Communicative language teaching

A communicative approach is becoming more and more popular. Is it effective? Does it really help our students to learn the languege? We want our learners to be active participants in their learning and a communicative classroom can help 

A communicative approach is based on developing interaction through natural language use.  It means that a teacher is less concerned about explaining how the language works to students. Instead, they are preoccupied with creating a true-to-life context in which students can use this language. Teaching with a communicative focus requires the teacher to engage, motivate and encourage students to use the language. 

Students should have a reason to do something. 

You can check whether you use a communicative approach in you teaching by ticking those statements whta are relevant to you.

 A communicative approach should always be focused on learners

 "Creating a communicative context for learning really does make a difference. The children come to class smiling because they enjoy playing a part in their own learning. It’s really rewarding to see how they seem to learn new language more easily when it feels alive to them."

• Games and puzzles help to make learning enjoyable. 
• Encouraging participation helps learners to contribute more.
• Activities that learners can do help them to feel a sense of achievement.
• Success creates motivation to do more.
• A step-by-step approach provides effective guidance for learners.

These activities are appropriate for a communicative approach:

• Read the text and find out how many countries speak English;
• Speak to your classmates and find out who went to the seaside last summer;
• The children work in pairs. Child A has a picture, for example of a bedroom. Child B has a similar picture, but with some differences. The children sit back to back and ask questions to find out how many differences there are;
• The children work in groups of three. They have a list of, for example, eight toys. They choose two toys they would like for their birthday and then compare their choices and their reasons;
• An open-class model (an example for the whole class);
• Role plays;
• Using visuals; 
• Recycling through games; 

A communicative classroom

It's difficult to make your a communicative classroom. Perhaps, a teacher should spend some years to achieve this goal. However, when it is achieved, they can get more satisfaction from their work. Learners will come smiling because they will know that nobody will force them to repeat 3 forms of the verbs, for example. They will perceive English lessons as part of their real life as during the lessons they work in natural contexts. Moreover, such lessons will help them to become more experienced and mature, to take responsibilities and etc, apart from learning the language. 

To achieve this, a teacher should work hard on creating appropriate activities, which engage students and motivate them. Role-plays, games, songs, creating tasks which have aim and purpose. Even the way the furniture is placed in the classroom affects a communicative approach. 

It should be a learner centred teaching. 

The role of a teacher is also changed. Now, a teacher shouldn't have so much control of their learners. Students should be taught to work independently, to become more autonomous. A teacher shouldn’t control everybody as this quite often boils down to increasing the TTT, which is not part of a communicative approach. 

Language chunks

A communicative approach focuses on using those moments when students need some clarification to encourage the use and understanding of formulaic language chunks. Language chunks are communicative phrases you or your learners use – in your case, 

• to give instructions,
• get attention, 
• elicit, 
• clarify tasks, 
• get feedback or simply talk generally to your learners. 

These chunks should be used to encourage natural language and should become part of the learning process. They should be short and simple, and used repetitively, so children learn them quickly and easily.

For example, teachers' chunks:

• Get into pairs, please.
• Can anyone tell me the name of three brown animals?
• First read the text, then answer the questions.
• Let’s do this all together.
• Does this group need any help?

Students' chunks:

• How do you spell ... in English, please?
• I don’t understand. Can you explain again, please?
• Can I be the group leader?
• Which page is it, please?
• How do you say ... in English, please?

Link:

http://www.cambridgeenglishteacher.org/courses/details/18777/teaching-primary-learners-communicatively