(a)
Identify the theory behind communicative language teaching approach.
Based on
the article of Communicative Language Teaching by Nina Spada, CLT is an
approach to L2 teaching where it is a meaning-based and learner-centered
approach. Here, the fluency is being emphasized more compared to the accuracy
of the language or in other words, it is mainly focus on the ability of the
students to understand and produce messages and not the teaching or correction
of language form. Other than that, there is also other view that purpose CLT as
primarily meaning-based which includes both the fluency and accuracy aspect.
The
audio-lingual method is an oral-based approach which is based on the behavioral
psychology (Skinner). In addition, it is used in the language learning where it
gives attention on the inductive learning of grammar. The learning is conducted
through the activities that involve the students to do repetition, practice and
memorization. This method will drill the students in the use of grammatical
sentence patterns. For example, dialogue activities which can be carried out by
the students in form of imitation and repetition. By conducting this activity,
the students will be able to use the target language communicatively.
Furthermore,
according to Hymes’ theory the knowledge of the rules of grammar (linguistic
competence) and the knowledge of the rules of language use (communicative
competence) gives obvious impact on CLT. According to Hymes’, the focus in L2
teaching is through the accurate use of grammatical forms. Besides that, there
are also several components of abilitiesthat the learners need to require which
is
(1) linguistic competence;
(2) sociolinguistic competence;
(3) discourse
competence; and
(4) Strategic competence.
·
Linguistic competence: the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary.
·
Sociolinguistic competence: the ability to say the appropriate thing
in a certain social situation.
·
Discourse competence: the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and
end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent
manner.
·
Strategic competence: the ability to communicative effectively and
repair problems caused by communication breakdown.
(b) State the implications of
communicative language teaching towards materials development.
Implication 1:-
Functional categories found in teaching
materials which includes making requests, greeting, making suggestion enable
the learners to be aware of communicative functions. It also helps the learners
to understand the fact that communication could break down if they only focus
on linguistic (semantic-grammatical) meaning and ignore the intended use of the
utterance (i.e. function) by the speaker. For instance, a person whom
struggling to open the door due to heavy luggage asks a random student for a
help gives grammatically correct answer, without taking any action, may cause
offense as the answer shows lack of the understanding of the embedded function
of ‘making a request’. Traditional teaching materials tend to simplify the
complex form function relationship into one-to-one correspondence. The
interrogatives are used for asking questions, imperatives for giving commands
and conditionals for making hypothetical statements. From a communicative
perspective, this relationship is explored more carefully, and as a result our
views on the properties of language have been expanded and enriched. However,
there are number of pedagogic problems associated with this approach to
materials design, particularly to do with the sequencing of the language to be practised.
Implication 2:-
The real world language in use does not
operate in a vacuum. We need to aware
that the language function and language form does not operate in isolation but
as part of as network of interconnected factors, all of which need to be taken
into account in materials that use a communicative concept as their design
principle. Based on a large amount of data from spoken language known as a
corpus, Carter et al (2011) and O’ Keeffe et al (2007)explain how spoken
grammar is distinctly different from written grammar. There are also principles
of conversation (McCarten and McCarthy, 2010) in which social interactions play
an important role. There is often a stated requirement for authenticity- a term
that loosely implies as close an approximation as possible an approximation as
possible to the world outside the classroom, in the selection both of language
material and of the activities and methods used for practice in the classroom.
Implication 3:-
A communicative approach also implies a
concern with behavior, with patterns of interaction as well as linguistic
content. Morrrow (1981) makes a simple and useful distinction between the ‘what’-
the contents of a language programme- ad the ‘how’- the ways in which that
content might be learned and taught. This behavioural ‘how’ would cover the
kinds of activities we carry out and the tasks we perform, such as writing a
letter or an essay and etc.. However the main principles, with varying degrees
of change and modification have had a long lasting impact on materials and
methods that should not be underestimated. Thomson (1996) highlighted few
points regarding CLT which were:-
I.
CLT means not teaching grammar
II.
CLT means teaching only speaking
III.
CLT means pair work- role play
IV.
CLT means expecting too much from the teacher
Recent materials have reacted in various
ways to and against the communicative approach of the 1970’s. However the main
principles, with varying degrees of change and modification have had a lasting
impact on materials and methods that should not be underestimated. Certain criteria of CLT is too important to
lose, for instance, the concern with the world beyond the classroom, the
concern with the learner as an individual and the view of the language as
structured to carry out the functions that we want to perform.
