Conclusions on Communicative Language Teaching taken from chapter 5 in
Richards & Rodgers´ book Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. CUP,
1986
1. CLT is best considered an approach rather than a method. Although a reasonable
degree of theoretical consistency can be discerned at the level of language and
language learning theory at the levels of design and procedures there is much
greater room for individual interpretation and variation than most methods permit.
2. The comprehensiveness of CLT makes it different in scope and status from any
other approaches or methods. CLT appeared at a time when language teaching was
ready for a paradigm shift. This shift raised important issues about grammar
teaching, classroom procedures, materials development, teacher training and
syllabus design among others.
3. One of the major problems of CLT is the one related to syllabus design and
procedures. In terms of procedures, CLT is so wide and rich that different
educational traditions identify themselves with its communicative principles. CLT
has been understood as integration of grammar and functions; as procedures to work
in groups or pairs; as problem solving tasks; as learner centered activities.
In terms of syllabus design there are at present several proposals and models for
what a syllabus might look like Functional (Jupp & Hodlin, 1975); Structures +
Functions (Wilkins, 1976); Interactional (Widdowson, 1979); Functional Spiral
around a structural core (Brumfit, 1980); Task-based (Prabhu, 1983); Lexical
(Pawley & Syder).
4. British and American proponents now see CLT as an approach and not a method
that aims to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and to
develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the
interdependence of language and communication.
If you want to refresh your knowledge about CLT read the chapter this summary was
taken from or read Littlewood, W. “Communicative Language Teaching” CUP, 1981.