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【Abstract】Although communicative approach(CA)has brought about a great reform in English language teaching(ELT)in China, it has not received widespread support. This paper examines the reasons for the resistance to CA in China and presents issues to be considered when adopting CA.
【Key words】English language teaching(ELT) Communicative approach(CA) Communicative language teaching (CLT)
【中圖分类号】G642【文献标识码】A【文章编号】1006-9682(2010)07-0039-02
I.INTRODUCTION
Since the late 1980s, there has been a great reform in English language teaching(ELT)in China when the communicative approach (CA)was first introduced. Before the adoption of CA in China, both teachers and students focused on reading and writing, grammar and translation, which represents the primary component of the traditional grammar-translation method. However, this traditional method in English teaching failed to develop students’ ability to use English for communication, so it was necessary to seek other effective methods to solve the problem. Besides, the development of economics and society provided people with many opportunities to communicate with each other, so students’ communicative competence needed to be improved to promote international exchange. Therefore, colleges and universities began to reform English teaching by introducing CA or communicative language teaching(CLT).
Nevertheless, the change of the traditional grammar-translation method into CA or CLT has not led to the expected improvements in students’ communicative competence, though it has had a great impact on people’s ideas about ELT. In fact, the adoption of CA or CLT in China has not received widespread support. That is, it has met with resistance.
As an English teacher in university, I personally experienced the change of the teaching method and difficulties in teaching with CA. Despite the debate aroused by the adoption of CLT, I think there is need to examine the reasons for the resistance to CLT, so that we may make adjustments of CLT to the conditions for English teaching and genuinely apply CA in China.
II.LITERATURE REVIEW
Gatbonton and Segalowitz(2005)state that although most teachers claim to practice CLT, genuine communicative events rarely occur in classrooms, and this resistance to CLT may be caused by many unresolved issues about CLT. They hold that teachers’ beliefs in traditional practices may be attributed to some misconceptions about CLT and a more important reason for teachers’ reluctance to use CA in class is that many of them can hardly recognize the value of communication activities, that is, they think they have given students nothing concrete to learn and memorize. To solve the problem, they propose a CLT methodology designed to promote automatic fluency, which is called ACCESS(Automatization in Communicative Contexts of Essential Speech Segments). This model involves engaging students in a task or tasks and problem solving, so that students may work together to complete the task by exchanging information. Teaching in the proposed ACCESS approach to CLT involves assigning students to communicative tasks and observing them complete these tasks properly. So students are provided with many opportunities to speak and listen, and teachers usually do not present information about the language. Thus, students’ fluency will be promoted, which is the ultimate goal of ACCESS.
Olivares and Lemberger(2002)state that communication in the classroom is the most important element in teaching. They claim that the communicative approach focuses more on the meaning than form. That is, CA attaches more importance to making sense than learning grammar. They also emphasize that learning is an individual experience and not a collective one, so real learning occurs in a student-centered setting rather than the traditional teacher-centered setting. The latter usually focuses on the whole class rather than individual differences. According to the authors, listening, speaking, reading and writing are constantly interacting in classrooms, so teachers should create as many opportunities as possible to link these four skills together.
III.REASONS FOR THE RESISTANCE TO CA IN CHINA
Interestingly, I find some similarities between the West and China in the adoption of CLT. For example, the resistance to CA or CLT may be due to teachers’ beliefs in traditional teaching practice. In China, both students and teachers have been used to the traditional grammar-translation method. So when they organize their classroom activities by doing a role-play or a game, they often cannot summarize what they have learned or taught, which is in sharp contrast to what has happened in a grammar-oriented classroom. This also reflects certain misconceptions about CLT in grammar and speaking. Some linguistics have argued strongly that grammar teaching is unnecessary because knowledge can only be acquired unconsciously through exposure to the language(Krashen). But CLT never refuses grammar teaching; the issue is how to learn grammar. Besides, there is another misconception about speaking. For many teachers and students, the misconception about CLT is that teaching means only speaking because CLT focused on such communicative activities. This arouses a complaint that CLT ignores writing activities. But in fact, college English textbooks in China provide a variety of activities in reading and writing, which meet the needs of both teachers and students.
Other reasons for the resistance to CLT in China include big class size and examination pressure. In some universities, the number of students in each English class is larger than seventy, so it is hard for the teacher to engage all the seventy students in one communicative task at the same time and to help them complete their task. Moreover, the grammar-oriented national testing system makes most ELT teachers grow less confident about CLT.
Last but not least, an important component in the resistance to CLT is the Chinese culture of learning. One of the features of the traditional Chinese education is that students are expected to respect and not to challenge their teachers(Hu)and therefore are expected to receive the knowledge from their teachers and textbooks. The problem with this teacher-centered teaching is that students do not like to express themselves and communicate with each other, which is obviously in conflict with the feature of CLT. Consequently, many English teachers return to the grammar-translation method, and CLT comes into question.
