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Theories of Language and Learning
• Nature of Language
–Structural view of language
–Functional view of language
–Interactional view of language
• Nature of Language Learning
–Process-oriented theories
•What are the psychological and
cognitive processes involved (habit-
formation, induction, inferencing,
generalization)
–Condition-oriented theories
•What are the conditions that need to
be met for these learning processes to
be activated?
Why do we need to know the history of language
teaching?• Key to the understanding of the way
things are and why they are that way.
• Teachers may better comprehend the
forces that influence their profession.
Historyof
Language Teaching
Classical Period (17th, 18th and 19th
centuries)
• The purpose of education is
to teach religious orthodoxy
and good moral character.
Grammar Translation(1850’s to 1950’s)
• Emphasis on learning to read and write.
• Focus on grammatical rules, syntactic
structures, rote memorization of
vocabulary and translation of literary texts.
• Medium of instruction was the mother
tongue.
Direct Method • Posited by Charles Berlitz.
• Second language learning is similar to first
language learning.
• Emphasis on oral interaction, spontaneous
use of language and no translation.
• There was an inductive approach to
grammar.
Audiolingual Method(1950’s)
• Heightened the need to become
orally proficient.
• The “Army Method” (an oral-
based approach to language
learning).
Designer Method(1970’s – 1980’s)
• Chomsky – drew the attention to the “deep
structure” of language.
• Earl Stevick – take account the affective
and interpersonal nature of language
learning and teaching.
• Suggestopedia (Lazanov)
–Used relaxation as means of retaining
knowledge and material.
The Silent Way (Caleb Gattegno)
• Characterized by a problem-
solving approach.
• Develops independence and
autonomy and encourages
students to cooperate with each
other.
Interactive Viewsof
Language Teaching
Communicative Language Teaching
• Learners learn a language through using it
to communicate.
• Authentic and meaningful communication
should be the goal of classroom activities.
• Fluency is an important dimension of
communication.
• Learning is a process of creative
construction and involves trial and error.
History of Language Teaching
Classical
Audio-lingual-Designer- Silent
Direct Method
Grammar Translation
Communicative Approach
Strategy-based
Beyond Form and Function:
An Overview of the Components of the
Communicative Approach
• The paradigm shift in language
teaching started in the mid 60’s
to the 80’s.
• The focus of language teaching
and learning became language
as a means of communication.
Characteristics of communicative
view of language:1. Language is a system for the expression of
meaning.
2. The primary function of language is for
interaction and communication.
3. The structure of language reflects its functional
and communicative uses.
4. The primary units of language are not merely its
grammatical and structural features, but
categories of functional and communicative
meaning as exemplified in discourse.
• Communicative Language Teaching
is commonly regarded as one of the
most popular approaches to language
teaching.
• It has become the accepted “norm” in
the field of approaches to language
teaching.
• The very essence of this approach is
the “language as a means of
communication.”
• Noam Chomsky was among the first ones
to demonstrate that standard structural
theories of language were incapable of
accounting for the creativity and
uniqueness of individual sentences.
Therefore, there was a shift from the
insistence on the mere mastery of
grammatical structures to the emphasis on
communicative proficiency.
• Communicative competence essentially
suggests that teaching learners to form
grammatically correct sentences is not
enough, learners also need to be able to
use language appropriately in a variety of
contexts (Hymes, 1972). Hence, in
essence, the goal of CLT is to teach ‘real-
life’ language.
Basically, the components of this
approach are:
–Basic principles
–Teacher’s role
–Learner’s role
–Material’s role
–Syllabus
Basic Principles
ObjectivesPiepho (1981) discusses the following levels of objectives in a
communicative approach:
1. an integrative and content level (language as a means of
expression)
2. a linguistic and instrumental level (language as a semiotic
system and an object of learning);
3. an affective level of interpersonal relationships and conduct
(language as a means of expressing values and judgments
about oneself and others);
4. a level of individual learning needs (remedial learning based
on error analysis);
5. a general educational level of extra-linguistic goals
(language learning within the school curriculum).