(c) Locate principles supporting CLT
within the KBSM English Language Curriculum and F1 English Language Syllabus.
Aim of KBSM English Language Curriculum:
·
The syllabus aims to extend learners’ English language proficiency in
order to meet their needs to use English in certain situations in everyday life,
for knowledge acquisition, and for future workplace needs.
By referring to the KBSM English Language
Curriculum, there are several objectives that support the CLT that are:-
By the end of their secondary school
education, learners should be able to:
·
form and maintain relationships through conversations and
correspondence; take part in social interaction; and interact to obtain goods
and services;
·
obtain, process and use information from various audio-visual and
print sources, and present the information in spoken and written form;
·
listen to, view, read and respond to different texts, and express
ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings imaginatively and creatively in spoken
and written form;
Principles that support CLT:-
(1)
form and maintain relationships through conversations and
correspondence; take part in social interaction; and interact to obtain goods
and services:
·
1st principle: Promotes
cooperative and collaborative learning
-
Through the activities that involves conversation; the students will
eventually interact with each other and give opinions on the topic that is
being talk about. Here, the students not only able to express their idea on
certain things but they also will learn on how to give a right response. For
example, in the role-playing activities where students can ask each other
questions regarding certain topic (e.g. family or friend) where during this
process, they will ask questions and respond politely. Moreover, through this
activity the students also practice the sociolinguistic competence.In addition,
the students also will collaborate with each other in order to make the process
of communication of the target language can be carry out successfully. Thus,
teacher needs to be the facilitator during the learning activities and promotes
communication among students.
·
2nd principal: Practice
of using the language
-
As the students get involves in the interaction process obtaining the
goods and services, they will be exposed to discourse competence. Here, they
will learn to start, contribute to, and end the conversation on the topic being
talk about. The students will start to learn this in a consistent and coherent
manner as they will take turn in order to participate in the conversation.
Moreover, they also will be taught on how to ask questions and responds in a
polite manner whenever they want to make enquiries.
-
Apart from that, the students also will learn the linguistic
competence as they get involves in activities such as writing simple
instruction or simple invitation. Here, the students usually will participate
collaboratively and at the same time they will learn on how to use the simple
grammar and vocabulary.
·
3rd principal: Focus
on form
-
It is an approach to explicit grammar teaching, emphasizes a
form-meaning connection and teaches grammar within the contexts and through
communicative task. Thus, it is very important for the teacher to find
activities that is related to their real life situation so that they will
understand the context more easily. Here, teacher should encourage the students
to express their idea by making the students get involve in interaction and
focus more on the meaning and allow the learners to figure out the rule
themselves naturally as they having a conversation with each other. During the
activity, the students eventually will communicate by negotiation of meaning
and gives feedback as well.
(2)
obtain, process and use information from various audio-visual and
print sources, and present the information in spoken and written form:
·
1st principal: Input
needs to be rich
-
The activities that involve the use of authentic materials are very
essential to reflect real-life situations and demands. Thus, teacher should
design activities that use various audio-visual and print resources for the
learning. For example by using audio-visual such as videos, the students not
only will listen to the spoken texts but they also can take a look at the visuals
presented in the videos.This is very good as teacher can attract the student’s
interest. Moreover, teacher plays an important role in maximizing the use of
the target language and this can be done through giving an instruction during
the learning. Furthermore, teacher should give students greater amount of input
so that they will gains greater information on the target language.
·
2nd principal: Input needs to be meaningful, comprehensible
and elaborated.
-
The materials that are used in the activity of the learning should be
meaningful and comprehensible to the students so that they can use the language
in their real life. Thus, teacher needs to design activity that is authentic.
For example, teacher should choose passage that is meaningful and able the students
to give view on what the text is all about. Here, the process of learning can
be in the form of writing or orally where here the students are encourage to
elaborate their thought on what they have learn.That is why; teacher must be
able to choose appropriate materials, as the proficiency levels of the students
differ.
(3)
Listen to, view, read and respond to different texts, and express
ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings imaginatively and creatively in spoken
and written form:
·
1st principal: Promotes collaborative learning
-
As the students are exposed to different texts, this can enhance their
understanding on different usage of the language. The students will get
involves in a group activity where they need to collaborate and interact with
each other to complete their task. For example, storytelling activities during
the discussion which ask the students to use their own words in order to
express their ideas. Here, the process of negotiation of meaning can be seen
during the discussion process.
