What is Communicative Methodology?


'Communicative' is a word which has dominated discussions of teaching methodology for many years. Although in a monolingual English language classroom, 'real communication' in English is impossible, in 'communicative methodology' we try to be 'more communicative'. That is to say, even though it may be impossible to achieve 'real communication', we should attempt to get closer to 'real communication' in our classrooms.

What does it mean?
Communicative methodology includes a number of different (and perhaps interconnecting) principles.

1. The primary aim of foreign language learning is communication with users of the foreign language.
   
2. Students study the foreign language as a system of communication.
   
3. Students learn and practise the foreign language through 'communicative activities'.
   

Communication as primary aim
In the past the 'primary aim' of language learning seemed to be mastery of the grammatical system. The only practical task was translation and that was usually translation of 'great literature' rather than letters to the bank manager. The methodology for teaching modern, 'living' languages was identical to the methodology for dead, classical languages like Latin and Ancient Greek.

Today, we see our primary aim as teaching the practical use of English for communication with native speakers and others.

Learning English as a system of communication
Language contains many 'systems', one of which is the system of grammar. Mastery of grammar is still important but only as a means to successful communication.

How long have you been here?

How long are you here for?

We are less concerned with the grammatical difference between these two questions than with their difference in meaning. We are less concerned with grammatical errors of form than with errors of meaning because these will lead to a breakdown in communication.

What are communicative activities?

• a desire to communicate
  
• a communicative purpose
  
• a focus on language content not language forms
  
• a variety of language used
  
• no teacher intervention
  
• no control or simplification of the material
  

Let's examine each characteristic in turn.

1. A desire to communicate.
In a communicative activity there must be a reason to communicate. When someone asks a question, the person must wish to get some information or some other form of result. There must be either an 'information gap' or an 'opinion gap' or some other reason to communicate.

2. A communicative purpose.
When we ask students to describe their bedroom furniture to their partners, we are creating an artificial 'communicative purpose' and making the activity more artificial by asking them to do it in English.
We also create artificial 'information gaps' by giving different information to pairs of students so that they can have a reason to exchange information.

3. A focus on language content not language forms.
In real life, we do not ask about our friend's family in order to practise 'have got' forms. We ask the question because we are interested in the information. That is to say, we are interested in the language content and not in the language forms.

4. A variety of language is used.
In normal communication, we do not repeatedly use the same language forms. In fact, we usually try to avoid repetition. In many classroom activities we often try to create situations in which students will repeatedly use a limited number of language patterns. This is also artificial.

5. No teacher intervention.
When you are buying a ticket for The Lion King at the theatre, your teacher is not usually beside you to 'help' or 'correct' your English. Teacher intervention in classroom communicative activities adds to the artificiality.

6. No control or simplification of the material.
In the classroom, we often use graded or simplified materials as prompts for communicative activities. These will not be available in the real world.

How can we make classroom 'communicative activities' less artificial?
As we have seen, there is no real possibility of real communication in English in a monolingual classroom. Learners must 'pretend' that they need to communicate in English. However, we can reduce the artificiality by looking at the features mentioned above. We can easily reduce teacher intervention, we can use more authentic materials, we can encourage a wider variety of language use, we can create more natural communicative purposes.

Games and puzzles make good contexts for communicative activities. The books of 'Communication Games' at different levels by Jill Hadfield (Longman) are good examples of successful 'communication' activities for the language classroom.

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