Constraint of Authentic Situation

The methodologists of CLT insist that one goal of language teaching should be to replicate ‘genuine’ social communication in the classroom. However, such a goal is difficult to attain. At best, the teacher can only imitate real-life situations. There is always something artificial about it especially as students know that the native language is for real communication and this is only an education game. They participate in simulated activities which are seldom complete. This perplexes students in the initial stages. In consequence, a wide stock of authentic materials is called for. It is necessary for the teacher to select, adapt and invent teaching materials to remedy this situation. Classroom tasks are simulations and can only approximate real-life communication, but real-life skills, such as adjusting to an interlocutor’s contribution can be built in. Tasks designed to practise interactive ability should be an appropriate task for the students. They must be able to imagine themselves in the situation. When there is a reason for selecting an unrealistic task, the lack of realism could be emphasized. Using imagination beyond the experience is then deliberately fore fronted.

Constraint of the Learning Styles

It is obvious that interaction activities suit the learning style of the adventurous learners. It promotes their preferred strategy of learning via attempted communication in the target language. They are not intimidated by the psychological discomfort of group work. However, it is not suitable for more reserved students because it imposes on a way of learning which does not agree their psychological make-up. They feel threatened when they are pushed toward production before they have time to develop some sort of competence of the language. It is uncommon to be met with silent expressionless students. Teachers must be self–aware whether to use encouragement, humour, or joke to induce students to perform or simply act. It may be effective if the teacher adopts a consistent style of instruction to allow learners to adapt within the bound of their own personalities without being felt coerced to behave outside their own value.

Intensity Constraint

Another problem that learners have to encounter is the intensity of the teaching. This is because in the early stages, all learning takes place in the classroom. The learning activities cannot be practised alone by the learner and homework assignments cannot be extensions of what the learner has been doing in class. Most learning occurs through listening, since reading plays a minimal role. It will be difficult for students to remember what they have acquired in class. In order to recall what was done in preceding lesson substantial time has to be given for revision. This is a particular constraint where there are no possibilities to practise communication outside the classroom.

Contextual Constraint

The size of the class poses another problem. To create good conditions for the use of communicative strategies, the class needs to be small. Students have more opportunities to participate in interactions. Teacher can easily conduct and monitor the interaction. is applied to a very large class, over thirty students, the teacher has practically no control over what the learners are doing and has no opportunity to provide extension activities.