Доля В.В.

ДВНЗ УАБС „НБУ”

Peculiarities of the Communicative Approach in Teaching English

Communicative language teaching began in Britain in the 1960s as a replacement to the earlier structural method, called Situational Language Teaching. This was partly in response to Chomsky's criticisms of structural theories of language and partly based on the theories of British functional linguistics, such as Firth and Halliday, as well as American sociolinguists, such as Hymes , Gumperz and Labov and the writings of Austin and Searle on speech acts.

There are some principles that may be inferred about the learning theory behind the communicative approaches:

· activities that involve real communication promote learning

· activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning

· language that is meaningful to the learner promotes learning

The communicative method precisely defines objectives headed by free communication through conversation, reading, listening comprehension and writing. For those aims, the communicative method uses contemporary elements of tele-, radio communication, etc. which are natural in the world of exchanging information. Nevertheless, a book remains the main but not the only tool of language learning at school. A teacher can choose any book which corresponds to his/her purposes and defines his/her methodological approach towards language teaching. But a book should be both interesting and accessible for students. A textbook should help learning the language, but not give interesting or boring facts about it. On the other hand, even the most attractive textbook will not give any results, if its contents (drills, exercises, rules, etc.) are separated from the communicative learning with the help of a teacher as a professional counselor. An English language teacher must know English as well as his mother tongue. The teacher must be aware of the laws according to which language functions. The teacher must be acquainted with the last methodological points of view, but he is not to be obliged to acquire those if they do not conform to his purposes and aims. The teacher ought to know the difference between general linguistics and pedagogical linguistics in order not to convert lessons at school to linguistic seminars.

What is communication? It seems to me, communication is first of all exchanging opinions, information, notions of social, cultural, political and other aspects of everyday life. Communication always has associations with written and oral discourse. But communication includes a surprised face, a smile, a nervous movement or a smoke above the fire of Indians, as well. Communication is also advertising the colour of the president's suit, flags, posters or a whistle of a boy under the window of his sweetheart. The world around us is the world of communication in various spheres. And only at language lessons the only means of communication are textbooks and the lecturing teacher. In the classroom, the teacher is the source of information. And this communication is under control rather than free. In this case, the purpose of a teacher is to transform the communication with students to a pleasant, attractive and emotional lesson.

Real communication is always informative, unpredictable and unexpected. If the teacher is always informative, interesting and unexpected, then even before the beginning if the lesson students will be disposed for a good lesson. But if the previous lesson is just the same as the next one, students will be bored with it before the lesson start.

Even the most trivial dialogue can be transformed to a communicative one if no one knows a word of what will be said about. If the dialogue starts

A: - How are you?

B: - And you?

then it all can be boring, definite and predictable.

This dialogue is not informative, and rather similar to those which the students must learn by heart in terms of a prepared situation recipe.

By contrast, the dialogue below is unpredictable, interesting and informative:

A: - How are you?

B: - Is it true, that you ... or

A: - What is the result of the match?

B: - Tell me, where I can get repaired my Japanese TV set? It broke down in the middle of the match.

The answer is unexpected and related to the questions only associatively. During a language lesson, such dialogues can reflect spontaneous situations. Those unexpected dialogues are really communicative and built according to the scheme "stimulus - response". This principle stimulates active thinking process, intuitive thought and use of language in the frame of fixed communicative habits.

Working on their own, students fulfill the task of a communicative intercourse, and the best way of it is a free dialogue between students but excluding the teacher who is always correcting and evaluating. There are a lot of students who can and know how to speak English but they happen to keep silent facing the criticizing teacher. At free work, however, students are more willing and ready for decision-making and to ask the teacher for his advice.

When a teacher is not a dictator, students try to learn language themselves. In small groups, even the shyest students engage in communication at the same level as a "non timid" students. It never happens, however, if the teacher stands in front of the all class. Work in groups which transform a student into the main person of the language lesson is the kind of work which develops the communicative abilities of students.

