Techneque in language teaching( cuc hay)

Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching
Yueh-chiu Helen Wang
Introduction
The actions are the techniques and the thoughts are the principles. It is important to recognize that methods link thoughts and actions because teaching is not entirely about one or the other.
You have thoughts about your subject matter—what language is, what culture is—and about your students—who they are as learners and how it is they learn. You have also have thoughts about yourself as a teacher and what you can do to help your students learn.
It is very important for you to become aware of the thoughts that guide your actions in the classroom.
Everyone knows that being a good teacher means giving positive feedback to students and being concerned about their affective side on their feelings.
Learning to listen to themselves is part of lessening their reliance on the teacher. The teacher will not always be there. Also, they will be encouraged to form criteria for correcting their mistakes—for monitoring their own progress.
Observing a class will give you a greater understanding of a particular method and will give you more of an opportunity to reflect on your own practice than if you were to simply read a description of it.
Ten questions
1. What are the goals of teachers who use this method?
2. What is the role of the
teacher? What is the role of the students?
3. What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?
4. What is the nature of student-teacher interaction? What is the nature of student-student interaction?
5. How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
6. How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?
7. What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are emphasized?
8. What is the role of the students’ native language?
9. How is evaluation accomplished?
10. How does the teacher respond to student errors?
The Grammar-Translation Method
The Grammar-Translation Method was called the Classical Method since it was first used in the teaching of the classical languages, Latin and Greek (Chastian, 1988).
This method was used for the purpose of helping students read and appreciate foreign language literature. Through the study of the grammar of the target language, students would become more familiar with the grammar of their native language and that this familiarity with the grammar of their native
language better. Finally, it was thought that foreign language learning would help students grow intellectually.
Principles
Learning a foreign language is to be able to read literature written in it. Literary language is superior to spoken language. If students can translate from one language into another, they are considered successful language learners.
The ability to communicate in the target language is not a goal of foreign language instruction.
The primary skills to be developed are reading and writing. Little attention is given to speaking and listening and almost none to pronunciation.
The teacher is the authority in the classroom. It is very important that students get the correct answer.
Learning is facilitated through attention to similarities between the target language and the native language.
Deductive application of an explicit grammar rule is a useful pedagogical technique.
Language learning provides good mental exercise.
Students should be conscious of the grammatical rules of the target language.
There is little student initiation and little student-student interaction.
There are no principles of the method which relate to students’ feelings.
Vocabulary and grammar are emphasized. Reading and writing are the primary skills that the students work on.
The role of the students’ native language
The meaning of the target language is made clear by translating the students’ native language. The language that is used in class is mostly the students’ native language.
How is evaluation accomplished?
Written tests in which students are asked to translate from their native language to the target language or vice versa are often used.
How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Having the students get the correct answer is considered very important.
The Direct Method
The Direct Method has one very basic rule: No translation is allowed. Meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of demonstration and visual aids.
Principles
The reading skill will be developed through practice with speaking. Language is primarily speech. Culture consists of more than the fine arts(e.g. the students study geography and cultural attitudes).
Objects (e.g. realia or pictures) present in the immediate classroom environment should be used to help students understand the meaning.
The native language should not be used in the classroom.
The teacher should demonstrate, not explain or translate. It is desirable that students make a direct association between the target language and meaning.
Students should learn to think in the target language as soon as possible. Vocabulary is acquired more naturally if students use it in full sentences rather than memorizing word lists.
The purpose of language learning is communication.
Pronunciation should be worked on right from the beginning of language instruction.
Self-correction facilitates language learning.
Lessons should contain some conversational activity—some opportunity for students to use language in real contexts. Students should be encouraged to speak as much as possible.
Grammar should be taught inductively. There may never be an explicit grammar rule given.
Writing is an important skill, to be developed from the beginning of language instruction.
The syllabus is based on situations or topics, not usually on linguistic structures.
Learning another language also involves learning how speakers of that language live.
What are the goals of teachers who use the Direct Method?
Teachers who use the Direct Method intend that students learn how to communicate in the target language. In order to do this successfully, students should learn to think in the target language.
What is the role of teacher?

Although the teacher directs the class activities, the student role is less passive than in the Grammar-Translation Method. The teacher and the students are more like partners in the teaching/learning process.
What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?
