STUDY QUESTION 10 APPROACHES

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE – WORD-FOR-WORD ANSWERS

1. What does the Austrian Curriculum say about Communicative Competence and its importance for language teaching?

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2. Name three to five key principles that are characteristic of the idea of Communicative Competence.

• “Hymes ‘was concerned with the social and cultural knowledge which speakers need in order to understand and use linguistic forms’ (Hedge 2000: 45, my emphasis).”
• “More attention has to be paid to the social rules of language use ‘without which the rules of grammar would be useless’ (Hymes 1972: 278, quoted in Leung 2005: 121).”
• “This raises important questions about the context and cultural knowledge in language learning and teaching.”

3. Who coined the term Communicative Competence and when (which decade)? What was Communicative Competence a reaction to?

• “The concept of Communicative Competence was developed by American sociolinguist Dell Hymes in the 1970's.”
• “It was a reaction to and criticism of grammar-based approaches that were dominant in the 1950's and 1960's.”

5. Which three general competences are part of Communicative Competence (according to the Austrian Curriculum [AHS] and the CEFR)? Define/Explain them.

“Communicative language competence can be considered as comprising several components: linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic. Each of these components is postulated as comprising, in particular, knowledge and skills and know-how.”

6. How is Communicative Competence linked to the CEFR and the Austrian curriculum (AHS)?

• “The CEFR adopted Hymes's communicative competence (knowledge orientation) for practical use (action-orientation).”
• Reference to Austrian Curriculum: no information

CLT – WORD-FOR-WORD ANSWERS

1. What does CLT stand for?

“communicative language teaching (CLT – or the communicative approach as it was originally called).”

2. Why do many people in ELT use “family” as a metaphor for CLT approaches?

“it is sometimes assumed that the approach is a unitary one, whereas in reality it consists of a family of approaches. And, as is the case with most families, not all members live harmoniously together all of the time. There are squabbles and disagreements, if not outright wars, from time to time. However, no one is willing to assert that they do not belong to the family.”

3. Describe the most important aspects of CLT.

Exact text (core statements):

• “If students are involved in meaningful and meaning-focused communicative tasks, language learning ‘will take care of itself’.”
• “This has been revised to include accuracy-based teaching.”
• “successful task achievement is usually more important than accuracy.”
• “plentiful exposure to language in use → input!”
• “many opportunities to use language actively → output!”
• “Make real communication the focus of language learning.”
• “Provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know.”
• “Be tolerant of learners' errors as they indicate that the learner is building up his or her communicative competence.”
• “Provide opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency.”
• “Link the different skills such as speaking, reading, and listening together, since they usually occur so in the real world.”
• “Let students induce or discover grammar rules.”

4. To what extent is accuracy important in a CLT context?

“This has been revised to include accuracy-based teaching.”
“successful task achievement is usually more important than accuracy.”

5. Why is it a challenge to find a communicative purpose for the classroom?

“The communicative purpose is a real challenge in classroom situations (i.e. institutional / compulsory):
• Students do not have a communicative purpose.
• This purpose has to be created by the teacher!
• ‘the classroom context is often an artificial setting for authentic communication to be realized.’ (Richards & Rodgers 2014: 101)”

6. Name a few (types of) activities that are typical of CLT.

• “information-gap activities”
• “solving puzzles, jigsaw activities”
• “interviews”
• “presentations, teaching each other”
• “role-plays and simulations”
• “discussions”
• “task-based language learning”
• “finding logical connections; reconstructing events”

7. What are the roles of teachers and learners in CLT?

“Learners now had to participate in classroom activities that were based on a cooperative rather than individualistic approach to learning. Students had to become comfortable with listening to their peers in group work or pair work tasks, rather than relying on the teacher for a model. They were expected to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning.
And teachers now had to assume the role of facilitator and monitor. Rather than being a model for correct speech and writing and one with the primary responsibility of making students produce plenty of error-free sentences, the teacher had to develop a different view of learners’ errors and of her/his own role in facilitating language learning.”

8. Why is CLT more challenging for teachers than other approaches?

“CLT makes relatively high demands on language teachers in terms of language proficiency (e.g. reacting spontaneously, answering questions) and flexibility (e.g. the outcome of activities is not always clear): ‘The teacher acts as a facilitator in setting up communicative activities and as an advisor during the activities.’ (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson 2011: 121)”

TBLT – WORD-FOR-WORD ANSWERS

1. What is TBLT? How is it related to CLT? What are the differences?

Exact text:

• “the underpinnings of TBLT lay in CLT”
• “TBLT is not monolithic but in fact is quite varied – it is an ‘approach’, not a ‘method’.”
• “meaningful tasks central to learning process”
• “focus on content (not language forms)”
• “grammar and other dimensions of communicative competence can be developed as a by-product of engaging learners in interactive tasks.”
• “explicit instruction followed by practice can only result in automatized declarative knowledge, not true implicit knowledge. Thus, Long argues for ‘focus on form’… In contrast, in task-supported language teaching (TSLT), specific linguistic forms are first taught explicitly and then practised…”

(The text does not give a simple single-sentence definition of TBLT.)

2. Why does David Nunan differentiate between ‘real-world’ and ‘pedagogical’ tasks?

“target tasks, as the name implies, refer to uses of language in the world beyond the classroom; pedagogical tasks are those that occur in the classroom.”
“Real-world tasks have both [situational authenticity and interactional authenticity], pedagogical tasks only have interactional authenticity.”

3. Name and explain the phases of a TBLT procedure.

Exact text:
Pre-task – Introduction to topic & task
• “explore topic with students”
• “help students understand task instructions”
• “includes some sort of activation”

While-task – task cycle: Task / Planning / Report
• “Students perform the task in pairs or small groups.”
• “The teacher monitors from a distance.”
• “Students plan how they will tell the rest of the class what they did & how it went.”
• “Students report… back to the group.”

Post-task – Language focus: Analysis & Practice
• “Language structures, corrections, desirable adjustments to students’ performances are discussed after the task is carried out.”
• “Students analyze and discuss the linguistic aspects/features…”
• “The teacher provides an opportunity to practice specific language features that were relevant in the task.”

4. Name the major objections to TBLT.

• “It is not clearly defined what a task is.”
• “Students do not miraculously and rapidly acquire a lot of new words and structures.”
• “Accuracy may be sacrificed in favour of fluency.”
• “TBLT is time-consuming and requires elaborate preparation.”
• “It is difficult to assess how individual students have contributed and what they have learned.”
• “With a syllabus that is exclusively organized around tasks it may be difficult to keep track of progress…”