4. Implications into Language Teaching

Some approaches proposed

Savignon (1983) interactional approach (meaning-making)

"expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning involving interaction between two or more persons or between one person and a written or oral text"

Widdowson (1978) discourse-based approach

Prabhu (1983) Procedural approach

Mohan (19??) Content-based instruction

Nunan (1988) Learner-centered approach

(Communicative Language Teaching) according to Richards and Rodgers (1986)

1. Background

a. British functional approach (Firth, Halliday)

b. American sociolinguistic approach (Labov, Hymes, Gumperz)

c. Linguistic philosophy (Austin, Searle)

2. Versions (by Howatt 1984)

a. strong version --- using TL to learn it

b. weak version --- learning to use TL

b is dominant.

3. Principles

a. use > usage

b. meaning > form

c. fluency > accuracy

d. contextualized > decontextualized

e. learner-centered, experience-centered

Problems of CLT

When we draw some implications into language classroom from the development of the theory of communicative competence, the term communicative approach is often associated with it. On the surface level, it seems reasonable to say that the goal of communicative approach of language teaching is to make learners acquire communicative competence. If it is so, then learners have to cover all five components that the model proposed here suggests. This is too demanding a goal for any learner to achieve.

We must be aware that there is some degree of discrepancy between the principles of CLT and what the theory of CC suggests. CLT emphasized on the ability to execute one's communicative needs rather than on the complete knowledge of language use for communication. According to Richards and Rodgers (1986), CLT has some priority principles such as:

use > usage

meaning > form

fluency > accuracy

The notion of communicative competence intended by Hymes does not provide any priorities for any single components, or aspects over another. Hymes did not claim that a language user does not need to have a accurate knowledge of linguistic form or usage, but rather claimed that the perfect knowledge of linguistic form is not enough to make him/her a communicatively competent language user. Wolfson (1989) points out that grammatical competence is an intrinsic part of communicative competence but in many cases, the term CC misinterpreted for language teachers and curriculum developers as the separation of grammatical competence from CC.

If CLT's goal should be the acquisition of CC in TL, this is highly demanding for any L2 learner to achieve and does not seem achievable, consequently. Therefore, if we need to set up an accessible goal of LT, we must first assess what kind and level of communicative competence will be sufficient for specific L2 learners in a specific situations. This means that learning goals cannot be prescribed until learners' needs and wants and the contexts in which they use TL are described. Also, the curriculum has to be designed by the gradual developmental change of learner's language. Therefore, the focuses and emphases on form/function or fluency/accuracy should be shifted and consequently, the priorities mentioned above will be changed as the course and language learners' language ability progress.

McGroarty (1984) suggests that communicative needs of language use varies from learner to learner.