Teachers believe students need to associate meaning and the target language directly. Students speak in the target language a great deal and communicate as if they were in real situations. The syllabus is based upon situations or topics.
What is the nature of student-teacher interaction?
The initiation of the interaction goes both ways, from teacher to students and from student to teacher, although the latter is often teacher-directed.
How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
There are no principles of the methods which relate to this area.
How is language viewed?
Language is primarily spoken, not written.
What areas of language are emphasized?
Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar.
What is the role of the students’ native language?
Students’ native language should not be used in the classroom.
How is evaluation accomplished?
The students might be interviewed orally by the teacher or might be asked to write a paragraph about something they have studied.
How does the teacher respond to student errors?
The teacher, employing various techniques, tries to get students to self-correct whenever possible.
The Audio-Lingual Method
The Audio-Lingual Method, like the Direct Method, is also an oral-based approach. However, it is very different in that the Audio-Lingual Method drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns.
It also,unlike the Direct Method, has a strong theoretical base in linguistics and psychology. It has principles from behavioral psychology (Skinner, 1957)were
incorporated. It was thought that the way to acquire the sentence patterns of the target language was through conditioning—helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement.
Learners could overcome the habits of their native language and from the new habits required to be target language speakers.
The Audiolingual Method
The Audio-lingual Method, like the Direct Method, is also an oral-based approach. However, it is very different in that the Audio-Lingual Method drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns.
It was thought that the way to acquire the sentence patterns of the target language was through conditioning—helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement. Learners could overcome the habits of their native language and form the new habits required to be target language speakers.
Principles
Language forms do not occur by themselves; they occur most naturally within a context.
The native language and the target language have separate linguistic systems. They should be kept apart so that the students’ native language interferes as little as possible with the students’ attempts to acquire the target language.
The language teacher’s role
One of the language teacher’s major roles is that of a model of the target language. Teachers should provide students with a good model. By listening to how it is supposed to sound, students should be able to mimic the model.
Language learning is a process of habit formation. The more often something is repeated, the stronger the habit and the greater the learning.
It is important to prevent learners from making errors. Errors lead to the formation of bad habits. When errors do occur, they should be immediately corrected by the teacher.
The purpose of language learning is to learn how to use the language to communicate.
Particular parts of speech occupy particular ‘slots’ in sentences. In order to create new sentences, students must learn which part of speech occupies which slot.
Positive reinforcement helps the students to develop correct habits.
Students should learn to respond to both verbal and nonverbal stimuli.
Pattern practice helps students to form habits which enable the students to use the patterns.
Students should ‘overlearn’, learn to answer automatically without stopping to think.
The teacher should be like an orchestra leader—conducting, guiding, and controlling the students’ behavior in the target language.
The major objective of language teaching should be for students to acquire the structural patterns; students will learn vocabulary afterward.
The learning of a foreign language should be the same as the acquisition of the native language. The rules necessary to use the target language will be figured out or induced from examples.
The major challenge of foreign language teaching is getting students to overcome the habits of their native language.
Speech is more basic to language than the written form. The ‘natural order’ –the order children follow when learning their native language—of skill acquisition is: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Language cannot be separated from culture. Culture is not only literature and the arts, but also the everyday behavior of the people who use the target language. One of the teacher’s responsibilities is to present information about that culture.
The nature of student-teacher interaction
Most of the interactions is between teacher and students and is initiated by the teacher.
How is language viewed?
Everyday speech is emphasized in the Audio-lingual Method. The level of complexity of the speech is graded, so that beginning students are presented with only simple patterns. Culture consists of the everyday behavior and lifestyle of the target language speakers.
What areas of language are emphasized?
Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the wound system and grammatical patterns.
The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention. Pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often by students working in language laboratories on discriminating between members of minimal pairs.
The role of the students’ native language
The target language is used in the classroom, not the students’ native language.
How is evaluation accomplished?
Students might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair, for example, or to supply an appropriate verb form in a sentence.
How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Student errors are to be avoided if at all possible through the teacher’s awareness of where the students will have difficulty and restriction of what they are taught to say.
The role of instructional materials
Instructional materials in the Audiolingual Method assist the teacher to develop language mastery in the learner. They are primary teacher-oriented.
Tape recorders and audiovisual equipment often have central roles in an audiolingual course.
The decline of Audioligualism
Audiolingualism reached its period of most widespread use in the 1960s and was applied both to the teaching of foreign language in the United States and to the teaching of English as a second or foreign language.
