Communicative Language Teaching: Definition, Principles, and Techniques

Language learning should be a central part of any curriculum. Oral communication is at the heart of language learning, serving as the vehicle through which learners build relationships and develop intercultural competence. The rise of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in the 1970s and the early 1980s was partly in response to the lack of success with traditional language teaching methods and partly due to the increase in demand for language learning.

Defining Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach that focuses on developing students' ability to communicate effectively in real-life situations. It emphasizes the importance of using language for meaningful communication rather than just focusing on grammar rules and vocabulary. Successfully learning a foreign language is determined by how well learners have developed communicative competence, which refers to a learner's ability to apply their knowledge of the language to communicate effectively.

Historical Context and Influences

Already in the late 19th century, the American educator John Dewey was writing about learning by doing, and later that learning should be based on the learner's interests and experiences. In 1963, American psychologist David Ausubel released his book The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Learning calling for a holistic approach to learners teaching through meaningful material. American educator Clifford Prator published a paper in 1965 calling for teachers to turn from an emphasis on manipulation (drills) towards communication where learners were free to choose their own words. In 1966, the sociolinguist Dell Hymes posited the concept of communicative competence considerably broadening out Noam Chomsky's syntactic concept of competence. Later in the 1970s British linguist M.A.K. Halliday explored language as a system of meaning. The development of communicative language teaching was bolstered by these academic ideas.

Before the growth of communicative language teaching, the primary method of language teaching was situational language teaching, a method that was much more clinical in nature and relied less on direct communication. In Britain, applied linguists began to doubt the efficacy of situational language teaching, partly in response to Chomsky's insights into the nature of language. Chomsky had shown that the structural theories of language then prevalent could not explain the variety that is found in real communication. In addition, applied linguists like Christopher Candlin and Henry Widdowson observed that the current model of language learning was ineffective in classrooms.

An influential development in the history of communicative language teaching was the work of the Council of Europe in creating new language syllabi. When communicative language teaching had effectively replaced situational language teaching as the standard by leading linguists, the Council of Europe made an effort to once again bolster the growth of the new method, which led to the Council of Europe creating a new language syllabus. Education was a high priority for the Council of Europe, which set out to provide a syllabus that would meet the needs of European immigrants. Among the studies that it used in designing the course was one by a British linguist, D. A. Wilkins, that defined language using "notions" and "functions," rather than more traditional categories of grammar and vocabulary.

Key Principles of CLT

Several key principles underpin the Communicative Language Teaching approach:

Emphasis on Authentic Communication

One of the key principles of CLT is the emphasis on authentic communication. This means providing students with opportunities to use language in meaningful ways that reflect real-life situations. By engaging in authentic communication activities, students can develop their language skills in a practical and relevant context.

Oral interpersonal communication tasks engage students for the purpose of exchanging information and ideas, meeting one’s needs, and expressing and supporting opinions through speaking and listening or signing with others. Through oral interpersonal communication tasks, learners engage with language in a low-stakes environment in preparation for real-life interactions. These tasks increase learners’ ability to interact socially in any language. As part of the backward design process, the teacher begins by identifying proficiency goals and/or the intended learning outcomes. Oral communication tasks are then created at the students’ current proficiency levels and are designed specifically to promote growth over time toward the next proficiency level. The teacher should design a variety of tasks including pair, small group and whole class tasks that simulate authentic interactions and incorporate elements of language and culture.

Student-Centered Learning

CLT promotes a student-centered learning approach where students take an active role in their language learning process. Teachers act as facilitators, guiding students to communicate and interact with each other in the target language. It emphasizes the importance of creating a supportive and collaborative learning environment that encourages student participation and engagement.

Teacher as Facilitator

In CLT, the role of the teacher shifts from being the primary source of knowledge to a facilitator of communication. Teachers create opportunities for students to practice using language in authentic contexts and provide guidance and feedback to support their learning. The instructor also sets the scene, defining where the conversation is taking place and the goal of the students' conversation.

Read also: Understanding PLCs

Integration of Language Skills

CLT emphasizes the integration of language skills such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing in a holistic approach to language learning. By incorporating all language skills in communicative activities, students can develop their overall proficiency in the target language.