IV.ISSUES TO BE CONSIDERED WHEN ADOPTING CA
In order to resolve the problem and make CA genuinely benefit ELT in China, the following should be considered.
First, English teachers in China should work on the elimination of the misconceptions about CLT to reinforce the application of CA. According to Olivares and Lemberger(2002), CA puts more stress on making sense than learning grammar. But this does not mean grammar is never to be taught, and the point is that grammar is only a tool rather than the goal of English teaching. So CLT does involve grammar, but it should not dominate language teaching. Therefore, CLT does not mean only speaking; it involves listening, reading and writing as well.
Second, teachers should take measures to make appropriate adjustments of CLT, so that it can facilitate ELT in China. Teachers may practice a combination of CA and the traditional method to keep the balance between communicative activities and grammar instruction. Most students like communicative activities in English classes, but most of them find it difficult to speak English in the presence of a large number of their classmates. So the best way to organize classes is to divide students into small groups, as suggested by Gatbonton and Segalowitz(2005)in their article, which not only minimizes students’ anxiety but makes it possible for teachers to address students’ individual differences and create a student-centered setting. Furthermore, teachers should make efforts to introduce authentic materials to keep students’ curiosity and make communicative activities meaningful. Besides, teachers should notice that encouragement is extremely necessary for students to be fully engaged in communicative tasks and over-correction should be carefully avoided. This may play an important role in the success of CLT in classrooms.
Third, teachers should help students understand that language learning requires active participation, and they should be responsible for their own learning. Teachers should help students develop proper learning strategies, so that they can truly learn independently rather than depend on their teachers, which is highly valued in CA.
V.CONCLUSION
In conclusion, although CLT may not be suitable for all students in China, it meets the needs of development of society and has great positive effect on ELT in China. Therefore, it should be applied to promote both students’ communicative competence and ELT. After all, the ultimate goal of language learning is communication.
REFERENCES
1 E. Gatbondon and N. Segalowitz. “Rethinking Communicative Language Teaching: A Focus on Access to Fluency”. The Canadian Modern Language Review, Vol. 61, No. 3, pp. 325～353, March, 2005
2 R. Olivares and N. Lemberger. “Identifying and Applying the Communicative and the Constructivist Approaches to Facilitate Transfer of Knowledge in the Bilingual Classroom”. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 72～83, 2002
3 G. Hu. “Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China”. Language, Culture and Curriculum, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 93～105, 2002
【Key words】English language teaching(ELT) Communicative approach(CA) Communicative language teaching (CLT)
【中圖分类号】G642【文献标识码】A【文章编号】1006-9682(2010)07-0039-02
I.INTRODUCTION
Since the late 1980s, there has been a great reform in English language teaching(ELT)in China when the communicative approach (CA)was first introduced. Before the adoption of CA in China, both teachers and students focused on reading and writing, grammar and translation, which represents the primary component of the traditional grammar-translation method. However, this traditional method in English teaching failed to develop students’ ability to use English for communication, so it was necessary to seek other effective methods to solve the problem. Besides, the development of economics and society provided people with many opportunities to communicate with each other, so students’ communicative competence needed to be improved to promote international exchange. Therefore, colleges and universities began to reform English teaching by introducing CA or communicative language teaching(CLT).
Nevertheless, the change of the traditional grammar-translation method into CA or CLT has not led to the expected improvements in students’ communicative competence, though it has had a great impact on people’s ideas about ELT. In fact, the adoption of CA or CLT in China has not received widespread support. That is, it has met with resistance.
As an English teacher in university, I personally experienced the change of the teaching method and difficulties in teaching with CA. Despite the debate aroused by the adoption of CLT, I think there is need to examine the reasons for the resistance to CLT, so that we may make adjustments of CLT to the conditions for English teaching and genuinely apply CA in China.
II.LITERATURE REVIEW
Gatbonton and Segalowitz(2005)state that although most teachers claim to practice CLT, genuine communicative events rarely occur in classrooms, and this resistance to CLT may be caused by many unresolved issues about CLT. They hold that teachers’ beliefs in traditional practices may be attributed to some misconceptions about CLT and a more important reason for teachers’ reluctance to use CA in class is that many of them can hardly recognize the value of communication activities, that is, they think they have given students nothing concrete to learn and memorize. To solve the problem, they propose a CLT methodology designed to promote automatic fluency, which is called ACCESS(Automatization in Communicative Contexts of Essential Speech Segments). This model involves engaging students in a task or tasks and problem solving, so that students may work together to complete the task by exchanging information. Teaching in the proposed ACCESS approach to CLT involves assigning students to communicative tasks and observing them complete these tasks properly. So students are provided with many opportunities to speak and listen, and teachers usually do not present information about the language. Thus, students’ fluency will be promoted, which is the ultimate goal of ACCESS.
