Abstract: This essay, taking characteristics, methods and teaching process of communicative teaching as starting point, puts forward the strategies of group activities and the use of grammar in CLT according to the problems existing in our college English, which intends to improve students’ English communicative ability and teaching efficiency of college English teaching.
Key words: CLT, CET, concept, status, strategies
［中图分类号］H319.3
［文献标识码］A
［文章编号］1006-2831(2012)11-0069-8 doi:10.3969/j.issn.1006-2831.2012.04.020
1. Introduction
For years, many public university English teachers have been accustomed to using traditional teaching methods: GrammarTranslation Method and Audio-Lingual Method. The typical characteristic of these traditional class teaching models is student-centered, and teaching activities are dominated by teachers’explanation and demonstration. Excessive emphasis on analysis of language point, explanation of testing practice and learners’repeat and imitation will result in learners’ lack of communicative language ability.
Some linguists have ever made comments on the idea of communicative teaching. According to the principles of communicative teaching, it’s more important to pay close attention to meaning than to language form. Yet, the viewpoints of supporting focus on language form never disappear. Since early 1990s, the focus on language form has gradually got back its fertile soil. Thus, Doughty & Varela, Elli and Tomlinson suggest that formal schooling and instruction are of great importance to implementing the comprehensible output and input of SLA. Comprehensible output and input are the basis of obtaining language knowledge effectively and improving communicative ability(Nunan, 1991: 30-36). Nunan and Stum believe that they are not antagonists but complement to each other. It is unwise to pursue fluency at the expense of losing accuracy. Teachers should keep in balance between the two. As to the roles that foreign teachers play in class, scholars who advocate communicative teaching suggest that, teachers should not be the controllers in class, but play as assistants or participators.
Despite the fact that communicative approach is not widely used in China, there were some experiments based on it, which threw light on its effectiveness and how to make the best of the approach in China.
Li Yujun divides domestic study on Communicative approach into three periods: introduction of communicative theory; basical affirmation of Communicative Language teaching principles and research related a larger scale and a broader scope of the study, a higher level (2001). Yao Wenzhen & Ma Shenghu researches on indirect vocabulary learning in communicative approach (2003: 26). They found that apart from indirect vocabulary learning in the communicative approach to language acquisition, direct learning is helpful to learners(at least not so advanced learners in the aspect of vocabulary) in their productive capacity of vocabulary.
Wang Qi explores the possibility of creating EFL communicative environment by e-mail and Internet in Chinese universities(2000: 23). He found benefits on three different levels of communication: learnercomputer communication, teacher-learner communication, learner-learner communication.
Huang Xiaoping argues that classroom teaching is the basical form of teaching and classroom is the social stage of people’s communicative activities, and suggests ways to carry out CLT effectively (2007). He holds that good communicative atmosphere, group work and role-play are helpful to improve student’s learning autonomy and their communication competence.
This article tries to discuss these characteristics and explain why the model, procedure and links of college English teaching in the classroom are so vital to improve the language and communicative abilities of students. This paper is an attempt of tracing the major linguistic influences on language teaching from theory to practical application. A good teacher is a person who can adopts various successful teaching approaches creatively, synthetically and flexibly to help his students attain the goal that syllabus demands.
2. Status of College English Teaching
2.1 The Current Status of College English Teaching in China
In recent years, higher education in China, especially foreign language teaching, has improved a lot. However, the development of the economy and the progress of the society submit higher requirements to talent cultivation. English is the main language used by all walks of life to exchange ideas and communicate with each other. More importantly, it’s a weapon for international competition. Because foreigners directly come to China to run companies, banks, and do various kinds of investments, there are more units requiring foreign language professionals, and also the requirements for the abilities of listening, speaking, reading and writing are higher and higher. Yet, some common problems still exist in college English teaching in our country, such as “time-consuming, effectlimited”. And the time and price do not match the teaching efficiency; the graduates can not communicate in correct English. Therefore, the call for enhancing the quality of college English teaching is increasingly louder, and to deepen the teaching reforms admits of no delay. Our country is a country with a vast territory. There are great differences in the levels of economic development, cultural development and educational development among different regions. Though teachers generally have positive attitudes towards CLT, and try to catch up with the new trend, it is constrained in college.
First, because of the specific conditions here in our college, some teachers argue that a strictly Western view of communicative language teaching clashes with Eastern Confucian-based culture which pursues compromise between people. When it is applied to language learning, it is obvious that students are unwilling to air the views loudly for fear of losing face or offending others. Therefore, group discussion may be less fruitful than individual essay writing.