Use of Real-World Contexts

Another principle of CLT is the use of real-world contexts to teach language. By incorporating authentic materials and contexts into lessons, students can see the practical relevance of the language they are learning.

Meaningful Interaction

CLT places a strong emphasis on meaningful interaction among students to promote language learning. By engaging in communicative activities that require real-time communication and collaboration, students can practice using language in context and develop their fluency and accuracy.

Development of Critical Thinking Skills

CLT encourages the development of critical thinking skills in language learners by providing opportunities for problem-solving and decision-making in communicative activities. By engaging in tasks that require analysis and evaluation, students can enhance their cognitive abilities while using language.

Communicative Competence

It was once widely thought that learners must first have a strong knowledge of grammar before they were ready to communicate. Meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities. Communicative activities that involve spontaneous speech in scenarios and situations that the learners are likely to find themselves in are frequently used to encourage authentic (or realistic) communication. As learners create language through communicative practice, it is accepted that errors may occur frequently as they try to discover what works and what doesn’t. This is a natural part of the learning process and one that helps communicative competence. Learners are not expected to be perfect in their communication but they are expected to try to communicate the best they can. It is considered that the fluency of a learner’s speech is more important than its accuracy. This means that correcting learner errors immediately would interrupt the communication process and the flow of the learner’s speech.

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Assessment in CLT

Assessment in CLT focuses on evaluating students' ability to communicate effectively in real-life situations rather than just testing their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Teachers use a variety of assessment tools such as performance tasks and portfolios to measure students' language proficiency and progress.

Teacher and Learner Roles in CLT

The primary role of the teacher is to keep the communication going between all members of the class as they perform various activities. The teacher first prepares the activities and then explains how they will be carried out. It may be necessary for the teacher to provide examples of how each activity will be performed. Instead of just explaining the activity, the teacher can also take the role of an active participant within each learning group. In this role, the teacher will become part of the group and participate fully with the other group members. In this role, the teacher determines and responds to learners’ language needs. This involves making students aware of what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.

The primary role of learners is to be active participants within groups as they seek to achieve effective communication. Learner are often not independent learners but rely on others in the class to learn as much as they can. In order to work together, students have to become comfortable listening to each other rather than relying on the teacher as a model. The roles of learners in CLT may be different from their ideas of what learning should be like, so learners may have to adjust. For example, in CLT, students are expected to interact primarily with each other and not the teacher. This may be different from what they are used to. Also, error correction in CLT is often infrequent or absent, whereas learners may be accustomed to frequent error correction. It is also important for learners to understand that successful communication is the responsibility of both the speaker and the listener. If failed communication occurs, it is not always the fault of either party individually.

Techniques and Activities in CLT

CLT teachers choose classroom activities based on what they believe will be most effective for students developing communicative abilities in the target language (TL). Oral activities are popular among CLT teachers compared to grammar drills or reading and writing activities, because they include active conversation and creative, unpredicted responses from students. Activities vary based on the level of language class they are used in. They promote collaboration, fluency, and comfort in the TL.

Here are some common techniques and activities used in CLT:

Role-Playing

Students are assigned a specific role within the group. Students can feel overwhelmed in language classes, but this activity can take away from that feeling. Students are asked to focus on one piece of information only, which increases their comprehension of that information. Instructors should be sure to monitor that each student is contributing equally to the group effort.

Information Gap Activities

The class is paired up. All the students that are Partner A are given a sheet of paper with a time-table on it. All the students that are Partner B are given a sheet of paper with a time-table on it. The boxes that are empty on Partner A's time-table are filled in on Partner B's. Completing information gap activities improves students' abilities to communicate about unknown information in the TL. Instructors should not overlook the fact that their students need to be prepared to communicate effectively for this activity. They need to know certain vocabulary words, certain structures of grammar, etc.

A great variety of information gap activities exist, but they all have the goal of requesting and giving information. The defining characteristic of these activities is that it is necessary for participants to communicate with each other in order to reach the goals of the task. In an information gap activity, one learner has certain information that must be shared with other learners in order to solve a problem, gather information, or make decisions. Information gap activities can be extremely effective in the L2 classroom. They give every student the opportunity to speak in the target language for an extended period of time, which results in students naturally producing more speech than they would otherwise. In addition, speaking with peers is usually less intimidating for the learners than giving a presentation in front of the entire class and being evaluated.