H.G.
Widdowson
(1978)
Carrol
Brendan
(1980)
Keith
Johnson
(1981)
William
Littlewood
(1981/1995)
1. Teaching of
language as
communication
calls for an
approach which
brings linguistic
and communicative
skills together.
2. Focus on the use of
sentences for the
creation of
discourse.
1. Language is
essentially a tool for
communication.
2. Focus on testing
communicative
performance.
1. The structurally
competent
student produce
grammatically
correct sentences
yet unable to
perform simple
communicative
tasks
2. Know the right
thing to say at the
right time.
3. Teaching of
communicative
competence.
(Hymes, 1970)
1. CLT pays
attention to
functional and
structural
aspects of
language.
2. Focus on pre-
communicative
and
communicative
activities.
3. Everyday use of
language focus
on meaning than
on form.
4. Opportunities to
express their
own
individuality.
Cristopher
Brumfit/
Finocchario
(1983/1985)
Marianne
Celce-Murcia
(1991)
H. Douglas Brown
(1994/1997)
David Nunan
(1989/2000)
1. Language learning
is learning to
communicate.
2. Contextualization is
important.
3. Communicative
competence is the
desired goal.
1. Language is a
system of
communication.
(Hymes and
Halliday,
1972;1973).
2. The goal is the
ability to
communicate in the
target language.
1. Learning to
communicate
through
interaction;
Link classroom
language learning
with language
activation
outside.
(Nunan, 1991)
1. Language is a
system for the
expression of
meaning. The
primary function
is interaction and
communication.
2. Activities
involve real
communication.
3. Objectives
reflect the needs
of the learner.
Teachers’ Role
• The teacher has two main roles: the first
role is to facilitate the communication
process between all participants in the
classroom, and between these
participants and the various activities
and texts. The second role is to act as an
independent participant within the
learning-teaching group.
H.G.
Widdowson
(1978)
Carrol
Brendan
(1980)
Keith
Johnson
(1981)
William
Littlewood
(1981/1995)
1. Language
teachers need
not assume
passive roles
but can explore
possibilities of a
communicative
approach to
teaching for
himself.
1. The teacher’s
role in the
learning
process is
less
dominant.
2. The teacher’s
role as ‘co-
communicator’
places him on
an equal basis
with learners.
Cristopher
Brumfit/
Finocchario
(1983/1985)
Marianne
Celce-Murcia
(1991)
H. Douglas Brown
(1994/1997)
David Nunan
(1989/2000)
1. They help
learners in
anyway that
motivates them
to work with the
language.
1. Facilitates
communication
and correcting
errors is just
secondary.
2. Should be able
to use the target
language
fluently and
appropriately.
1. Facilitator of
the
communica-
tion process.
2. Needs analyst.
3. Counsellor
4. Process
Manager
NEEDS ANALYST
• The CLT teacher assumes a responsibility
for determining and responding to learner
language needs. This may be done
informally and personally through one-to-
one sessions with students, in which the
teacher talks through such issues as the
student's perception of his or her learning
style, learning assets, and learning goals.
COUNSELOR
• Another role assumed by several CLT
approaches is that of counselor. In this role,
the teacher-counselor is expected to
exemplify an effective communicator
seeking to maximize the meshing of speaker
intention and hearer interpretation, through
the use of paraphrase, confirmation, and
feedback.
GROUP
PROCESS MANAGER
• CLT procedures often require
teachers to acquire less teacher-
centered classroom management
skills. It is the teacher's responsibility
to organize the classroom as a setting
for communication and
communicative activities.
Learners’ Role
• The emphasis in Communicative
Language Teaching on the
processes of communication,
rather than mastery of language.