Audiolingualism stresses the mechanistic aspects of language learning and language use.
Total Physical Response (TPR)
TPR is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical motor activity. Developed by James Asher, a professor of psychology at San Jose State University, California.
He claims that speech directed to young children consists primarily of commands, which children respond to physically before they begin to produce verbal responses.
Asher shares with the school of humanistic psychology a concern for the role of affective factors in language learning.
Asher has elaborated an account of what he feels facilitates or inhibits foreign language learning. For this dimension of his learning theory he draws on three influential learning hypotheses:
1. There exists a specific innate bio-program for language learning which defines an optimal path for first and second language development.
2. Brain lateralization defines different learning functions in the left-and-right brain hemispheres.
3. Stress intervenes between the act of learning and what is to be learned; the lower the stress, the greater the learning.
Listening should be accompanied by physical movement. Speech and other productive skills should come later.
Asher sees TPR as directed to right-brain learning, whereas most second language teaching methods are directed to left-brain learning. Asher hold that the child language learner acquires language through motor movement.
Similarly, the adult should proceed to language mastery through right hemisphere motor activities, while the left hemisphere watches and learns.
The objective of TPR
The objective of TPR is to teach oral proficiency at a beginning level. Comprehension is a means to an end. The ultimate aim is to teach basic speaking skills. TPR requires initial attention to meaning rather than to the form of items. Grammar is thus taught inductively.
Learners in TPR have the primary roles of listener and performer. They listen attentively and respond physically to commands given by the teacher. Learners are also expected to recognize and respond to novel combinations of previously taught items.
Learners monitor and evaluate their own progress. They are encouraged to speak when they feel ready to speak—that is, when a sufficient basis in the language has been internalized. The teacher plays an active and direct role in TPR.
The Silent Way
The Silent Way is the name of a method of a language teaching devised by Caleb Gattegno.
It is based on the premise that the teacher should be silent as much as possible in the classroom but the learner should be encouraged to produce as much language as possible.
Elements of the Silent Way, particularly the use of color charts and the colored Cuisenaire rods, grew out of Gattegno’s previous experience as an educational designer of reading and mathematics programs.
Learning hypotheses
1. Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers and repeats what is to be learned.
Learning is facilitated by accompanying physical objects.
3. Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the material to be learned.
Theory of language and learning
The sentence is the basic unit of teaching, and the teacher focuses on propositional meaning, rather than communicative value. Students are presented with the structural patterns of the target language and learn the grammatical rules of the language through largely inductive processes.
Gattegno sees vocabulary as a central dimension of language learning and the choice of vocabulary as crucial.
Gattegno looked at language learning from the perspective of the learner by studying the way babies and young children learn.
The teacher points to five blocks of color without saying anything. The blocks of color represent the sounds of five English vowels close to the five simple vowels of Portuguese.
Principles
The teacher should start with something the students already know and build from that to the unknown. Languages share a number of features, sounds being the most basic.
Language learners are intelligent and bring with them the experience of already learning a language. The teacher should give only what help is necessary.
Language is not learned by repeating after a model. Students need to develop their own ‘inner criteria’ for correctness—to trust and to be responsible for their own production in the target language.
Students’ actions can tell the teacher whether or not they have learned.
The teacher makes use of what students already know. The more the teacher does for the students what they can do for themselves, the less they will do for themselves.
Learning involves transferring what one knows to new contexts.
Reading is worked on from the beginning but follows from what students have learned to say.
Silence is a tool. It helps to foster autonomy, or the exercise of initiative. It also removes the teacher from the center of attention so he can listen to and work with students. The teacher speaks, but only when necessary.
Meaning is made clear by focusing students’ perceptions, not through translation.
Students can learn from one another. The teacher’s silence encourages group cooperation.
Student attention is a key to learning.
Students should engage in a great deal of meaningful practice without repetition.
Language is for self-expression.
The teacher can gain valuable information from student feedback.
What are the goals of teachers who use the Silent Way?
Students should be able to use the language for self-expression—to express their thought, perception, and feelings.
What is the role of teacher?
The teacher is a technician or engineer.
The teacher should respect the autonomy of the learners in their attempts at relating and interacting with the new challenges.
What is the role of the students?
The role of the students is to make use of what they know, to free themselves of any obstacles that would interfere with giving their utmost attention to the learning task.