Information gap activities are appropriate at all learner proficiency levels, from beginning through advanced. This is because the difficulty of the task can be adjusted based on the student’s level. Typically, in tasks for beginning-level students, the gap should be small and may require questions and answers of only a word or two (e.g. the cost of an item, an address, a birthday, or a telephone number). The activity can be used to reinforce previously practiced material and is often done in pairs. In tasks for higher level students, the gap should be larger and therefore more demanding in terms of language required (e.g. following directions to a location). Many information gap activities are highly motivational because of the nature of the different tasks. Activities that require the solving of a problem or a mystery can create a high level of interest. Teachers should first try to determine whether an activity is of an acceptable level of difficulty for their students. If the students are sufficiently prepared for the activity, the level of language accuracy will be acceptable.

Steps for Implementing Information Gap Activities

First, the teacher explains the task and reviews any necessary vocabulary.
Next, the teacher focuses learners’ attention on the information gap itself so they understand what is expected of them. This is often accomplished by the teacher modeling the activity in front of the class.
Students are divided into pairs or groups and then left to complete the task. The task is designed so that each participant plays an important role and the task cannot be accomplished without everyone's participation.

Example of an Information Gap Activity

The purpose of this activity is for students to find out from each other what they did the previous weekend. First the teacher explains the task and reviews any necessary vocabulary. For this activity the teacher may want to emphasize the use of the simple past tense and give examples of its use. If desired, the teacher can present the students with a list of questions they can ask and use as a guide in performing the activity. Students should then be assigned into pairs and ask the questions of each other.

A more advanced information gap task could involve students having a discussion to solve a problem. For example, students could decide together what items would be most important for their survival if they were stranded together on a desert island.

Opinion Sharing

The instructor introduces a topic and asks students to contemplate their opinions about it. Opinion sharing is a great way to get more introverted students to open up and share their opinions. Respect is key with this activity.

Structured Conversations

The instructor gives students a sheet with instructions on it. In doing this activity, students have the opportunity to speak with a number of classmates, while still being in a low-pressure situation, and talking to only one person at a time. Since this activity is not as structured as some of the others, it is important for instructors to add structure.

Conversation Practice

To promote language skills in all types of situations, learners converse about personal experiences with partners, and instructors teach topics outside of the realm of traditional grammar.

Other Activities

Implementing CLT in ESL classrooms requires teachers to create a communicative and interactive learning environment that promotes language use for authentic communication. By incorporating CLT principles into their teaching practices, teachers can enhance students' language skills and confidence in using the target language.

Criticisms of CLT

In his critique of CLT, Michael Swan addresses both the theoretical and practical problems with CLT. He mentions that CLT is not an altogether cohesive subject but one in which theoretical understandings (by linguists) and practical understandings (by language teachers) differ greatly. Where confusion in the application of CLT techniques is readily apparent is in classroom settings. Swan suggests that CLT techniques often suggest prioritizing the "function" of a language (what one can do with the language knowledge one has) over the "structure" of a language (the grammatical systems of the language). That priority can leave learners with serious gaps in their knowledge of the formal aspects of their target language.

Further critique of CLT techniques in classroom teaching can be attributed to Elaine Ridge. One of her criticisms of CLT is that it falsely implies that there is a general consensus regarding the definition of "communicative competence," which CLT claims to facilitate. Because there is no such agreement, students may be seen to be in possession of "communicative competence" without being able to make full or even adequate use of the language. That individuals are proficient in a language does not necessarily entail that they can make full use of that language, which can limit an individual's potential with that language, especially if that language is an endangered language. Ridge also notes that CLT has nonspecific requirements of its teachers, as there is no completely standard definition of what CLT is, which is especially true for the teaching of grammar, the formal rules governing the standardized version of the language in question.

Stephen Bax's critique of CLT has to do with the context of its implementation. Bax asserts that many researchers associate the use of CLT techniques with modernity and so the lack of CLT techniques as a lack of modernism.

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