Unit 2 Communicative Principles and Task-based Language Teaching

I. Language use in real life vs. traditional pedagogy In real life 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 following aspects: Traditional pedagogy Focus on forms rather than functions Focus on one or two skills Isolate language from its context II. Used in real life Perform certain communicative functions Use all four skills Language is used in a certain context In traditional pedagogy

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;

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 functional 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

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 emphasis aim

communication Social interaction activities aspect of The social as well as functional

activities The functional

communication aspects of communication Use the language they know in 1. convey meanings effectively; order to get meanings across 2. and effectively pay greater attention to the social context in which the

interaction takes place standard for Cope with the communicative 1. functional effectiveness of the success demand of the activity language; 2. the acceptability of the forms that are used in the particular typical examples (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 Information gap activities situation Role-play activities