What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?
Students begin their study of the language through its basic building blocks, its sounds.
This provides valuable information for the teacher and encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning.
What is the nature of student-teacher interaction?
For much of the student-teacher interaction, the teacher is silent.
Student-student verbal interaction is desirable (students can learn from one another) and is therefore encouraged.
How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
The teacher constantly observes the students. When their feelings interfere, the teacher tries to find ways for the students to overcome them.
How is language viewed?
Languages of the world share a number of features. However, each language also has its own unique reality since it is the expression of a particular group of people.
How is culture viewed?
Their culture, as reflected in their own unique world view, is inseparable from their language.
What areas of language are emphasized?
Since the sounds are basic to any language, pronunciation is worked on from the beginning.
What language skills are emphasized?
All four skills are worked on from the beginning of the course, although there is a sequence in that students learn to read and write what they already produced orally.
What is the role of the students’ native language?
Meaning is made clear by focusing the students’ perceptions, not by translation.
How is evaluation accomplished?
The teacher’s silence frees him to attend to his students and to be aware of these needs.
How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Student errors are seen as a natural, indispensable part of the learning process. Errors are inevitable since the students are encouraged to explore the language.
Desuggestopedia
In order to make better use of our reserved capacity, the limitations we think we have need to be ‘desuggested.’
Desuggestopedia, the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students
eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful or the negative association they may have toward studying and, thus, to help them overcome the barriers to learning.
Principles
Learning is facilitated in a cheerful environment. The classroom is bright and colorful.
Students can learn from what is present in the environment, even if their attention is not directed to it (‘Peripheral learning).
If students trust and respect the teacher’s authority, they will accept and retain information better. (The teacher speaker confidently.)
The teacher gives the students the impression that learning the target language will be easy and enjoyable.
The students choose new names and identities and feel less inhibited since their performance is really that of a different person.
The dialogue that students learn contains language they can use immediately. Songs are useful for ‘freeing the speech muscles’ and evoking positive emotions.
Fine art provides positive suggestions for students.
One way that meaning is made clear is through native language translation.
Communication takes place on ‘two planes’: on one the linguistic message is encoded; and on the other are factors which influence the linguistic message. On the conscious plane, the learner attends to the language; on the subconscious plane, the music suggests that learning is easy and pleasant.
When there is a unity between conscious and subconscious, learning is enhanced.
A calm state, such as one experiences when listening to a concert, is ideal for overcoming psychological barriers and for taking advantage of learning potential.
The fine arts (music, art, and drama) enable suggestions to reach the subconscious. The arts should, therefore, be integrated as much as possible into the teaching process.
The teacher should help the students ‘activate’ the material to which they have been exposed. Novelty aids acquisition.
Music and movement reinforce the linguistic material. If they trust the teacher, they will reach this state more easily.
In an atmosphere of play, the conscious attention of the learner does not focus on linguistic forms, but rather on using the language. Learning can be fun.
Errors are corrected gently, not in a direct, confrontational manner.
What are the goals of teachers who use Desuggestopedia?
Teachers hope to accelerate the process by which students learn to use a foreign language for everyday communication. In order to do this, more of the students’ mental powers must be tapped.
What is the role of teacher?
The teacher is the authority in the classroom. In order for the method to be successful, the students must trust and respect her. Once the students trust the teacher, they can feel more secure. If they feel secure, they can be more spontaneous and less inhibited.
What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?
The posters are change every few weeks to create a sense of novelty in the environment. Students select target language names and choose new occupations. During the course they create whole biographies to go along with their new identities.
What is the nature of student-teacher interaction?
The teacher initiates interactions with the whole group of students and with individuals right from the beginning of a language course.
How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
If students are relaxed and confident, they will not need to try hard to learn the language. It will just come naturally and easily.
How is language viewed?
Language is the first two planes in the two-plane process of communication. In the second plane are the factors which influence linguistic message.
How is culture viewed?
The culture which students learn concerns the everyday life of people who speak the language. The use of fine arts is also important in Desuggestopedic classes.
What areas of language are emphasized?
Vocabulary is emphasized. Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally.
What language skills are emphasized?
Speaking communicatively is emphasized. Students also read in the target language (for example, dialogs) and write (for example, imaginative compositions).
What is the role of the students’ native language?