Second, teachers have inadequate academic abilities. Since all instructors are nonnative speakers, and few of them have enough opportunities to systematically study linguistic theories and theories of second language acquisition. Therefore, many teachers do not distinguish real communicative activities from false ones, and mistakenly identifying linguistic activities with some artificial situation for communicative task.
Third, the classes are in large sizes. Because of the large English learning group, classes usually have an average size of 40 students or even more. Such a large learning population makes the learner-centered teaching difficult, and it is hard to assess students’productive skills.
Finally, teachers and learners of English in universities have operated within the strict parameters of the national curriculum and an attendant limitation in the choice of textbooks(Ma Yan, 2004: 12). It is no wonder that teachers are prepared to introduce method of language teaching that would adapt readily to existing course materials and the national curriculum with its strong emphasis on the receptive (listening and reading) aspect of the language.
2.2 An Analysis of English Teaching in Our College
Unbalanced development exists in our college English teaching. Students entered colleges with greatly different English basic skills, even students of different colleges or same grades of same colleges have enormously different expectations of English. Especially after enlarging the recruitment scale of ordinary university, some students with poor English basic skills poured into colleges. Some students don’t have a system of language knowledge; even some are still very poor in grammar and pronunciation. Though colleges and teachers have spent a lot time on foreign language teaching, the actual results are not effective. Students’ language skills can’t fit the actual needs of social development. A survey was conducted on the application of communicative approach in our college. The subjects are 20 students who were selected at random, majoring in Chinese, law and biology. The results showed that 82% students think their classes are too dull and lack of innovation. 78% students think that Scene Simulation in classes was accepted. College English teaching is to set up a harmonious and higheffective teaching atmosphere in the English class to make students take part in the practice. Thus we can cultivate their listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities, which are the final teaching aim—developing the students’ English intercommunicative ability.
Owing to CLT requires what, when and how to teach, instead of misapplying it to practical English in an artificial situation or in a large group with poor understanding, any effective teaching and classroom activities are based on the teachers’ experience and his/her understanding of linguistics and the essence of CLT. The most effective means of cultivating teachers’ academic performance is through preor in-service training course, which should be designed to help improve teachers’ theoretical as well as linguistic abilities. In addition to that, curriculum development, improved testing methods and more native speaker experts in CET from English speaking countries are also needed urgently.
3. Concepts of Communicative Language Teaching
3.1 Concepts of Communicative Language Teaching
The communicative approach first gained its popularity in Europe in the 1970s. Its theory is mainly from sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and Chomsky’s T-G Grammar. It stresses that language is a tool for communication, to make use of it is the best method to learn it. It also stresses that the classroom should be student-centered, and students’ capability to communicative in foreign language should be mainly cultivated. The use of communicative teaching approach contributes a lot to the English teaching in China. With the development of economic globalization, communicative language ability will attract more attention; the focus of language teaching should be gradually transferred from grammatical teaching to communicative teaching. The new College English Syllabus specifies that: “classroom is an important place for students’ language practice. In class, students’ language cognition should be enlarged, and their language application ability should be strengthened and improved.” College English teaching also centers on this ultimate aim to make a change, which is to fully cultivate students’ communicative language ability. Communicative teaching does not go against other teaching methods, and it does not keep to a fixed model, but varies with teaching objects, content and contexts. Communicative ability can only be completed in communicative activities. And communicative approach of English teaching can only embody its superiority in practice.
The communicative approach is different from those before it in several ways. Firstly, it focuses on the use of language rather than the knowledge of language. In other words, it takes the acquisition of communicative competence of the learner as its goal. By communicative competence, we mean not the ability to utter words or sentences but the ability to react mentally as well as verbally in communicative situations. Secondly, the communicative approach prefers meaning in real life contexts to grammar rules. Language is a tool for people to use to communicate with each other. It carries not only sentence or word meaning, but also speakers’ intention. So, in order to use language to achieve a communicative purpose, the mastery of a certain number of language items is far from being enough. Thirdly, the communicative approach is interested in the specific needs of the students. All the activities in a communicative approach are interested in the specific needs of the students. All the activities in a communicative class are arranged according to the actual needs of the students.
