Band 80-90: Academic Writing about Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching: Introduction, Advantages and Disadvantages as well as it is potential application to Turkish context

    “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” The sentiment expressed in the quotation, embodies the view that, teaching is the key of exploration.This exploration may be possible by learning new things and reinforcing knowledge that could be obtained with teaching. To make teaching successful and permanent, one of the most principal tools is the language as the element that provides communication among people and connect them. With this connection, language makes it possible to share information with the future generations and for the accurate information transfer, one of the essential requisites is teaching the target language properly. To teach the language precisely, there are various methods and approaches in language teaching. These methods provide alternative ways for learners during the language learning process. One of the foremost methods is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which is used to teach a language based on the real life. This paper examines CLT method on the basis of its background, advantages and disadvantages , and application in Turkish context.

     Until the 1960s, the leading British approach to teaching English as a foreign language was Situational Language Teaching (SLT). However, as the number of people who want to learn English language started to increase gradually, alternative approaches were required to provide more opportunities for learners while they were in the process of learning the language. Afterwards, the other method emerged called CLT and with the provided facilities, usage of CLT started to increase. The basic cause behind the growth in utilization of CLT has been the strategies that are the parts of this method as the previous approach was based on the structural activities and focused on the accuracy, the using of the language in real life was not easy in terms of the fluency. Nevertheless, CLT has made the using target language in real life possible because one of the most important aims of this approach is to use the foreign language for interaction as fluency is a prominent aspect of communication. Focusing on communicative competence and interactive learning can enable students to have the ability to use the language effectively and, moreover, learners can become more fluent in target language.All in all, CLT has become one of the major approaches to teaching English and has had a significant role in language teaching since the 1960s.

     When CLT method is criticized, it could be said that this approach to teaching a foreign language has its merits and faults. One of the major advantages of CLT is closely linked to the idea that it emphasizes the importance of creating interaction between students and teachers. That is, students are expected to express their ideas and opinions more easily through using the target language interactively. This will simply improve the functional communication among students. Furthermore, the other advantage of this method could be that it has variety of techniques including language games, role plays, and pair work activities which can help teaching English effectively. These techniques also have a significant impact on the quality of classroom interaction as they make it possible to establish cooperative relationship among students, and encourage them to participate in classroom activities and also make students more likely to speak during the language leaning process. Since CLT method enables students to be more active in classes, motivation of students may gradually increase and they could become more confident while speaking English. Although there are many advantages of CLT, disadvantages of it should also be taken into account. One of the disadvantages is that CLT emphasizes fluency rather than accuracy in grammar and pronunciation which can be seen as an important part of he language. As a result of not enough focus on error correction and explicit grammar instruction, students may give priority to meaning and they might make incoherent and incorrect sentences in terms of the grammatical structure of the English language. Moreover, another disadvantage is that application of CLT method may not be appropriate for beginners because they need to have more practice to participate in oral communication, thus the weaker learners may have some problems while using the target language and their motivation might decrease. It can be seen from this critique that, having considered various advantages of CLT, it is also reasonable to take into consideration the possible disadvantages of this method.

     Undoubtedly, CLT is one of the mostly used methods in teaching English as a foreign language. It is important, however, not to assume the applicability of CLT in Turkish context in all cases which can be based on the classroom-related and teacher-related issues. The difficulties which are presented by classroom can be based on the number of students in a class and and the types of furniture in it as the classroom environment has a significant effect on language teaching and learning process. That is, since CLT approach basically focuses on enhancing oral skills and teaching the target language through communication, more interaction between students and teachers is required to place emphasis on functional aspects of the language. This can be achieved in small size classes relatively more easily because teachers might be able to spend more time with students during the activities. Nevertheless, there are mostly large classes in Turkey, thus, teachers may not be able to deal with students individually. In addition, chairs are fixed in most of the classes in Turkey and this may cause practical problems for teachers and learners while practising some of the classroom activities such as, group works and role plays because stability of chairs may not allow practitioners and students to put chairs how they want; as a result, activities may not be done properly. Furthermore, teacher-related problems are the other difficulties which affect the implementation of CLT in Turkish context. As most of the English language teachers are not native speakers in Turkey, they may be deficient in oral proficiency and in spoken English and they may not feel confident in classroom. Therefore, teachers might be discouraged from teaching communicative courses and students may not improve their speaking skills. Despite the fact that CLT has made a significant contribution to teaching English language effectively in many countries for many years, the application of this method may not be feasible in Turkey.

     In conclusion, this paper analyzes the CLT method in terms of its background, which merits and demerits this approach has, and also how the application of CLT in Turkish context could be. It can be said that CLT method, which fundamentally aims to enhance communication skills of students while teaching English language, can help teachers create an appropriate classroom environment for the interactive and effective language teaching through using mentioned techniques. Nevertheless, for the successful language teaching, CLT may be used for intermediate and advanced students because it is mostly expected from students to speak the target language fluently. As a result of too much focus on fluency, according to Hughes (1983, p. 1) , CLT “produces fluent but inaccurate learners” and this can be seen as a disadvantage of this method. As the other defect is the implementation of this approach in crowded classes and by the non-native teachers who are inadequate for oral skills, it may be difficult to apply CLT method in Turkish context. In order to minimize these difficulties and employ the CLT method auspiciously, not only should teachers and practitioners promote their professional competence to deal with students more easily in teaching process, but the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) should also provide more facilities for teachers such as more qualified and equipped classrooms to make possible the using authentic materials. It is important to note, however, that CLT method has made a significant contribution to teaching English as a foreign language for many years and also has nourished the imagination of students by using the target language.

Note: This is an original piece of writing lease cite this website if you want to use it for any educational purposes. The text was produced by 1st year ELT student Kevser Atalay at Erciyes University, Kayseri

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