Hymes described (1975: 11-17)
seven basic functions that language
performs for children learning their
first language:
1. the instrumental function: using
language to get things;
2. the regulatory function: using language
to control the behaviour of others;
3. the interactional function: using
language to create interaction with others;
4. the personal function: using language to
express personal feelings and meanings;
5. the heuristic function: using language to
learn and to discover;
6. the imaginative function: using language
to create a world of the imagination;
7. the representational function: using
language to communicate information.
H.G.
Widdowson
(1978)
Carrol
Brendan
(1980)
Keith
Johnson
(1981)
William
Littlewood
(1981/1995)
1. They contribute
their personality
to the learning
process.
2. Has to perform
both pre-
communicative
and
communicative
activities.
Cristopher
Brumfit/
Finocchario
(1983/1985)
Marianne
Celce-Murcia
(1991)
H. Douglas Brown
(1994/1997)
David Nunan
(1989/2000)
1. They are
expected to
interact with
other people or
in their
writings.
1. Works in groups
or pairs. They
use the target
language in
situations.
1. Negotiator
and Interactor
Materials’ Role
• A wide variety of materials have been used to
support communicative approaches to language
teaching. Unlike some contemporary
methodologies, practitioners of Communicative
Language Teaching view materials as a way of
influencing the quality of classroom interaction
and language use. Materials thus have the primary
role of promoting communicative language use.
We will consider three kinds of materials currently
used in CLT and label these text-based, task-
based, and realia.
CristopherBrumfit/Finocchario(1983/1985)
MarianneCelce-Murcia(1991)
H. Douglas Brown(1994/1997)
David Nunan(1989/2000)
1. There must be linguistic variations.
1. Authentic to reflectreal life situations.
1. Support for language instruction; must be used creatively.
2. Promotes communicative language.
3. Task-based.4. Authentic.
1. Authentic.2. Task-based.
TEXT-BASED MATERIALS
• There are numerous textbooks designed todirect and support Communicative LanguageTeaching. Their tables of contents sometimessuggest a kind of grading and sequencing oflanguage practice not unlike those found instructurally organized texts. Some of these arein fact written around a largely structuralsyllabus, with slight reformatting to justifytheir claims to be based on a communicativeapproach.
TASK-BASED MATERIALS
• A variety of games, role plays, simulations, and
task-based communication activities have been
prepared to support Communicative Language
Teaching classes. These typically are in the form
of one-of-a-kind items: exercise handbooks, cue
cards, activity cards, pair-communication
practice materials, and student-interaction
practice booklets. In pair-communication
materials, there are typically two sets of material
for a pair of students, each set containing
different kinds of information.
REALIA
• Many proponents of Communicative Language
Teaching have advocated the use of "authentic,"
"from-life" materials in the classroom. These
might include language-based realia, such as
signs, magazines, advertisements, and
newspapers, or graphic and visual sources around
which communicative activities can be built, such
as maps, pictures, symbols, graphs, and charts.
Different kinds of objects can be used to support
communicative exercises, such as a plastic model
to assemble from directions.
Syllabus/Curriculum
• Discussions of the nature of the syllabus have
been central in Communicative Language
Teaching. One of the first syllabus models to
be proposed was described as a notional
syllabus (Wilkins 1976), which specified the
semantic-grammatical categories (e.g.,
frequency, motion, location) and the
categories of communicative function that
learners need to express.
H.G.
Widdowson
(1978)
Carrol
Brendan
(1980)
Keith
Johnson
(1981)
William
Littlewood
(1981/1995)
1. Uses the
curriculum
triangle which
illustrates the key
role played by
communicative
needs in the
development of
language curricula.
1. Semantic
syllabi and
Notional-
Functional
Syllabi.
Cristopher
Brumfit/
Finocchario
(1983/1985)
Marianne
Celce-Murcia
(1991)
H. Douglas Brown
(1994/1997)
David Nunan
(1989/2000)
1. Language
courses
include
semantic
notions.
