Доля В.В.
ДВНЗ УАБС „НБУ”
Peculiarities of the Communicative Approach in Teaching English
Communicative
language teaching began in Britain in the 1960s as a replacement to the earlier
structural method, called Situational Language Teaching. This was partly in
response to Chomsky's criticisms of structural theories of language and partly
based on the theories of British functional linguistics, such as Firth and
Halliday, as well as American sociolinguists, such as Hymes , Gumperz and Labov
and the writings of Austin and Searle on speech acts.
There are some principles that may be inferred about
the learning theory behind the communicative approaches:
·
activities that involve real communication promote learning
·
activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks
promote learning
·
language that is meaningful to the learner promotes learning
The communicative method precisely defines objectives
headed by free communication through conversation, reading, listening
comprehension and writing. For those aims, the communicative method uses
contemporary elements of tele-, radio communication, etc. which are natural in
the world of exchanging information. Nevertheless, a book remains the main but
not the only tool of language learning at school. A teacher can choose any book
which corresponds to his/her purposes and defines his/her methodological
approach towards language teaching. But a book should be both interesting and
accessible for students. A textbook should help learning the language, but not
give interesting or boring facts about it. On the other hand, even the most
attractive textbook will not give any results, if its contents (drills,
exercises, rules, etc.) are separated from the communicative learning with the
help of a teacher as a professional counselor. An English language teacher must
know English as well as his mother tongue. The teacher must be aware of the
laws according to which language functions. The teacher must be acquainted with
the last methodological points of view, but he is not to be obliged to acquire
those if they do not conform to his purposes and aims. The teacher ought to
know the difference between general linguistics and pedagogical linguistics in
order not to convert lessons at school to linguistic seminars.
What is communication? It
seems to me, communication is first of all exchanging opinions, information,
notions of social, cultural, political and other aspects of everyday life.
Communication always has associations with written and oral discourse. But
communication includes a surprised face, a smile, a nervous movement or a smoke
above the fire of Indians, as well. Communication is also advertising the
colour of the president's suit, flags, posters or a whistle of a boy under the
window of his sweetheart. The world around us is the world of communication in
various spheres. And only at language lessons the only means of communication
are textbooks and the lecturing teacher. In the classroom, the teacher is the
source of information. And this communication is under control rather than
free. In this case, the purpose of a teacher is to transform the communication
with students to a pleasant, attractive and emotional lesson.
Real communication is always informative, unpredictable and
unexpected. If the teacher is always informative, interesting and unexpected,
then even before the beginning if the lesson students will be disposed for a
good lesson. But if the previous lesson is just the same as the next one,
students will be bored with it before the lesson start.
Even the most trivial dialogue
can be transformed to a communicative one if no one knows a word of what will
be said about. If the dialogue starts
A: - How are you?
B: - And you?
then it all can be boring, definite and predictable.
This dialogue
is not informative, and rather similar to those which the students must learn
by heart in terms of a prepared situation recipe.
By contrast, the dialogue below is unpredictable,
interesting and informative:
A: - How are you?
B: - Is it true, that you ... or
A: - What is the result of the match?
B: - Tell me, where I can get repaired my Japanese TV
set? It broke down in the middle of the match.
The answer is
unexpected and related to the questions only associatively. During a language
lesson, such dialogues can reflect spontaneous situations. Those unexpected
dialogues are really communicative and built according to the scheme
"stimulus - response". This principle stimulates active thinking
process, intuitive thought and use of language in the frame of fixed communicative
habits.
Working on their
own, students fulfill the task of a communicative intercourse, and the best way
of it is a free dialogue between students but excluding the teacher who is
always correcting and evaluating. There are a lot of students who can and know
how to speak English but they happen to keep silent facing the criticizing
teacher. At free work, however, students are more willing and ready for
decision-making and to ask the teacher for his advice.
When a teacher is
not a dictator, students try to learn language themselves. In small groups,
even the shyest students engage in communication at the same level as a
"non timid" students. It never happens, however, if the teacher
stands in front of the all class. Work in groups which transform a student into
the main person of the language lesson is the kind of work which develops the
communicative abilities of students.
