College of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Normal University
MEd for English Language Teaching 2011/2012-2
Advances in English Studies (英语学科发展前沿)
Dr. Wu Benhu
Session 7 Advances in English language teaching
Readings
Claypole, Maurice. 2010. Controversies in ELT: What You Always Wanted to Know about Teaching English but Were Afraid to Ask. Bellevue, WA: LinguaBooks.
Chapter 2 Goodbye to all that: The death of the communicative approach (Claypole 2010: 15-24)
1. What does the title of this chapter mean to you?
Claypole (2010: 15)
Goodbye to all that
The death of the communicative approach
Wu Benhu
This chapter title signifies a criticism of communicative language teaching.
2. How was the communicative approach born?
Claypole (2010: 15)
Like so many other things in human history, the communicative approach was born of noble ideas and implemented initially by dedicated specialists. On the bases of its perceived success, it blossomed rapidly, spread throughout the world, taking with it a potential for great good and was widely embraced as the benchmark for modern language teaching. Then is all went pear-shaped.
Wu Benhu
The communicative approach was born out of some devoted experts in language teaching. They thought language teaching would be more successful if the communicative approach was used.
4. What is wrong with the communicative approach?
Claypole (2010: 15)
The main argument offered in its defence by practitioners of this approach is that it works. Of course it works, for the simple reason that with many types of class and many teaching situations, anything will work. You may be able to knock in a nail with a brick or by tapping it with a rubber hammer, but this does not mean that this is the best way to get the job done. And sometimes a rubber hammer is just not strong enough.
Wu Benhu
According to Claypole, the communicative approach can be applied to some situations but not all the situation of language teaching since it is not strong enough.
7. What is the communicative approach?
Claypole (2010: 17)
l People learn a foreign language in order to communicate.
l Social language functions are an important part of learning a language..
l Classroom activities should reflect the context in which the language is to be used.
l The teacher’s main role is to facilitate communication.
l Language acquisition will take place through frequent exposure.
l Fluency is more important to communication than accuracy.
Wu Benhu
The 6 assumptions are the basis of the communicative approach. We can find these assumptions are still applicable to our foreign language classrooms. However, we need to consider some other aspects in foreign language teaching. So we need to consider the following.
1) It is not wise to go extreme to advocate “learning a foreign language only for communication.
2) We have other goals in learning a foreign language such as learning for our cognitive development, learning for creativity, learning for the improvement of our thinking, problem-solving, decision-making.
8. How are the assumptions of the communicative approach adopted in class?
Claypole (2010: 18)
l Students work in groups or in pairs in order to negotiate and transfer meaning.
l Information gaps are crucial to the meaningful transfer of information.
l Authentic materials are used whenever possible.
l Frequent use is made of role-play and simulation.
l Productive skills are emphasised.
l Class work is mainly oral.
l Games, puzzles and quizzes are key classroom techniques.
Wu Benhu
The communicative approach is adopted by using the following techniques and activities:
1) group work
2) information gaps
3) authentic materials
4) role-play and simulation
5) oral class work
6) games, puzzles and quizzes.
From the above, we can see that the communicative language teaching focuses on the interaction between students.
9. What is the limitation of the communicative approach?
Claypole (2010: 19)
Furthermore, defining the method according to the goal is in effect putting the cart before the horse. In language learning, there is no objective evidence that learning by doing is better than learning by listening or learning by reading. Practice alone does not make perfect, and encouraging groups of learners to have lively discussions in increasingly fluent broken English can quite simply do more harm than good. It can be like a group of students learning to play the piano by hitting the keys until it comes right.
Wu Benhu
According to Claypole, the communicative approach limits itself by simply using communicative activities to develop students’ communicative competence. However, other activities such as listening and reading can also be used to develop students’ communicative competence.
Besides, it is noticeable that practice alone cannot make perfect but may lead to “increasingly fluent broken English”. We must say that practice alone is not effective practice. That is why many Chinese students fail to make substantial progress after a large number of exercises.
Course Work: Reflect on the following questions
How can we go beyond the communicative language teaching?
1) What directions shall we go?
2) What shall we do in each new direction?
3) How shall we do in each new direction?