1. Semantic
syllabi and
Notional-
Functional
Syllabi.
1. Include:
- structures
- functions
- notions
- themes
- tasks
• Wilikins (1972) claimed that a functional
and communicative definition of language
could actually help develop
communicative syllabi for language
teaching, while Firth (1950) suggested that
a broader sociocultural context, which
included participants, their behaviour and
beliefs, objects of linguistic discussion and
a word choice, should also be taken into
consideration while teaching any language.
• Other theorists (Canale and Swain 1980;
Widdowson 1989; Halliday 1970) also
stressed the importance of communicative
approach to language teaching, particularly
the communicative acts underlying the
ability to use language for different
purposes and the relationship between
linguistic systems and their
communicative values in texts and
discourses.
• A theory of language as communication
lies at the very core of the CLT. Hymes
(1972) advanced the notions of
"competence" and "performance"
introduced by Chomsky in the 1960s and
stated that the goal of language teaching
was to develop "communicative
competence", which implied acquiring
both an ability and knowledge to use
language.
Howatt distinguishes between a "strong" and a "weak"
version of Communicative Language Teaching:
• There is, in a sense, a 'strong' version of the communicative
approach and a 'weak' version. The weak version which has
become more or less standard practice in the last ten years,
stresses the importance of providing learners with
opportunities to use their English for communicative
purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such
activities into a wider program of language teaching.... The
'strong' version of communicative teaching, on the other
hand, advances the claim that language is acquired through
communication, so that it is not merely a question of
activating an existing but inert knowledge of the language,
but of stimulating the development of the language system
itself. If the former could be described as 'learning to use'
English, the latter entails 'using English to learn it.'
(1984: 279)
The Contributions of the
Communicative Movement
1. Goal of Language Teaching: Communicative Competence that can best serve the needs
of the learner.
Communicative Competence (Canaleand Swain, 1980)
Grammatical Competence Sociolinguistic
Competence
Strategic Competence
(knowledge of lexical items
and of rules of morphology,
syntax, sentence- grammar
semantics, and phonology)
Socio-cultural
Competence
(knowledge of the relation
of language use to its non-
linguistic context)
Discourse
Competence
(knowledge of rules
governing cohesion and
coherence)
(verbal and non-verbal
communication strategies
that may be called into
action to compensate for
break-downs in
communication due to
performance variables or to
insufficient competence)
The list of communicative competences
proposed by Hymes (1972), and
complemented by other theorists includes:
a) linguistic or grammatical competence;
b) sociolinguistic or pragmatic competence;
c) discourse competence,
d) strategic competence (Richards and
Rogers 1986; Hedge 2000), and e)
fluency (Hedge 2000).
• Linguistic or grammatical competence is
commonly referred to as a set of
grammatical rules that guide sentence
formation.
• sociolinguistic competence addresses the
extent to which utterances are produced
and understood appropriately in different
sociolinguistic contexts depending on
contextual factors.
• discourse competence is related to the
ability of speakers to put language
structures together coherently and
cohesively.
• strategic competence mediates between
the internal traits of the user's back-
ground knowledge and language
knowledge and the external characteristics
of the situational and cultural context
(Douglas 2000).
2. A New Type of Syllabus:
Notional/Functional Syllabus
• A notional/function syllabus is one "in which the
language content is arranged according to the
meanings a learner needs to express through
language and the functions the learner will use the
language for... A notional syllabus contains (a) the
meanings and concepts the learner needs in order
to communicate (e.g. time, quantity, duration,
location) and the language needed to express
them. These concepts and meanings are called
notions. (b) the language needed to express
different functions or speech acts (e.g. requesting,
suggesting, promising, describing)." (Richards,
Platt, and Weber, 1985, p. 196)
3. A New Category of Classroom Activities:
Meaning Focused Activities
Information transfer
-- is a type of communicative activity that
involves the transfer of information from
one medium (eg., text) to another (eg form,
table, diagram). Such activities are
intended to help develop the learner's
communicative competence by engaging
them in meaning-focused communication.
