Communicative Approach: basic principles
Aims: by the end of the session the students will be able to point out basic principles of Communicative Approach, the nature of communication.
Communicative Language Teaching
What is the goal of this teaching method in your opinion? Compare your idea with the definition from the glossary.
CLT has two main strands (points):
Language is not just bits of grammar; it also involves language functions (inviting, agreeing, suggesting, giving advice, etc.)
The focus of communicative language teaching is activation and then study for students should use the language appropriately for the given social context. And the three basic building blocks for successful language teaching and learning are:
And the order in which they can be presented at a lesson can be different.
Communicative Approach
Communicative Competence:
Linguistic forms, meanings, functions
used appropriately to a given social and
cultural context
Teaching / learning process
activities: information gap, choice of linguistic forms, feedback
authentic materials
student-centred
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Emphasized areas:
function over forms
cohesion and coherence
work on four skills
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Role of a teacher:
initiator
advisor
co-communicator
manager
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4) Students’ feelings
cooperative interactions
emotional security
express their individuality
more motivated
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5) Evaluation:
accuracy and fluency
communicative tests
errors of form are tolerated
Activity: Define the competence. Choose from the given below:
Strategic, social, linguistic, socio-cultural, socio-linguistic, discourse competence.
  
   
Desire to interact, to handle the situation
Knowledge of habits, customs and traditions
Ability to choose verbal and non-verbal strategies according to the situation.
Communicative Competence
 
Knowledge of vocabulary and grammar
Ability to achieve cohesion and coherence
Ability to use language forms according to the situation: speech patterns and functions
Communicative competence is a measure of a learner’s ability to achieve successful communication in the language he is learning.
The most difficult element of communicative competence is discourse competence.
According to Webster Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary “Discourse is communication of thought by words”. The Cobuild Essential Dictionary gives the following definition: “Written or spoken communication between people”. In other words discourse is language used in real situation for real purposes, i.e. language as social behaviour. Such a use of language involves interaction (e. g. between participants in a conversation; between reader and writer in a newspaper article; between lectures and listeners) and the combining and relating of utterances. Utterance is any complete unit of language used for communicative purpose. An utterance can be either written or spoken. Interaction is communication between people involving the use of language (e. g. between two people having a conversation; between writer and readers; between speaker and listeners).
Coherence is a state or a situation in which all the parts or ideas fit together well so that they form a united whole.
Cohesion markers are textual means, signs which make a text a united whole, with the help of which all parts of a text fit together well. For example: parallel grammar structures, ellipses.
Let’s discuss the second basic principle: teaching / learning process. The first thing includes information gap or opinion gap activities. Let’s try to answer he question: what makes a communicative activity?
  
Opinion gap
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