Olivares and Lemberger(2002)state that communication in the classroom is the most important element in teaching. They claim that the communicative approach focuses more on the meaning than form. That is, CA attaches more importance to making sense than learning grammar. They also emphasize that learning is an individual experience and not a collective one, so real learning occurs in a student-centered setting rather than the traditional teacher-centered setting. The latter usually focuses on the whole class rather than individual differences. According to the authors, listening, speaking, reading and writing are constantly interacting in classrooms, so teachers should create as many opportunities as possible to link these four skills together.
III.REASONS FOR THE RESISTANCE TO CA IN CHINA
Interestingly, I find some similarities between the West and China in the adoption of CLT. For example, the resistance to CA or CLT may be due to teachers’ beliefs in traditional teaching practice. In China, both students and teachers have been used to the traditional grammar-translation method. So when they organize their classroom activities by doing a role-play or a game, they often cannot summarize what they have learned or taught, which is in sharp contrast to what has happened in a grammar-oriented classroom. This also reflects certain misconceptions about CLT in grammar and speaking. Some linguistics have argued strongly that grammar teaching is unnecessary because knowledge can only be acquired unconsciously through exposure to the language(Krashen). But CLT never refuses grammar teaching; the issue is how to learn grammar. Besides, there is another misconception about speaking. For many teachers and students, the misconception about CLT is that teaching means only speaking because CLT focused on such communicative activities. This arouses a complaint that CLT ignores writing activities. But in fact, college English textbooks in China provide a variety of activities in reading and writing, which meet the needs of both teachers and students.
Other reasons for the resistance to CLT in China include big class size and examination pressure. In some universities, the number of students in each English class is larger than seventy, so it is hard for the teacher to engage all the seventy students in one communicative task at the same time and to help them complete their task. Moreover, the grammar-oriented national testing system makes most ELT teachers grow less confident about CLT.
Last but not least, an important component in the resistance to CLT is the Chinese culture of learning. One of the features of the traditional Chinese education is that students are expected to respect and not to challenge their teachers(Hu)and therefore are expected to receive the knowledge from their teachers and textbooks. The problem with this teacher-centered teaching is that students do not like to express themselves and communicate with each other, which is obviously in conflict with the feature of CLT. Consequently, many English teachers return to the grammar-translation method, and CLT comes into question.
IV.ISSUES TO BE CONSIDERED WHEN ADOPTING CA
In order to resolve the problem and make CA genuinely benefit ELT in China, the following should be considered.
First, English teachers in China should work on the elimination of the misconceptions about CLT to reinforce the application of CA. According to Olivares and Lemberger(2002), CA puts more stress on making sense than learning grammar. But this does not mean grammar is never to be taught, and the point is that grammar is only a tool rather than the goal of English teaching. So CLT does involve grammar, but it should not dominate language teaching. Therefore, CLT does not mean only speaking; it involves listening, reading and writing as well.
Second, teachers should take measures to make appropriate adjustments of CLT, so that it can facilitate ELT in China. Teachers may practice a combination of CA and the traditional method to keep the balance between communicative activities and grammar instruction. Most students like communicative activities in English classes, but most of them find it difficult to speak English in the presence of a large number of their classmates. So the best way to organize classes is to divide students into small groups, as suggested by Gatbonton and Segalowitz(2005)in their article, which not only minimizes students’ anxiety but makes it possible for teachers to address students’ individual differences and create a student-centered setting. Furthermore, teachers should make efforts to introduce authentic materials to keep students’ curiosity and make communicative activities meaningful. Besides, teachers should notice that encouragement is extremely necessary for students to be fully engaged in communicative tasks and over-correction should be carefully avoided. This may play an important role in the success of CLT in classrooms.
Third, teachers should help students understand that language learning requires active participation, and they should be responsible for their own learning. Teachers should help students develop proper learning strategies, so that they can truly learn independently rather than depend on their teachers, which is highly valued in CA.
V.CONCLUSION
In conclusion, although CLT may not be suitable for all students in China, it meets the needs of development of society and has great positive effect on ELT in China. Therefore, it should be applied to promote both students’ communicative competence and ELT. After all, the ultimate goal of language learning is communication.
REFERENCES
1 E. Gatbondon and N. Segalowitz. “Rethinking Communicative Language Teaching: A Focus on Access to Fluency”. The Canadian Modern Language Review, Vol. 61, No. 3, pp. 325～353, March, 2005
2 R. Olivares and N. Lemberger. “Identifying and Applying the Communicative and the Constructivist Approaches to Facilitate Transfer of Knowledge in the Bilingual Classroom”. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 72～83, 2002
3 G. Hu. “Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China”. Language, Culture and Curriculum, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 93～105, 2002