A language teacher can not limit himself only to textbooks or teaching aids, even the most contemporary, but he must be in constant relation with the language by the modern means including television, video, etc. It can also be a newspaper, or a recorded telecast or a radio report. The more variety is in aids of learning and the more up-to-date reflection of the mass media influence is shown by them, the more successful will the communicative intercourse be.

Speaking about communication, it is necessary to take into account a specific national character and specific type of communication in English. Students ask: "What is the English for it" when they want to know the equivalent of some Lithuanian gesture. Born in Lithuania, children acquire specific gestures which are common to this country, or a city, or a community. The language is acquired in the same specific logical-emotional communicative system as well.

Can a child or the children acquire not only nominative forms of a second language but the whole complex composing the language of communication, as well? In other words, can a learner communicate with the native speaker at the same level? N. Chomsky defined the ability to speak with the native speaker in the same terms as competence. He claimed that real competence in studying a language could be developed in intuitive language of native language conditions.

Is there a pedagogical norm in defining competence? N. Chomsky (1965) considers people who do not know grammar or cannot read and write as non-competent. If we take for an example a man from a countryside who can neither speak nor write, we can say that in these communicative conditions there is no need for writing or reading, and that is why he is completely competent in justifying his everyday communicative needs. Then, we can say that competence is personal verbal perfection which corresponds to the personal communicative needs.

Teachers always seek to fill the heads of students with various grammar rules and to transform them to a source of language perfection. This purpose can not be achieved in most cases. At the same time, it is not useful since it is impossible to grasp a lot of. The English teacher should fix flexible aims which could vary in every single case. Communication is a necessity in order to keep contact at a certain level and at a certain communicative frame.

What are the relations between communication and competence and which determines what: whether communication defines competencies or vice versa?

In fact, I used to correct every students mistake. But later on, I understood that not in every case we need to pay attention to wrong usage of language, and if we do it this must be done in the same way which does not disturb the course of communication,

Which is better?

How can I find Students street?

Where is Students street?

Do you happen to know Students street?

Every from the three examples above will direct to Students street. Thus, norms of language are supposed to assist communication but it is not necessary to use it in the standard perfection. And if we have to make a choice between perfection and communicative result, we would choose the last one. No doubt, perfect communication preferred but not compulsory. A communicative teacher must pay attention to typical mistakes, those which he often comes across with, to distortion of logical and grammatical forms. Normative language is to remain on example of imitation, but not in all cases it must be the goal of active studies

Attention must be drawn to one more element of communicative intercourse. It is spontaneity. In many cases normative rules will not allow to evaluate colloquial situation and respond to communicative stimulus. Many times a teacher can spot a student not finding the right word. That happens when the student thinks not about what to say, but how to say.

Structural exercises, which had spread in methodology in the middle of the century, were determined to teach topics which must extract words from students’ active memory according to the situation. But these exercises did not teach free usage of language in unexpected situations. In fact, knowledge of the topics appeared to be non communicative because it was impossible to predict the situation with all its unexpected moments. Dialogues and topics must be a part of teaching process, but they are to carry unexpected elements, spontaneity and situation, which require immediate and logical solution of communicative problems. Dialogues must help to understand situation. They are useful in case when they involve ability to practice it in a free manner.

Questions of practical liberty and personal necessity are the key ones not only from linguistic point of view, but from social and political one as well. This question must be presented to every student personally. Even in primary school, students should know why he is learning English. Then they will be highly motivated.

A teacher can learn the student's attitude towards the English language by means of questionnaires which he can design himself. It can be following:

I study English because:

a) it is necessary in everyday life,

b) it is necessary for my future career,

c) it is necessary for my personal contacts,

d) it is a nice language,

e) we live in Europe,

f) all around us study English,

g) I need to read special literature in English,

h) it easier to live knowing English,

i) I am forced to learn.

Analyzing every point, a teacher can define motives of language studies in every particular case. Then the teacher can structure his strategies according to the needs of students.