Communicative Language Teaching

Although I have previously studied the Communicative Language Theory (CLT) before, I still find it to be an interesting and useful method. Instead of solely focusing on linguistic competence, or being able to master linguistic structure, CLT incorporates both linguistic competence as well as communicative competence (in layman's terms, "knowing when and how to say what to whom" (Larsen-Freeman 123).) I think that a CLT focus is extremely necessary in an ESL classroom: students are not only learning English for academic purposes but for a eneral communication purpose as well, thus it is essential to have a grasp of pragmatics and other areas that CLT focuses on.

The article suggested and showed examples of many successful CLT ideas. From real-world issues and events ("The teacher distributes a handout that has a copy of a sports column from a recent newspaper") to easy ways of incorporating the target language into everyday instruction ("The teacher gives the students directions for an activity in the target language"), there are many ways to easily incorporate CLT into the classroom. Today, in only my first day of my practicum experience in a TESOL classroom, I noticed that teacher utilizing a lot of CLT methods such as giving directions in the target language and practicing speaking to one another with the new grammar lesson learned. I think that it is a very successful method for students of all ages, because it can vary in its difficulty. In the class I observed this morning, it was kept basic because the students were at a basic level, but in the examples from ther article, the tasks were more advanced, involving predictions.

Chapter 3 of Beyond Methods focused om maximizing learner opportunities by discussing many different methods that most likely fall into the category of Communicative Language Teaching, although it is not explicitly stated. Some of the topics that Kuma discusses relating to maximizing learner opportunities include learner involvement, teacher questioning ("..ask the right type of questions that will trigger meaningful interaction" (Kuma 49). These include choice, product, process and metaprocess questions), and connecting with the local and global communities. Chapter 3 also features many scenarios that emphasize communication as a main activity taking place. A few short interactions are provided and then a long list of suggestions of microstrategies are also provided. Kuma makes an important point at the end of chapter in reference to the idea that students and teachers must collaborate for effective, maximized learning opportunities: "Considering their collaborative role in the classroom, "we can no longer see teachers simply as teachers and learners simply as learners, because both are, for good or ill, managers of learning" (Allwright, 1984, p. 156)."" (Kuma 76).