·
Give a
rationale for communicative language teaching
·
Illustrate
the tasks for teaching pronunciation, grammar and lexis (indicate the source)
·
Describe the
tasks for teaching speaking and writing, listening and reading
·
Work out a three-phase
framework for any one of the tasks
The process of communication is characterized with communicative strategies of achieving a
goal through communication Success
of communication depends very much on the knowledge of successful strategies
chosen by the speakers. Successful
strategies are known as the “four
maxims” of good communication. These maxims include quality, quantity, relevance and manner. The four maxims of
successful communication can be used in teaching how to communicate effectively.
Communicative techniques fall down into a number of
groups:
A.
Language arts
are oriented towards a communicative task but are not “communicative” in them.
B.
Language for
a purpose is what the learners might need to learn how to request information,
how to change somebody’s behavior or train of thought, how to co-ordinate
efforts in a team, how to express one’s emotions etc.
C.
Communicative
games can be alternative communicative techniques with a challenge, rules,
procedure and winners.
D.
Personal
language use develops in learners the skill of expressing one's own attitudes
and values.
E.
Theatre art
develops communicative skills in simulations such as role-plays.
F.
Debating
society teaches problem-solving skills.
Information gap is organized to promote speaking activities.
Information gap is a situation when a participant or a group possesses the
information, which others do not have, while others command the information
that the other party is missing. E.g. a student in a pair with the other
student might have the train timetable for odd numbers, while her partner might
have the train timetable for even numbers. Their task is to use communication
for finding out complete information on how the train runs. Information gap can
take the format of an opinion gap when the participants differ in their
opinions. The gap is filled in the course of active communication.
Any activity with an information gap can be turned
into a communicative game if there are rules to name the winner. Information
gap is a frequent technique used in order to organize a communicative game.
E.g. you have new neighbors. They can tell you about themselves only what is
given on their role cards. Try to guess their professions. Ask any questions.
Direct questions about professions are excluded.
A popular speaking activity is reading from cues. It
is organized when the participants write information about themselves on sticky
labels in the form of separate words, dates, names etc. Other students ask
questions trying to find as much as possible about the person, To achieve this
goal they have to think first what a date on the sticky label might mean and
ask a question like “Were you married in 1991?”, “May be you got your first job
in 1991?” etc.
Reading and speaking processes can be boosted by a
“matching” activity, in which the participants are to match pictures and texts,
pictures and pictures, texts and texts by using questions.
Jig-saw reading activity is organized most often
with the texts that are meant for reading or listening (“jig-saw” reading and
“jig-saw” listening). A text is divided into several parts. Every participant
has access to only one part of the oral or written text. They ask each other
questions and provide information to pool the parts of the text together and to
know the contents of the whole text. Another variant is a jig-saw listening
when each participant or a small group listens to only some information as part
of the whole. These pieces can be brought together only in the course of active
communication efforts.
Another activity for reading is sequencing
(re-ordering). The task consists in asking the learners to restore the logical
order between parts of the text. This can produce an “opinion gap” and boost
communication.
Productive skills of speaking and writing are developed
in simulations. A simulation means that an episode of the real world is
reproduced in the classroom environment in the form of the role-play,
discussion (problem solving), piece of writing or a project work.
Unfortunately, teaching conversational skills is much more challenging
that teaching grammar.
When
employing role-plays, debates, topic discussions, etc., I have noticed that some students are often
timid in expressing their viewpoints. This seems due to a number of reasons.
·
Students
don't have an opinion on the subject
·
Students have
an opinion, but are worried about what the other students might say or think
·
Students have
an opinion, but don't feel they can say exactly what they mean
·
Students
begin giving their opinion, but want to state it in the same eloquent manner
that they are capable of in the native language.
Having been assigned roles, opinions and points of view that they do not
necessarily share, students are freed from having to express their own
opinions. Therefore, they can focus on expressing themselves well in English.
In this way, students tend to concentrate more on production skills, and less
on factual content. They also are less likely to insist on literal translations
from their mother tongue.
Implementing this approach can begin
slowly by providing students with short role plays using cue cards. Once
students become comfortable with target structures and representing differing
points of view, classes can move onto more elaborated exercises such as debates
and group decision making activities. This approach bears fruit especially when
debating opposing points of view. As
students inherently do not agree with the view they represent, they are freed
from having to invest emotionally in the statements they make. More importantly,
from a pragmatic point of view, students tend to focus more on correct function
and structure when they do not become too emotionally involved in what they are
saying.
Of course, this
is not to say that students should not express their own opinions. After all,
when students go out into the "real" world they will want to say what
they mean. However, taking out the personal investment factor can help students
first become more confident in using English. Once this confidence is gained,
students - especially timid students - will be more self-assured when
expressing their own points of view. Debates
in class can help English learners practice a wide range of functions including
agreeing and disagreeing, negotiating, collaboration with other students, and
so on. Often students need help with ideas and that's where this lesson plan
can help. Students support opinions
that are not necessarily their own during debates can help improve students’
fluency. In this manner, students pragmatically focus on correct production
skills in conversation rather than striving to "win" the argument.
References
1.Canale, M., and M. Swain. 1980. “Theoretical bases
of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing”. Applied
Linguistics 1: 1-47