Native-language translation is used to make the meaning of the dialog clear. The teacher also uses the native language in class when necessary.
How is evaluation accomplished?
Evaluation usually is conducted on students’ normal in-class performance and not through formal tests, which would threaten the relaxed atmosphere considered essential for accelerated learning.
How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Errors are corrected gently, with the teacher using a soft voice.
Community Language Learning Method (CLL)
It takes its principles from more general Counseling-Learning approach developed by Charles A. Curran.
Curran believed that a way to deal with the fears of students is for teachers to become ‘language counselors.’
By understanding students’ fears and being sensitive to them, he can help students overcome their negative feelings and turn them into positive energy to further their learning.
Principles
Building a relationship with and among students is very important.
Any new learning experience can be threatening. When students have an idea of what will happen in each activity, they often feel more secure.
Language is for communication.
The superior knowledge and power of the teacher can be threatening. If the teacher does not remain in the front of the classroom, the threat is reduced and the students’ learning is facilitated.
The teacher should be sensitive to students’ level of confidence and give them just what they need to be successful.
Students feel more secure when they know the limits of an activity.
Teacher and students are whole persons. Sharing about their learning experience allows learners to get to know one another and to build community.
Guided by the knowledge that each learner is unique, the teacher creates an accepting atmosphere. Learners feel free to lower their defenses and the learning experience becomes less threatening.
The teacher understands what the students say.
The students’ native language is used to make the meaning clear and to build a bridge from the known to the unknown. Students feel more secure when they understand everything.
The teacher asks the students to form a semicircle in front of the blackboard so they can see easily.
Learning at the beginning stages is facilitated if students attend to one task at a time.
The teacher encourages student initiative and independence, but does not let student flounder in uncomfortable silences.
Students need quiet reflection time in order to learn.
In groups, students can begin to feel a sense of community and can learn from each other as well as the teacher. Cooperation, not competition, is encouraged.
The teacher should work in a non-threatening way with what the learner has produced.
Developing a community among the class members builds trust and can help to reduce the threat of the new learning situation.
Retention will best take place somewhere in between novelty and familiarity.
What are the goals of teachers who use CLL Methods?
Teachers who use the Community language Learning Method want their students to learn how to use the target language communicatively.
What is the role of the teacher?
The teacher’s initial role is primarily that of a counselor. Rather, it means that the teacher recognizes how threatening a new learning situation can be for adult learners.
What is the role of the students?
Initially the learners are very dependent upon the teacher. It is recognized that as the learners continue to study, they become increasingly independent. CLT methodologists have identified five stages in this movement from dependency to mutual interdependency with the teacher.
It should be noted that accuracy is always a focus even in the first three stages; however, it is subordinated to fluency.
What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?
In a beginning class, which is what we observed, students typically have a conversation using their native language. The teacher helps them express what they want to say by giving them the target language translation in chunks. These chunks are recorded, and when they are replayed, it sounds like a fairly fluid conversation.
During the course of the lesson, students are invited to say how they feel, and in return the teacher understands them.
According to Curran, there are six elements necessary for non-defensive learning: security, aggression, attention, reflection, and retention.
What is the nature of student-teacher interaction?
The Community Language Learning Method is neither student-centered, nor teacher-centered, but rather teacher-student-centered. Teacher-student-centered, with both being decision-makers in the class.
How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
Responding to the students’ feelings is considered very important in Counseling-Learning. The teacher listens and responds to each comment carefully. While security is a basic element of the learning process, the way in which it is provided will change depending upon the stage of learner.
How is language viewed?
Language is for communication. Curran writes that ‘learning is persons, meaning that both teacher and students work at building trust in one another and the learning process.
How is culture viewed?
Curran believes that in this kind of supportive learning process, language becomes the means for developing creative and critical thinking. Culture is an integral part of language learning.
What areas of language are emphasized?
The most important skills are understanding and speaking the language at the beginning, with the reinforcement through reading and writing.
What is the role of the students’ native language?
Where possible, literal native language equivalents are given to the target language words that have been transcribed.
How is evaluation accomplished?
Although no particular mode of evaluation is prescribed in the CLL Method, whatever evaluation is conducted should be in keeping with the principles of the method. Finally, it is likely that teachers would encourage their students to self-evaluate—to look at their own learning and to become aware of their own progress.
How does the teacher respond to student errors?

