Communicative Language Teaching

While reading the article about communicative language teaching, I was glad to relate with and understand some of the articles main points from the beginning.  As the article explained, communication is more than just a linguistic competence, but also involves a communicative competence. More specifically, I think the article is referring to the almost intuitive like knowledge one needs to have in a language to know “when and how to say what to whom” (p. 121?). As a language learner myself, however, I would go as far to say that this could also include communicative body gestures, such as kisses, hugs, or bows. I think communicative language teaching can and should also include these sorts of things- seemingly extraneous and culturally varying ways of communication. In my opinion, these aspects of language learning (currently being discussed as much more than a linguistic competence) can actually be the most uncomfortable and difficult aspects of the communicative ways of a particular language.

With that in mind, as I delved into reading this article, I kept reflecting back on my own teaching and the ways in which I present the information and teach in general. I can’t help but say that I sometimes feel I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and most of those times, I’m probably right! However, I’m slowly becoming more confident in my teaching thanks to this class and articles like these that put sophisticated names and actual techniques behind what I sometimes feel like I’m ‘winging’. I think I can directly relate CLT to my teaching because my ultimate goal is for my students to communicate in the target language. Whether it is just barely saying hello or telling me about almost anything. I find myself often facilitating and providing gaps in the teaching so the students are constantly and actively engaging with one another. I found that many of the materials and techniques I bring to class actually fit right into the CLT way of teaching, such as, the scrambled sentences, language games, and role plays. Although I have found some supporting evidence that what I am doing in the classroom is not totally made up, I often wonder if all these techniques offered through CLT are as authentic as we as educators hope? Maybe this is one of the biggest challenges all educators in general face. Are these experiences authentic? Meaningful? And affective within a long-term time span? I have to ultimately say that I really do agree with and like the idea of CLT in the end. I think it is a form of teaching that I would and have enjoyed throughout my life. I think it also lends itself to be meaningful yet still allows for varying approaches which might accommodate for a diverse group of learners. I don’t know how much of this way of teaching I could argue. I do recognize, however, that just because I benefitted from and enjoy this approach doesn’t mean that it will be the same for every one else. That creating those meaningful experiences will include grabbing certain aspects of different teaching techniques and using them in a wholesome curriculum reinvented each year to fit students needs. Easy, right?! J