Information Gap
-- is a type of communicative activity in
which each participant in the activity holds
some information other participants don't
have and all participants have to share the
information they have with other
participants in order to successfully
complete a task or solve a problem.
3) Problem Solving
4) Role-Playing and
Simulation
Communicative Approach(Wilkins, 1970s)
• Using language rather than learning
more about the structure.
• It is such a misunderstanding that
communicative approach has come to
replace the structural approach.
• Hymes's theory of communicative
competence was a definition of
what a speaker needs to know in
order to be communicatively
competent in a speech community.
In Hymes's view, a person who acquires
communicative competence acquires both
knowledge and ability for language use with respect
to:
1. whether (and to what degree) something is formally
possible;
2. whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in
virtue of the 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.
Claims of Communicative
Approach
• Students learn to use the appropriate
language they need for communicating in
real life.
• It gives the students opportunity for
thorough and meaningful rehearsal of the
English which they will need for effective
communication.
• It teaches the students to communicate
effectively by understanding and
controlling the relationship between
language forms and functions.
Implications of the
Communicative Approach
for Teaching Purposes
• Communicative implies semantic, a
concern with the potential meaning of
language.
• There is a complex relationship between
language form and language function.
• Communicative is relevant to all four
language skills.
• Communicative can both refer to the
properties of language to behaviour.
• Your understanding of what
language is and how learner learns
will determine to a large extent, your
philosophy of education, and how
you teach English: your teaching
style, your approach, methods and
classroom techniques.
Strategies that can be used in Communicative Approach
• Use of dialogues (role-playing)
• Greeting, inviting, asking permission,
or making offers.
• Reports
• Pictures
Types of learning and
teaching activities
• The range of exercise types and activities
compatible with a communicative approach
is unlimited, provided that such exercises
enable learners to attain the communicative
objectives of the curriculum, engage
learners in communication, and require the
use of such communicative processes as
information sharing, negotiation of
meaning, and interaction. Classroom
activities are often designed to focus on
completing tasks that are mediated through
language or involve negotiation of information
and information sharing.
Development that this approach brings…
• The activities come to greater
resemblance to communication
situations that learners might encounter
outside the classroom.
• There is increasing opportunity for
learners to express their own
individuality in the classroom.
Choosing what to teach
• Teacher should give emphasis in the
limited time available and he should
give priority to those which seem to
offer greatest value on widening the
learners’ communicative repertoire.
Students should have:
1. Ability to understand the language
form and vocabulary.
2. Knowledge of the potential
communicative approach or
understanding of the function.
3. Relate the forms to functions and
interpretation of meaning.
Checklist for predicting communicative
needs
1. What situations might the learner
encounter?
2. What language activities is the learner
most likely to take part in?
3. What functions of language are likely to
be most useful?
4. What topics are likely to be important?
5. What general notions are likely to be
important?
Should CLT be considered either an
approach or a method?
• Richards and Rogers (1986) claim that it
is an approach rather than a model, since
methods are considered to be fixed
teaching systems with prescribed
techniques, while approaches are held to
be teaching philosophies that can be
applied in various ways in the
classroom.
Language is a system of structurally related elements for the coding of
meaning.
What dimension of language is prioritized?
- grammatical dimension
What needs to be taught?
- phonological units
- grammatical units and operations
- lexical items
Language is a vehicle for the expression of functional
meaning.
• What dimension of language is prioritized?
–Semantic and communicative dimension
of language.
• What needs to be taught?
–Functions, notions of language
Language is a vehicle for the realization of interpersonal
relations and for the performance of social transactions between
individuals.• What dimension of language is prioritized?
–Interactive dimension of language.
• What needs to be taught?
–Patterns of moves, acts negotiation and
interaction found in conversational
exchanges.
Thank youfor listening!
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