Communicative Language Teaching Approach
Communicative Language Teaching Approach
The Definition Of CLT Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) originated from the changes in the British Situational Language Teaching approach dating from the late 1960s (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Stemming from the socio-cognitive perspective of the socio-linguistic theory, with an emphasis on meaning and communication, and a goal to develop learners’ “communicative competence”, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach evolves as a prominent language teaching method and gradually replaced the previous grammar-translation method and audio-lingual method (Warschauer & Kern, 2000). Since the concept of “communicative competence” was first introduced by Hymes in the mid-1960s, many researchers have helped develop theories and practices of Communicative Language Teaching approach (Brown, 1987; Canale, 1983; Hymes, 1971; Littlewood, 1981; Nattinger, 1984; Nunan, 1987 &1989; Richards & Rodgers, 1986; Widdowson, 1990). Hymes coined this term in contrast to Chomsky’s “Linguistic Competence”. As Stern (1992) explicated, “Competence represents proficiency at its most abstract and psychologically deepest level” (p.73). Chomsky indicated that underlying the concrete language performance, there is an abstract rule system or knowledge and this underlying knowledge of the grammar of the language by the native speaker is his “linguistic competence”. In contrast, Hymes argue that in addition to linguistic competence, the native speaker has another rule system. In Hymes’ view, language was considered as a social and cognitive phenomenon; syntax and language forms were understood not as autonomous, a contextual structures, but rather as meaning resources used in particular conventional ways and develop through social interaction and assimilation of others’ speech (Warschauer & Kern, 2000). Therefore, speakers of a language have to have more than grammatical competence in order to be able to communicate
The Definition Of CLT Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) originated from the changes in the British Situational Language Teaching approach dating from the late 1960s (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Stemming from the socio-cognitive perspective of the socio-linguistic theory, with an emphasis on meaning and communication, and a goal to develop learners’ “communicative competence”, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach evolves as a prominent language teaching method and gradually replaced the previous grammar-translation method and audio-lingual method (Warschauer & Kern, 2000). Since the concept of “communicative competence” was first introduced by Hymes in the mid-1960s, many researchers have helped develop theories and practices of Communicative Language Teaching approach (Brown, 1987; Canale, 1983; Hymes, 1971; Littlewood, 1981; Nattinger, 1984; Nunan, 1987 &1989; Richards & Rodgers, 1986; Widdowson, 1990). Hymes coined this term in contrast to Chomsky’s “Linguistic Competence”. As Stern (1992) explicated, “Competence represents proficiency at its most abstract and psychologically deepest level” (p.73). Chomsky indicated that underlying the concrete language performance, there is an abstract rule system or knowledge and this underlying knowledge of the grammar of the language by the native speaker is his “linguistic competence”. In contrast, Hymes argue that in addition to linguistic competence, the native speaker has another rule system. In Hymes’ view, language was considered as a social and cognitive phenomenon; syntax and language forms were understood not as autonomous, a contextual structures, but rather as meaning resources used in particular conventional ways and develop through social interaction and assimilation of others’ speech (Warschauer & Kern, 2000). Therefore, speakers of a language have to have more than grammatical competence in order to be able to communicate