A language teacher
can not limit himself only to textbooks or teaching aids, even the most
contemporary, but he must be in constant relation with the language by the
modern means including television, video, etc. It can also be a newspaper, or a
recorded telecast or a radio report. The more variety is in aids of learning
and the more up-to-date reflection of the mass media influence is shown by
them, the more successful will the communicative intercourse be.
Speaking about
communication, it is necessary to take into account a specific national
character and specific type of communication in
English. Students ask: "What is the English for it" when they want to
know the equivalent of some Lithuanian gesture. Born in Lithuania, children
acquire specific gestures which are common to this country, or a city, or a
community. The language is acquired in the same specific logical-emotional
communicative system as well.
Can a child or the
children acquire not only nominative forms of a second language but the whole
complex composing the language of communication, as well? In other words, can a
learner communicate with the native speaker at the same level? N. Chomsky
defined the ability to speak with the native speaker in the same terms as
competence. He claimed that real competence in studying a language could be
developed in intuitive language of native language conditions.
Is there a pedagogical norm in defining
competence? N. Chomsky (1965) considers people who do not know grammar or
cannot read and write as non-competent. If we take for an example a man from a
countryside who can neither speak nor write, we can say that in these
communicative conditions there is no need for writing or reading, and that is
why he is completely competent in justifying his everyday communicative needs.
Then, we can say that competence is personal verbal perfection which
corresponds to the personal communicative needs.
Teachers always
seek to fill the heads of students with various grammar rules and to transform
them to a source of language perfection. This purpose can not be achieved in
most cases. At the same time, it is not useful since it is impossible to grasp a
lot of. The English teacher should fix flexible aims which could vary in every
single case. Communication is a necessity in order to keep contact at a certain
level and at a certain communicative frame.
What are the
relations between communication and competence and which determines what:
whether communication defines competencies or vice versa?
In fact, I used to
correct every students mistake. But later on, I understood that not in every
case we need to pay attention to wrong usage of language, and if we do it this
must be done in the same way which does not disturb the course of
communication,
Which is better?
How can I find Students street?
Where is Students street?
Do you happen to know Students
street?
Every from the
three examples above will direct to Students street. Thus, norms of language
are supposed to assist communication but it is not necessary to use it in the
standard perfection. And if we have to make a choice between perfection and
communicative result, we would choose the last one. No doubt, perfect
communication preferred but not compulsory. A communicative teacher must pay
attention to typical mistakes, those which he often comes across with, to
distortion of logical and grammatical forms. Normative language is to
remain on example of imitation, but not in all cases it must be the goal of
active studies
Attention must be drawn to one
more element of communicative intercourse. It is spontaneity. In many cases
normative rules will not allow to evaluate colloquial situation and respond to
communicative stimulus. Many times a teacher can spot a student not finding the
right word. That happens when the student thinks not about what to say, but how
to say.
Structural exercises, which
had spread in methodology in the middle of the century, were determined to
teach topics which must extract words from students’ active memory according to
the situation. But these exercises did not teach free usage of language in
unexpected situations. In fact, knowledge of the topics appeared to be non
communicative because it was impossible to predict the situation with all its
unexpected moments. Dialogues and topics must be a part of teaching process,
but they are to carry unexpected elements, spontaneity and situation, which
require immediate and logical solution of communicative problems. Dialogues
must help to understand situation. They are useful in case when they involve
ability to practice it in a free manner.
Questions of practical liberty
and personal necessity are the key ones not only from linguistic point of view,
but from social and political one as well. This question must be presented to
every student personally. Even in primary school, students should know why he
is learning English. Then they will be highly motivated.
A teacher can learn the
student's attitude towards the English language by means of questionnaires
which he can design himself. It can be following:
I study English because:
a) it is necessary in everyday
life,
b) it is necessary for my
future career,
c) it is necessary for my
personal contacts,
d) it is a nice language,
e) we live in Europe,
f) all around us study
English,
g) I need to read special
literature in English,
h) it easier to live knowing
English,
i) I am forced to learn.
Analyzing every point, a
teacher can define motives of language studies in every particular case. Then
the teacher can structure his strategies according to the needs of students.