·
2nd principal: Focus
on fluency over accuracy
-
As the students express their own ideas, the focus will be on the
fluency of the language use. Here, teacher also will emphasize the students
with the discourse competence and sociolinguistic competence as the students
get involves in the interaction process regarding the topic being discussed.
·
3rd principal: Learner-centered approach
-
Teacher should encourage the students to participate actively in an
activity that use the target language which allow them to work on themselves,
for example role-play activity that needs the students to cooperate with each
other creatively. Thus, by conducting activity that focus on learner-centered,
the students able to express their ideas and opinions freely. Moreover, in
order for the learner’s linguistic knowledge to be automatic, students’ needs
to be put under the real condition or situation of communication.
·
4th principal: Provide error corrective feedback
-
When the students presenting their works, teachers will either give
positive or negative feedback to the students. In order for teacher to make
correction on the language used by the students, teacher can used direct error
corrective which involved teacher’s help such as providing clues or
clarification requests. In addition, error corrective and positive feedback is
necessary in support of the learning process. Moreover, during the feedback,
the students also will be exposed to the strategic competence that allow them
to communicative effectively and repair problems caused by communication
breakdown.
(d) Identify the general categories and specific items to evaluate
chapters in a Malaysian English Language textbook.
Checklists are the
systematic evaluation for course books. There are various checklists proposed
by different authors such as Tucker (1975), Haycraft (1978), Daoud and
Celce-Murcia (1979), Cunningsworth (1979, 1984) , Williams (1983), Grant
(1987), Sheldon (1988), Harmer (1991), Skierso (1991) and Ur(1996). The most
detailed checklist is Skeirso’s checklist.
The checklist of
each and every author varies from one another from the aspect of scope, form,
criteria and the terms used to describe the criteria. Almost all checklists
share the similar general categories for evaluation of the
chapters in course books which were design, language content, subject
matter and practical considerations. Precisely, design of the course
book is an important or main key for the evaluation of the textbooks which
includes the layout of the materials on the page and it also involves the
overall clarity of organisation whereas language content involves the coverage
of linguistic items and language skills. Subject matter is related to the topic
whether it is related to the theme of the course book. Last but not least,
practical considerations are vital for evaluation of the course book and it can
be explained as availability, durability and price. It is better if the course
book is designed to be `reachable’ for all walks of people in the context of
availability and price.
The specific
items for the evaluation of the course book are transparency of the
criteria. Transparency of the criteria can be explained as whether the
concepts stated clearly and able to understand by all teachers and students
with different potentials. Teachers, course designers, and materials writers
must be aware that the input provided by them will possibly are processed by
learners in ways different than intended. For instance, look at the words
below. Can you understand these phrases? It has been used in course book.
Sequencing of the grammatical patterns (
appropriateness)
Sentence length ( matches to students proficiency
of that level)
Spiral approach
Communicative activities
Balance in language skills
Usage of Authentic language
Encourages learners to develop their own learning
strategies
Range of Vocabulary
The grading and
sequencing of the materials is also comes under specific items for the
evaluation of the course book. It can be explained in terms of the organisation
of the language content. As far as we concern, language can be divided into
structures. For instance, the American course book which is targeted for Upper
Intermediate level seems to be easily interchanges and there seems to be no
sequence. The chapter 6 of the book is entitled `Life essentials’ which talks
about health problem or which is more related to healthy lifestyle however the
chapter 7 is entitled as `The natural world’ which describes about remarkable
places which requires travelling. It shows there is no sequencing in terms of
lexical items. In contrast, Malaysian English Form 2 textbook shows correct
sequence and 3 chapters clustered under one main theme, for instance `People’. The
chapter 1 entitled `What people do’, the second chapter entitled as ` Villagers
and their livelihood’ and followed by chapter 3 entitled as `Famous faces’. It
clearly shows the lexical items are related to people and there is proper
sequencing of the materials.
In addition, the presentation
of the skills in the materials also has equal impact in evaluation of the
course book. The course book must emphasize and integrate four skills which
were speaking, reading, writing and listening. However, some course book fails
to give equal importance and seem to be narrowed to focusing on writing skills
only. As a teacher, we have to be aware that writing skills alone is not being
used in communication. The activities of the course book must be more
communicative so that it can benefit the students to improve their proficiency
and boost their confidence level.