3.2 Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching
After many years’ study and practice, communicative teaching approach is wellconsidered as the most effective teaching method in college English teaching. It is realized that a teacher is not only to pass on knowledge of English, but more importantly, to help the students understand how the knowledge is learned and how to make it lively, colorful and permanent. In such a classroom, a teacher is not only an instructor or a controller, but also an organizer, a promoter. Instead of using the spoon-feeding teaching method, the teacher should let the students feel that the language can be learned in a more relaxing, interesting atmosphere.
In a student-centered classroom, as the content is designed into various interesting but challenging activities, all the students are involved in these “games” actively.
The characteristics are clear.
(1) Exerting initiative. The students are the participants in the whole process of learning. They are no longer passive learners, so their initiative is promoted. (2) Producing creativeness. As all the students are involved in the language activities, the teacher’s elicitation and the various new ideas aroused from the students will inspire them to create more new ideas. They will desire to make these ideas understood. And thus, a communicative atmosphere is formed.
(3) Establishing the sense of value. Through practice, the student’s self-confidence increases. They enjoy the good results of their co-operations. They desire to know more, learn more, and express more.
(4) Feedback of teaching. Since teachers have multiple roles in communicative language teaching, they can immediately get feedback from the reflection of the students’ activities during the process of teaching. Thus, they are able to amend or adjust their teaching plans in time.
(5) Competitiveness. In a communicative classroom, as the students are no longer faced only to the teacher, blackboard and textbook, the atmosphere in class will be competitive. Everyone tries his/her best in it. Under the suitable guidance, this competition will arouse good result.
3.3 The Implementing process of CLT
To adopt communicative teaching, teachers should not only prepare teaching material, but also set up various teaching contexts. A famous linguist Broome suggests that, “successful foreign language classroom teaching should create more situations in class, to provide students with chances to use the language materials they have learned.” (Kramsh, 2001: 2) In order to carry out communicative interaction and implement communicative classroom teaching, the following principles should be followed:
First, make clear that the core of English teaching is communication. Language practice and cultivation of students’ ability to use English synthetically are the center of quality-oriented education in English language teaching.
Second, properly deal with the relationship between English and mother tongue. Teachers should organize classroom teaching in English, as Krashen suggests that in The Second Language: “In teaching the second language a part of or entire language context being learned should be created.” But it does not mean that mother tongue is totally abandoned in classroom teaching, and mother tongue is the first choice when explaining complex grammar and vocabulary. That is to say, the teacher should follow the principle “Use English if possible, use Chinese when necessary”.
4. Strategies to Implement Communicative Language Teaching 4.1 Carrying out Groups Activities
Group activities are strongly recommended in communicative teaching classes. Their advantages are obvious, and there are also some requirements for group work (Hu Hongzhi& Wu Jianpin, 2005: 24).
The advantages of group activity in communicative teaching class:
(1) Interdependence of the member in group: group members will need to rely on one another to finish the assignments on time.
(2) Individual responsibility: members of the group will have their own responsibility for doing their share of the work.
(3) Appropriate use of interpersonal skills: students will gain skills in leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management, all abilities that will be crucial for them to master when they go out into the “real world.”
4.1.1 Some Requirements for Group Work
4.1.1.1 To Create Group Tasks that Require Interdependence
The students in a group must perceive that they are in the same boat that each member is responsible to and dependent on the others and that one cannot succeed unless all members in the group succeed. Knowing that peers are relying on them is a powerful motivator for group work . Strategies for promoting interdependence include specifying common rewards for the group, encouraging students to divide up the labor, and formulating tasks that compel students to reach a consensus.
4.1.1.2 To Make the Group Work Relevant
Students must perceive the group tasks as integral to the course objectives, not just busy work. Some teachers believe that group work is most successful if it involved the work with making judgment on the part of the students. For example, in an engineering class, the teacher gives groups a problem to solve: determine if the city should purchase twentyfive or fifty buses. Each group prepares a report, and a representative from each group is randomly selected to present the group’s solution to the class. The approaches used by the various groups are compared and discussed by the entire class, then the whole class comes to a decision.
4.1.1.3 To Create Assignments that Fit the Students’ Skills Abilities
Early in the term, assign relatively easy tasks. As students become more knowledgeable, increase the difficulty level. For example, a teacher teaching research methods start with having students simply recognize various research designs and sampling procedures. Later, team members generate their own research designs. At the end of the term, each team prepares a proposal for a research project and submits it to another team for evaluation. 4.1.1.4 Assign Tasks that Give Every Member of the Group a Share of the Work
Try to assign the tasks so that each group member can make an equal contribution. For example, one teacher asks groups to write a report on alternative energy sources. Each member of the group is responsible for research on one source, and then all the members work together to incorporate the individual contributions into the final report. Another teacher asks groups to prepare a “medieval newspaper”. Students research aspects of life in the Middle Ages, and each student contributes one major article for the newspaper, which includes news stories, feature stories and editorials. Students conduct their research independently and use group meetings to share information, edit articles, proofread, and design the pages (Odlin, 1990: 12).
