or she makes a prediction that you dont agree with.,For fifteen minutes the students perform their role-play. The teacher moves from group to group to answer questions and offer any advice on what the groups can discuss. After its over, the students have an opportunity to pose any questions. In this way, they elicit some relevant vocabulary words. They then discuss what language forms are appropriate in dealing with ones boss. For example,the teacher explains, what if you know that your boss doesnt think that the vacation policy will change, but you think it will. How will you state your prediction? You are more likely to say something like I think the vacation policy might change, than The vacation policy will change. What if, however, the teacher says,it is your colleague with whom you disagree and you are certain that you are right. How will you express your prediction then? One student offers, I know that the vacation policy will change. Another student says, I am sure that the vacation policy will change. A third student says simply, The vacation policy will change.,The class is almost over. The teacher uses the last few minutes to give the homework assignment. The students are to listen to the debate between two political candidates on the radio or watch it on television that night. They are then to write (in English) their prediction of who they think will win the election and why they think so. They will read these to their classmates at the start of the next class.,THINKING ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE,As we have seen before, there are important principles underlying the behavior we have observed. Let us now investigate these by compiling our two lists: our observations and the underlying principles.,REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES,The answers to our ten questions will help us come to a better understanding of Communicative Language Teaching. In some answers new information has been provided to clarify certain concepts.,What are the goals of teachers who use Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)?,The goal is to enable students to communicate in the target language. To do this, students need knowledge of the linguistic forms, meanings, and functions. They need to know that many different forms can be used to perform a function and also that a single form can often serve a variety of functions.,They must be able to choose from among these the most appropriate form, given the social context and the roles of the interlocutors. They must also be able to manage the process of negotiating meaning with their interlocutors. Communication is a process; knowledge of the forms of language is insufficient.,2 What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the student?,The teacher facilitates communication in the classroom. In this role, one of his major responsibilities is to establish situations likely to promote communication. During the activities he acts as an adviser, answering students questions and monitoring their performance. He might make note of their errors to be worked on at a later time during more accuracy-based activities. At other times he might be a co-communicator engaging in the communicative activity along with students (Litttewood 1981).,Students are, above all, communicators. They are actively engaged in negotiating meaning-in trying to make themselves understood and in understanding others-even when their knowledge of the target language is incomplete. Also, since the teachers role is less dominant than in a teacher-centered method, students are seen as more responsible managers of their own learning.,3 What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?,The most obvious characteristic of CLT is that almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent. Students use the language a great deal through communicative activities such as games, role plays, and problem-solving tasks (see discussion of these in the review of techniques).,Activities that are truly communicative, according to Morrow (in Johnson and Morrow 198t), have three features in common: information gap, choice, and feedback. An information gap exists when one person in an exchange knows something the other person does not. If we both know today is Tuesday and I ask you, What is today? and you answer, Tuesday, our exchange is not really communicative.,In communication, the speaker has a choice of what she will say and how she will say it. If the exercise is tightly controlled so that students can only say something in one way, the speaker has no choice and the exchange, therefore, is not communicative. In a chain drill, for example, if a student must reply to her neighbors question in the same way as her neighbor replied to someone elses question, then she has no choice of form and content, and real communication does not occur.,True communication is purposeful. A speaker can thus evaluate whether or not his purpose has been achieved based upon the information she receives from his listener. If the listener does not have opportunity to provide the speaker with such feedback, then the exchange is not really communicative. Forming questions through a transformation drill may be a worthwhile activity, but it is not in keeping with CLT since a speaker will receive no response from a listener, so is unable to assess whether her question has been understood or not.,Another characteristic of CLT is the use of authentic materials. It is considered desirable to give students an opportunity to develop strategies for understanding language as it is actually used. Finally, we noted that activities in CLT are often carried out by students in small groups. Small numbers of students interacting are favored in order to maximize the time allotted to each student for communicating.,4 What is the nature of student-teacher interaction? What is the nature of student-student interaction?,The teacher may present some part of the lesson, such as when working with linguistic accuracy. At other times, he is the facilitator of the activities, but he does not always himself interact with the students.,Sometimes he is a co-communicator, but more often he establishes situations that prompt communication between and among the students. Students interact a great deal with one another. They do this in various configurations: pairs, triads, small groups, and whole group.,5 How are the feelings of the students dealt with?,One of the basic assumptions of CLT is that by learning to communicate students will be more motivated to study a foreign language since they will feel they are learning to do something useful with the language. Also, teachers give students an opportunity to express their individuality by having them share their ideas and opinions on a regular basis. Finally, student security is enhanced by the many opportunity for cooperative interactions with their fellow students and the teacher.,6 How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?,Language is for communication. Linguistic competence, the knowledge of forms and their meanings, is just one part of communicative competence. Another aspect of communicative competence is knowledge of the functions language is used for. As we have seen in this lesson, a variety of forms can be used to accomplish a single function. A speaker can make a prediction by saying, for example, It may rain, or Perhaps it will rain. Conversely, the same form of the language can be used for a variety of functions. May, for instance, can be used to make a prediction or to give permission (You may sit in the back).,Thus, learners need knowledge of forms and meanings and functions. However, they must also use this knowledge and take into consideration the social situation in order to convey their intended meaning appropriately. A speaker can seek permission using may (May I have a piece of fruit?); however, if the speaker perceives the listener as being more of a social equal or the situation as being informal, he or she would more likely use can to seek permission (Can I have a piece of fruit?).,Culture is the everyday lifestyle of people who use the language. There are certain aspects of it that are especially important to communication-the use of nonverbal behavior, for example, which might receive greater attention in CLT.,7 What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are emphasized?,Language functions might be emphasized over forms. Typically, although not always, a functional syllabus is used. A variety of forms are introduced for each function. Only the simpler forms would be presented at first, but as students get more proficient in the target language, the functions are reintroduced and more complex forms are learned. Thus, for example, in learning to make requests, beginning students might practice Would you .? and Could you . ? Highly proficient students might learn I wonder if you would mind,Students work with language at the suprasentential or discourse level. They learn about cohesion and coherence. For example, in our lesson the students recognized that the second sentence of the scrambled order was the last sentence of the original sports column because of its introductory adverbial phrase, In the final analysis This adverbial phrase is a cohesive device that binds and orders this sentence to the other sentences. The students also recognized the lack of coherence between the first two sentences of the scrambled order, which did not appear connected in any meaningful way.,Students work on all four skills from the