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The methods of teaching in our school are traditional. They emphasize grammatical forms. The result is that even after so many years of learning, our students cannot express themselves correctly and effectively in English. The communicative language approach is an attempt to meet this challenge.
According to Brian Seaton;
"It is an approach that aims at developing the practical knowledge of how the language is used".
The traditional methods aim to produce linguistic or grammatical competence. The communicative approach extends grammatical competence to communicate.
"The purpose of language is to communicate with each other".
When we speak we want to communicate something to the listener. Through speaking our writing, we inform each other of our Desire feeling plans about objects are persons full stop so a language should be taught in our way that a learner may be able to communicate with others. A language has two aspects: form and function.
By form, we mean
"The grammatical structure of a sentence".
for example, Please sit down is imperative in form.
By function, we mean
"The purpose for which a sentence is spoken"
For example, the same sentence is a request in function.
In a communicative approach, both form and function are important but the function is more important because it is more helpful in communication.
Objectives of communicative approach
1. This approach aims at making communicative competence the goal of language teaching.
2. It aims at developing a procedure for teaching four language skills.
3. It encourages the purpose for which the language is used.
4. It focuses on what people want to do or what they want to communicate through speech.
Advantages of communicative approach
1. It pays attention to functional and structural aspects of language.
2. It does not emphasize the acquisition of rules of grammar.
3. This approach is concerned with activities that create realistic situations for language work.
4. Meaning is Paramount.
5. Translation may be used where students need or benefit from it.
6. Teachers help learners in any way that motivates them to work with language to stop this is a student-centered approach.
Disadvantages of communicative approach
1. It pays insufficient attention to the context in which teaching and learning take place.
2. The communicative approach often seems to be interpreted as
"If the teacher understands the student we have good communication".
But native speakers of the target language can have great difficulty understanding students.
3. The communicative approach focuses on fluency but not accuracy. The approach does not focus on error reduction but instead creates a situation where learners are left using their devices to solve their communication problems. Thus, they may produce grammatically incorrect sentences.
4. This approach demands competent teachers who have an excellent command of language. It is difficult to find such teachers.
5. This approach emphasizes the use of language in real situations. It is difficult in traditional classes.
Characteristics of communicative language approach
1. Language is a system for expressing meaning.
2. The primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication.
3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.
Communicative language teaching activities
1. Oral repetition of the dialogue by class, half class, groups, and individuals are done.
2. Questions and answers are used which are based on the dialogue.
3. These questions are related to the personal experiences of the students but are concerned with the theme of the dialogue.
4. Learners discover generalizations or rules underlying the functional experience or structure. This should include oral form, written form, position in the utterance, and grammatical function and meaning.
5. Learners copy the dialogues if they are not given in the pupil's book.
6. Oral recognition and interpretative activities are introduced.
Conclusion
Communicative language teaching appeared at a time when language teaching in many parts of the world was ready for a paradigm shift, situational language teaching and audiolingual were no longer felt to be appropriate methodologies. Communicative language teaching is best considered as an approach rather than a method. It refers to a diverse set of principles that reflects a communicator's view of language and language learning. It has become a popular and relative Lee's uncontroversial approach to the organization of classroom teaching in many parts of the world.
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