A discussion of Communicative Approach and its application in teaching spoken English in middle schools

1、a discussion of communicative approach and its application in teaching spoken english in middle schools交際法及其在中學(xué)口語教學(xué)中的應(yīng)用 1. introduction“we live in the world of languages which are used for us to communicate, we need get more and more information from some other countries and communicate with them.”

2、1 furthermore, with chinas entering the wto and successfully bidding for the olympic games 2008, and “with the development of business transactions around the world, being capable of speaking fluently has emerged recently as one of the basic requirements of modern people in the global village.”2 how

3、ever, for a long time, “the nature of the language as a means of communication was ignored in teaching and learning methodology. the emphasis was only put on linguistic and forms without consideration for the nature of language.” 3 nowadays, in middle school, the process of oral english teaching usu

4、ally consists of the following steps: first, the teacher gives the setting; next, the teacher presents the common sentence structures; then, the students practise passively. during the whole process, the students only make conversations following the teaching materials mechanically and absorb new kn

5、owledge passively, and it is really hard for the teacher to be clear about if the students have really mastered the new knowledge and if they can communicate with each other fluently. therefore, new teaching approaches need considering. “the communicative language teaching is an innovation in englis

6、h language teaching. it reveals the social function of language and the essence and goal of foreign language teaching, and it always regards the development of communicative ability as the core of foreign language teaching.” 4 as a new teaching approach, the communicative teaching approach was intro

7、duced in china since 1990s. now, it has become one of the main teaching approaches in the field of foreign language teaching in our country. this paper will make a discussion of communicative approach and its application in teaching spoken english in middle schools. 2. an overview of communicative a

8、pproachcommunicative approach is a popular teaching approach in todays china. many linguists are exploring it in order to improve the learners english. this chapter serves as an introduction of communicative teaching approach and tries to make sure that this approach will help the english learners i

9、n chinese middle schools. 2.1. social and theoretical background of the communicative approach the origins of communicative language teaching (clt) are to be found in the language teaching in britain dating back to the late 1960s. “it is not a tightly structural method of teaching; it is a broad ass

10、embly of ideas, from a range of sources others”, 5 which is accepted as effective and good practice by contemporary teachers.”in the past years, the communicative approach has been adapted to many levels, the teachers in primary schools, middle schools, universities are aware of the need to update t

11、eaching approach for the existing problems during the process of teaching. they felt that students were not learning enough realistic, whole language. in brown. h. douglas opinion, the ultimate of english learning does not lie in the mastery of the rules of language, but in accomplishing the communi

12、cative functions by means of vocabulary and grammar. 6 in 1970s, interest in the communicativestyle teaching mushroomed in britain; the students in middle school tended to use authentic language to communicate with one another in real situation.the ideas of communicative language teaching are not on

13、ly accepted by british language teaching specialists, curriculum development centers, but also applied in the work of the council of europe, in the writings of wilkins, widdowson candlin, christopher brumfit, keith johnson, etc.around the 1960s, specialists of linguistics, education, psychology, soc

14、iology, observed languages and language learning from different perspectives. all these above provided a solid theoretical foundation for the emergence of communicative approach. and during this period, dell hymess view became very influential.the concept competence originally comes from chomsky. fu

15、rthermore, hymes proposes communicative competence. this is of four components:“possibility-the ability to produce sentences feasibility-the ability to produce sentences which can be decoded by the human brain.appropriateness-the ability to use correct forms of language in a specific socio-cultural

16、context;performance-the fact that utterance is completed” 7 from hymes theory of communicative competence, we know that if a speaker want to speak successfully in a speech community, he should care for the four components above, which means he should be capable of speaking in the right place with th

17、e right utterance and has the ability to produce complete sentences.to sum up, the ca has mainly the following two theoretical bases:1) communicative language theory: (1) language is a system for the expression of meaning. (2) the primary function of language is for interaction and communication. (3

18、) the situation of language reflects its functional and communicative uses. (4) the primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse.2) learning theory (1) the communicative principle:

19、 activities that involve real communication promote learning. (2) the task principle: activities in which languages are used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning. (3) the meaningful principle: language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process. learning activities