Teachers should work with what the learner has produced in a non-threatening way. One way of doing this is for the teacher to repeat correctly what the student has said incorrectly.
The two most basic principles which underlie the kind of learning that can take place in the CLL Method are summed up in the following phrases: (1) ‘Learning is persons,’ which means that whole-person learning of another language takes place best in a relationship of trust, support, and cooperation between teacher and students and among students. (2)
‘Learning is dynamic and creative,’ which means that learning is a living and developmental process.
Communicative Language Teaching
It became clear that communication required that students perform certain functions as well, such as promising, inviting, and declining invitations within a social context (Wilkins, 1976). In short, being able to communicate required more than linguistic competence; it required communicative competence (Hymes, 1971)—knowing when and how to say what to whom.
Such observations contributed to a shift in the field in the late 1970s and early 1980s from a linguistic structure-centered approach to a Communicative Approach (Widdowson, 1990).
CLT aims broadly to apply the theoretical perspective of the Communicative Approach by making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and by acknowledging the interdependence of language and communication.
Principles
Whenever possible, ‘authentic language’ –language as it is used in a real context—should be introduced.
Being able to figure out the speaker’s or writer’s intentions is part of being communicatively competent.
The target language is a vehicle for classroom communication, not just the object of study.
One function can have many different linguistic forms. Since the focus of the course is on real language use, a variety of linguistic forms are presented together. The emphasis is on the process of communication rather than just mastery of language forms.
Students should work with language at the discourse or suprasentential (above the sentence) level. They must learn about cohesion and coherence, those properties of language which bind the sentences together.
Games are important because they have certain features in common with real communicative events—there is a purpose to the exchange. Also, the speaker receives immediate feedback from the listener on whether or not he or she has successfully communicated.
Students should be given an opportunity to express their ideas and opinions.
Errors are tolerated and seen as a natural outcome of the development of communication skills. Since this activity was working on fluency, the teacher did not correct the student, but simply noted the error, which he will return to at a later point.
One pf the teacher’s major responsibilities is to establish situations likely to promote communication.
Communicative interaction encourages cooperative relationships among students. It gives students an opportunity to work on negotiating meaning.
The social context of the communicative event is essential in giving meaning to the utterances.
Learning to use language forms appropriately is an important part of communicative competence.
The teacher acts as a facilitator in setting up communicative activities and as an advisor during the activities.
In communicating, a speaker has a choice not only about what to say, but also how to say it.
The grammar and vocabulary that the students learn follow from the function, situational context, and the roles of the interlocutors.
Students should be given opportunities to listen to language as it is used in authentic communication. They may be coached on strategies for how to improve their comprehension.
What are the goals of teachers who use CLT?
The goal is to enable students to communicate in the target language. To do this students need knowledge of linguistic forms, meanings, and functions. Communication is a process; knowledge of the forms of language is insufficient.
What is the role of the teacher?
The teacher facilitates communication in the classroom. In this role, one of his major responsibilities is to establish situations likely to promote communication. During the activities he acts as an adviser, answering students’ questions and monitoring their performance. He might make note of their errors to be worked on at a later time during more accuracy-based activities. At other times he might be
A ‘co-communicator’ engaging in the communicative activity along with students (Littlewood, 1981).

What is the role of the students?
Students are, above all, communicators. They are actively engaged in negotiating meaning—in trying to make themselves understood and in understanding others.
Since the teacher’s role is less dominant than in a teacher-centered method, students are seen as more
Responsible managers of their own learning.
What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?
The most obvious characteristics of CLT is that almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent. Students use the language a great deal through communicative activities such as games, role plays, and problem-solving tasks.
According to Morrow (in Johnson and Morrow, 1981), activities that are truly communicative have three features in common: information gap, choice, and feedback.
In communicative, the speaker has a choice of what she will say and how she will say it. True communication is purposeful. A speaker can thus evaluate whether or not his purpose has been achieved based upon the information she receives from his listener.
Another characteristic of CLT is the use of authentic materials. It is considered desirable to give students an opportunity to develop strategies for understanding language as it is actually used.
Finally, we noted that activities in CLT are often carried out by students in small groups. Small numbers of students interacting are favored in order to maximize the time allotted to each student for communicating.
What is the nature of student-teacher interaction?
The teacher may present some part of the lesson, such as when working with linguistic accuracy. At other times, he is the facilitator of the activities, but he does not always himself interact with the students.