Teachers should also set definite rules for each group with each member of the group has his certain responsibility. Teachers should fill in the progress regularly and also make assessment during the process. Thus the students will have a sense of achievement.
4.2 The Use of Grammar in Communicative Teaching
When teachers first began to adopt a communicative approach to foreign and second language teaching, “learning communication”was often presented as an alternative to“learning grammar”. In the discussions about classroom methods and course design, people often became so excited by a whole set of new concepts (such as “communicative competence” and “communicative functions”) that all teachers’ previous occupation with the grammar of the language seemed suddenly out-of-date. It was almost as if, by mutual agreement of the teaching profession, grammar had ceased to exist. This impression was reinforced by much of the published material of the time. For example, in many of the textbooks which became popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the learning content was described entirely in terms of communicative functions(such as “introducing yourself” or “asking the way”). If they deal overtly with grammar at all, this is often hidden away as unobtrusively as possible. (William, 1998)
Students and foreign language learners often communicate by means of a simplified grammar. “Grammar” has now moved completely inside the mind (William, 1998: 2). The term now refers to knowledge which forms part of people’s mental make-up and enables them to create and interpret sentences. For students and language learners, this knowledge is imperfect compared to that of an adult native speaker, but this need not prevent it from serving as an instrument for communication. Students need to internalize a mental grammar which they can be used for communication. Even though this grammar is imperfect compared to that of a native speaker and leads to many errors, students can still use it to express and interpret meanings.
Through learning, the aim of each student’s mental grammar is to move as close as possible to the grammar, which underlies the native speaker’s knowledge of language. The student’s ability to communicate will improve proportionately, provided that he/she also has opportunities to use the knowledge.
4.3. Role-Play
Role-playing method is a simulated communicative classroom activity. Teachers can choose typical real life situations of different cultures, let students simulate these situations in class. And teachers may ask them to act different roles, such as job interview, telephone appointment, sending birthday gifts, renting houses and depositing money. In such a relaxing environment, students are not only learning speech rules, but also mastering the cultural rules of communication. It can cultivate their cross-cultural social ability, strengthen their intercultural communicative awareness and deepen their understanding of foreign culture.
4.4. Organizing English Corner
Set up a place for exotic culture and English communication, such as English corner. Here, students can communicate with each other freely, practise courageously, feel the English culture atmosphere truly. Thus their English communicative ability could be improved effectively.
4.5 Making Full Use of Network Resources
Make fully use of network resource. Teachers can seek for and choose some net friends or hail-fellow classes of equivalent English level and roughly the same communication purpose from the relevant information of electronic forum provided by homepage of website for classroom communication. Through discussing together, they can make requests for communicative activities, make clear the objective of their cooperation and respective plan, discuss some sociocultural problems, so as to understand pragmatic communicative rules under different circumstances.
We all know that English teaching now advocates “thinking in English”, which refers to understand values, code of conduct and way of thinking in English culture by using crosscultural social ability. Therefore, the purpose of college English teaching is to cultivate students’cross-cultural social ability and to meet modern society’s requirements for college students’foreign language aptitude. 5. Conclusion
As a teaching approach, communicative language teaching is gaining more and more importance in the classrooms. Challenging yet pleasurable communicative approach promotes positive attitude toward the daily study in language learning. Students working in groups have comprehension activity, journal sharing, question discussion and role-playing of the characters in the books or plays. The successful use of communicative teaching approach depends on the confidence and motivation of the students, depends on the teaching atmosphere of the classrooms, depends on the authenticity of the materials and even the cultural or educational background of the students (Hu Hongzhi & Wu Jianpin, 2005: 24).
In short, teachers need to be devoted to one approach excluding all others in language teaching. We can be eclectic and draw from all method available. What teachers should do is to analyze our own situation in order to develop a rational and optional teaching methodology so as to meet the needs of our teaching contexts. Teachers should pay attention not to only grammar and translation, but also to the students’ communicative competence, so that teachers can have an effective English teaching. As a matter of fact, the new century will bring further growth in Chinese CLT.
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