20、 are consequently selected according to how well they engage the learner in meaningful and authentic language use (rather than merely mechanical practice of language patterns).at the level of language theory, clt has a rich theoretical base of the characteristics of this communicative view of langua

21、ge as restated as the following;1. language is a system for the expression of meaning.2. the primary function of language is for interaction and communication.3. the structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.4. the primary units of language are not only its grammatical and

22、 structural features, but also categories of functional and communicative meanings as exemplified in discourse.”82.2 definition of communicative approachaccording to longman dictionary of applied linguistics, clt is also termed as ca, which emphasizes the goal of language learning is to communicativ

23、e with other people in real life. margie s. berns explains firths view. that language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. 9 2.3 features of communicative approachthe communicative approach stresses the importance of using the language rather than o

24、nly learning the rules and usages of language. according to brown, the communicative language teaching includes four characteristics:a. classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence.b. form is not the prima

25、ry framework for organizing and sequencing lessons. function is the framework through which forms are taught.c. accuracy is secondary to convey a message. fluency may take on more importance than accuracy. the ultimate criterion for communicative success is the actual transmission and receiving of i

26、ntended meaning.d. in the communicative classroom, the students ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts. 10 2.4 principles of communicative approachthe principles of the communicative approach can be induced into the following points:2.4.1 communica

27、tive principlefor the goal of the communicative approach is to have students use the language appropriately in a given social context and this competence can only be developed gradually in the authentic communicative activities, so what the teacher should do is to create authentic communicative situ

28、ation s and let the students use target language to communicate with their partners through interesting class teaching and communicative activities.113. application of the communicative teaching approach in teaching spoken english in middle schools3.1 the purpose of foreign language learning “the pr

29、imary goal of most foreign language learning is to develop the ability to use real and appropriate language to communicate and interact with others; and the goal of foreign language teaching is to extend the range of communicative situation in which the learners can perform with focus on meaning wit

30、hout being hindered by the attention he must pay to linguistic form.” 12 we learn foreign language is to communicate with others. as china entered the wto, it is the very time for english learners in china to improve their ability of speaking. especially in middle schools, the students should learn

31、hard to enhance their communicative ability, for they are in the right period of cultivating themselves in all aspects.3.2 the importance of oral english3.2.1 the characteristics of spoken language“speaking is the skill that the students will be judged upon most in real- life situation. it is an imp

32、ortant part of everyday interactions and most often the first impression of a person is based on his/her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly. so, as teachers, we have a responsibility to prepare the students as much as possible to be able to speak in english in the real world outside the cl

33、assroom and the testing room.” 13 “l(fā)ike writing, speaking is a productive skill. when students speak, they produce new sentences, not merely repeat what they have heard or read.”14 but it is different from writing in some aspect, it is more direct: students usually speak face to face, so they can ge

34、t the information they need very quickly and speak anything they think at that moment. “through speaking, it is very easy for students to realize they are practicing what they have learned and realize they are making progress. the more language they produce, the more achievement they make.”15 “one o

35、f the characteristics of speech in everyday life is that speech is spontaneous. that is, in most situations, people do not plan ahead of time what they are going to say. only in more formal situations, such as when a person has been asked to give a speech.” 16 because speech is spontaneous, there wi

36、ll be many false start, repetitions, broken sentences and so on, so it is hard for the students to produce sentences in the language classroom. for this, bygate points out that the teacher should require their students to do more forward thinking and planning than native speakers do in real life! 17

37、 in middle school, most students are incompetent in spoken english without any preparation, so the teacher had better give some instructions before they join the real communicative activities. “time pressure is not the only issue that is difficult for language students; they must also consider whom

38、they are talking to and be able to check if they are being understood. if they are not they need to be able to change strategies. one advantage in learning to speak compared to learning to write is that the speaker gets immediate feedback from the listener, so the speaker can adjust the message imme

39、diately.”183.2.2 the role of spoken language in communicative classroomin a communicative classroom, the main purpose is to enable the students to perform activities and learning tasks in the target language. the goal of language teaching and learning is emphasized on the communicative nature of lan

40、guage. in short, the essence of language learning is for communication and selfexpression. the communicative approach to language teaching has a strong emphasis on speaking. speaking is playing a very important part in communicative classroom.3.2.3 the current problemsspeaking is a very important pa