Students interact a great deal with one another. They do this in various configurations: pairs, triads, small groups, and whole group.
How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
One of the basic assumptions of CLT is that by learning to communicate students will be more motivated to study a foreign language since they will feel they are learning to do something useful with the language.
How is language viewed?
Language is for communication. Linguistic competence, the knowledge of forms and their meanings, is just one part of communicative competence. Another aspect of communicative competence is knowledge of the functions language is used for.
Thus, learners need knowledge of forms and meanings and functions. However, they must also use this knowledge and take into consideration the social situation in order to convey their intended meaning appropriately.
How is culture viewed?
Culture is the everyday lifestyle of people who use the language. There are certain aspects of it that are especially important to communication—the use of nonverbal behavior which might receive greater attention in CLT.
What areas of language are emphasized?
Language functions might be emphasized over forms. Typically, a functional syllabus is used. A variety of forms are introduced for each function. Only the simpler forms would be presented at first, but as students get more proficient in the target language, the functions are reintroduced and more complex forms are learned.
What language skills are emphasized?

Students work on all four skills from the beginning. Just as oral communication is seen to take place through negotiation between speaker and listener, so too is meaning thought to be derived from the written word through an interaction between the reader and the writer.
What is the role of the students’ native language?
Judicious use of the students’ native language is permitted in CLT. However, whenever possible, the target language should be used not only during communicative activities, but also for explaining the activities to the students or in assigning homework.
How is evaluation accomplished?
A teacher evaluates not only the students’ accuracy, but also their fluency.
A teacher can informally evaluate his students’ performance in his role as an adviser or co-communicator.
How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Errors of form are tolerated during fluency-based activities and are seen as a natural outcome of the development of communication skills.
Content-based Approach
There are three more approaches that make communication central: content-based instruction, task-based instruction, and participatory approach. The difference is a matter of their focus.
CLT lessons centered on giving students opportunities to practice using the communicative function of making predictions. In this chapter, the approaches we examine do not begin with functions or any other language items. Instead, they give priority to process over predetermined linguistic content.
In these approaches rather than ‘learning to use English, ‘students use ‘English to learn it’ (Howatt, 1984:279).
Using content from other disciplines in language courses is not a new idea. For years, specialized language courses have included content relevant to a particular profession or academic discipline.
The special contribution of content-based instruction is that it integrates the learning of language with the learning of some other content, often academic subject matter. It has been observed that academic subjects provide natural content for language instruction.
Such observations motivated the ‘language across the curriculum’ movement for native English speakers in England, which was launched in the 1970s to integrate the teaching of reading and writing into all other subject areas. Of course, when students study academic subjects in a non-native language, they will need a great deal
of assistance in understanding subject matter texts. Content-based instruction fits in with the other methods in this chapter where the selection and sequence of language items arise from communicative needs, not predetermined by syllabi.
Principles
The subject matter content is used for language teaching purposes.
Teaching should build on students’ previous experience.
When learners perceive the relevance of their language use, they are motivated to learn. They know that it is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.
The teacher ‘scaffolds’ the linguistic content, i.e. helps learners say what it is they want to say by building together with the students a complete utterance.
Language is learned most effectively when it is used as a medium to convey informational content of interest to the students.
Vocabulary is easier to acquire when there are contextual clues to help convey meaning.
When they work with authentic subject matter, students need language support.
Learners work with meaningful, cognitively demanding language and content within the context of authentic material and tasks.
Communicative competence involves more than using language conversationally. It also includes the ability to read, discuss, and write about content from other fields.
Another content-based instruction ‘face,’ where content and language instruction have been integrated, is the adjunct model. Students enroll in a regular academic course. In addition, they take a language course that is linked to the academic course.
In sheltered–language instruction in a second language environment, both native speakers and non-native speakers of a particular language follow a regular academic curriculum. For classes with non-native speakers, however, ‘sheltered’ instruction is geared to students’ developing second language proficiency.
Sheltered-language instructors support that their students through the use of particular instructional techniques and materials. It offers the significant advantage that second language students do not have to postpone their academic study until their language control reaches a high level.
In sum, what all modes of content-based instruction have in common is learning both specific content and related language skills. In content-based language teaching, the claim in a sense is that students get “two for one”—both content knowledge and increased language proficiency’ (Wesche, 1993).