Unit 2 Communicative Principles and Task-based Language
Teaching
I.
Language use in real life vs. traditional pedagogy
In real life
In traditional pedagogy
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
Used in real life
Focus on forms rather than
Perform certain communicative
functions
functions
Focus on one or two skills
Use all four skills
Isolate language from its context
Language is used
in a certain
context
II.
Fostering communicative competence
(1) Language competence and communicative competence
a. Chomsky’s theory: competence simply means knowledge of the
language system: grammatical knowledge in other words
b. Hymes’s 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 inte nded
functions are performed and the language used is appropriate to the
context.
c. Aspects of Communicative competence:
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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 b e 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.
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(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
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
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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
communication Social interaction activities
activities
emphasis
The
functional
aspect
of The social as well as functional
communication
aim
aspects of communication
Use the language they know in 1.
convey meanings effectively;
order to get meanings across 2.
pay greater attention to the
and effectively
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
situation
typical
Information gap activities
Role-play activities
examples
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(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
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