41、rt of learning foreign languages, and it is a skill, just like high jumping, driving a car, or playing pingpong. “in comparison, chinese is quite different from english in many ways, e.g., the inflexion of words, word order in a sentence, etc. so students try to struggle with the differences when th

42、ey try to use the language.” 19 for english learners, especially middle school students, speaking is often a very difficult skill because most of them have only a small vocabulary of english words and they cant express themselves correctly and fluently in english.for many years, the teacher or the s

43、tudents have always considered listening, reading, and writing more important and should develop firstly. with the development of the teaching methodology, more attention should be focused on spoken language. and only by integrating four language skills into lessons, will the students really begin t

44、o understand the english language. 20 besides, chinese second language class is the teachercentered class whose emphasis is placed on teaching instead of learning. “for decades, chinese teachers have been quite used to the traditional way of teaching foreign language, in which the teacher is regarde

45、d as authority who dominates the whole class. the teacher indulged in being the center of attention, explaining the text in a more traditional grammar translation way, trying to put everything into students heads and pays scant notice of the feeling reactions of students. students are just an ignora

46、nt audience, waiting to be filled up with knowledge by the teacher. there is little cooperation between the teacher and students and the productive skills such as speaking and writing are almost ignored. students have no opportunity to apply what they have learnt to practical communication. as a res

47、ult, their communicative ability cannot be developed.”213.3 roles of the teacher and the students3.3.1 the role of the teacher in traditional classroom, the class is teacher/book-centered. in such a classroom, the teacher analyses the text and explains new language points from the beginning of the c

48、lass. on the other hand, what the students do in most time is to take mechanical drills and imitation practice. as a result, the students are very quiet, they just listen to the teacher and absorb new knowledge passively and the whole class atmosphere is very oppressive. all these are not good for t

49、he students to master and apply new knowledge in real life. so, it is essential to exchange the roles of the teacher and the students. in communicative classroom, the roles of the teacher and the students are very different from that in traditional classroom.in communicative classroom, the teaching

50、should be studentcentered, not teacher /bookcentered. in such a class, the teacher should act as a motivator, an informant, an organizer, an assessor, a guide, etc.(i) selecting teaching materialsin middle school, the teaching materials are changed every year. today, the linguists and the teachers a

51、re more concerned with the teaching materials for the middle school foreign language teaching, because they want to choose the right materials for the students to learn. to the students, the teaching materials should not be too hard or too boring. if the teaching materials are too difficult, the stu

52、dents would feel tired of learning english; if it is too boring, the students would have no interest in learning english, even hate it. besides, the activities included in the teaching materials should be relevant to our real life, which will help the students learn english easily. “teaching materia

53、ls with ca often are: . it is assumed that the goal of language teaching is learner ability to communicate in the target language. it is assumed that the content of a language course will include semantic notions and social functions, not just linguistic structures; they are based on a notional syll

54、abus or some other communicatively organized syllabus. students regularly work in groups or pairs to transfer (and, if necessary, negotiate) meaning in situations where one person has information that the other(s) lack. students often engage in role-play or dramatization to adjust their use of the t

55、arget language to different social contexts, and emphasize the processes of communication, such as using language appropriately in different situation, using language to perform different kinds of tasks, e.g., to solve puzzles, to get information, etc: using language for social interaction with othe

56、r people. classroom materials and activities are often authentic to reflect real-life situations and demands. skills are integrated from the beginning; a given activity might involve reading, speaking, listening, and perhaps writing. the teachers role is primarily to facilitate communication and onl

57、y secondarily to correct errors. the teacher should be able to use the target langue fluently and appropriately. 22(ii) creating a positive environment to create a comfortable and harmonious class atmosphere is a very important beginning of a good lesson and such an atmosphere will help students les

58、sen themselves to come into bilingual communication. most students are shy to open their mouth, even not willing to, for they have only a small vocabulary of speaking english and are not good at expressing themselves in english. what is more, they cant conquer their fear of speaking. therefore, the

59、teacher should teach the students in english from the beginning of the class. the communicative activities, practices and contents the teacher chooses should interest the students and be relevant to real life as possible as you can.in a word, what the teacher should do is to free the students from dead words memorizing, boring grammar anal