Communicative Language Teaching and Audio-Lingual Method

The first way teachers can support oral language in their classrooms is by understanding that a child’s language or dialect reflects their values, identities, and even experiences of the child’s family and community. Once we understand this we can then allow our students to begin conversing with one another, it is during these

Nowadays, English is an International Language and become a global language of the world. We can find English in all over the world. In fact, more than 100 countries in the world use English. Neither people use English as a national language, official language, second language nor as a foreign language. In Indonesia, English position as a foreign language. We can find English as one of major subject in the school. Meanwhile, beside of many methods, approaches, strategies or our acquisition to learn English, there is a method named Communication Language Teaching or CLT. Communication Language Teaching refers to a learning-teaching process of English that primarily focus on how we

1. How effective are CLT activities ( language games, role plays, problem-solving tasks, information gaps, and interviews) used in class on improving students’ communicative competence?

The article I picked for this assignment analyzes the authors viewpoint against the development of spoken language among children in two different school. The authors attempt to convey the importance behind oral language and listening skills in reception children. Included in the article are results of children in varies school showing the lack of language skills. The author works on suggesting intervention programs to have a positive effect on these skills that need improvement throughout the school education. Surveys and researchers believe that about half of teachers are decreasing speaking and listening skills in the past five years. Practicing skills of talking and listening are essential. Mentioned in the article, “language difficulties are that children have problems in three areas: accessing curriculum on language related tasks, interaction and social skills, and attention span towards learning” in the classroom (pg. 658). This article worked on intervention program for teacher to train students to improve their language skills on standardize exams. In my opinion, having the ability to speak is a way to communicate and share ideas and thoughts with others, and express feelings on how one feels. Listening skills are processed after we hear something. It involves one’s attention and decision to participate in a discussion and respond to message. Also, it requires the ability to focus on the conversation without being distracted, but having a meaningful connection with

“Listening is perhaps the most essential skill for second/foreign (L2) language learning, particularly at the beginning stages. It internalises the rules of language and facilitates the emergence of other language skills” (Stella Hurd and Tim lewis, 2008).Communication is vital part of our daily lives .we sit in a school listen to the teachers we read the books we talk to the friends watching television and communication over through the internet. “Communication involves at least two people: the sender and the receiver” (Viva career skills library, 2007).

Oral communication for English language learners can be easier than learning how to read and write. English language learner’s students might have a fear of speaking however it is the teacher’s responsibility to make the student’s feel comfortable in speaking the English language. When English language learners learn the English language then they will be able to communicate with people and in the classroom. In the article An Urgent Challenge: Enhancing Academic Speaking Opportunities for English Learners, it was mentioned that in order to engage English language learner students in a conversation, a teacher must have to model and clearly teach them how to engage in a conversation (Wilson, Fang, Rollins, & Valadez, 2016, P. 53). This is what

Good teaching is about listening, questioning, being responsive and remembering that each student and class is different. It’s about obtained responses and developing the oral converging skill of the quite

In a scenario where there is diversity hands on language lesson are helpful for their immediate needs. Teaching cultural norms and how to get along with the society will provide for an invaluable step towards development of proper communication skills. Teachers should also provide concrete ways to address their daily problems in their local community.

The communicative approach is a new theory that emphasizes communicative competence as the main goal of learning language. It believes that grammatical competence is insufficient for learners to use a language effectively. Dell Hymes, linguist stated that there are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless.

Communicative language teaching (CLT) is based on the idea that language is but a mean for communication, and so its primary goal is to achieve, what is called, communicative competence. For CLT, a good language learner is one who can communicate well in a real life situation that which involves a lot of strategies to keep a meaningful conversation and to avoid any communication gap. Unlike the audio-lingual method, which originally originated from behaviorism, CLT did not have any psychological background. Thus, all that CLT material developers and syllabus designers had was the broad theory that students learn best by doing. It was all based on the general assumption that the “learners’ communicative competence develops automatically through their active participation

Meanwhile, they missed their chance to participate in giving initiation and followup. Also, the fact that teachers are still dominant in interactions indicates that

In classroom setting, the interactions to make meaning between teacher to students happen in many different layered / laminated situations. In class size discussion settings, the dominant interaction structure between teachers and students have been the I -R-E ( Initiation, Response, Evaluation) structures that according to some studies, may diminish teachers’ classroom communications skills ( Moloney, at.al., 2012), turn teachers as sole knowers ( Robinson, 2011; Lehman & Scharer, 1996), and eventually , for students only to experience low‐level cognitive learning ( Bloome, 2015). Bloome suggested that rather than employing I-R-E structures, teachers should have other instructional strategies that make it possible for students to get engaged in dialogic interaction.

Although many language educators have surmised that the communicative method along with the aid of technology is effective in language acquisition, the findings on the use of modern day technology along with the communicative approach seem to be inconclusive.

Different approaches have taken different methods and techniques to teach and improve teaching speaking, such as drilling in Audiolingual method, memorizing lists of lexical items in Grammar Translation method, or methods proposed by instructors based on their experience like role-play, picture and word cues, paper conversation, using exercises to boost learners’ self-confidence, doing theatres, reading a story and retelling it to others and so on.

When we teach a second language, we have to take into consideration the four basic skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. As regards speaking and writing, they are referred to as productive or active skills, because they