You need to write a reflection paper on the article "Communicative Language Teaching" by Spada (2007). (You can have access to the article on METUONLINE).
Please do not forget to include the following points in your article reflection paper:
a) your own interpretation of CLT and your own perspective as a prospective teacher concerning the necessary infrastructure as to the optimum implementation of the method in line with the conditions in Turkey in the EFL context (i.e., the English proficiency level of EFL teachers in Turkey, the system and the existing policies of education in Turkey, EFL learners’ expectations from English classes at secondary and high school level, the attitudes of EFL learners of Turkish with different levels of proficiency towards learning English, the aims of English classes)
b) your own perspective on the various CLT-related misconceptions as a prospective English teacher (you also need to refer to the article by Thompson(1996), which is uploaded on METUONLINE)
c) your perspective on the prevalence of the misconceptions stated in the article among Turkish teachers of EFL (you also need to refer to the article by Thompson (1996), which is uploaded on METUONLINE)
d) the current status of CLT in Turkey including the challenges and difficulties facing EFL teachers concerning the implementation of it
e) the future status of CLT in Turkey
I believe that CLT is one of the powerful ways of teaching English as a foreign language and as a second language. In the article, the writer mentions that most of the instructors of English describe CLT as a meaning-based, learner-centered approach in which fluency gets more attention than accuracy. Although I think that CLT is a good way of teaching English, the current education and examination system in Turkey doesnt allow teachers to use that approach effectively in public and private schools, because the current system gives an exaggerated importance on the form rather than meaning and communicative skillls. This situation requires teachers to give importance on just grammar. I can give myself as an example of the output of this system. I had a great success in Foreign Languages Exam (yds), but I was nearly unable to understand the spoken English and to speak in English. This shows that the current education system in Turkey is far away from the CLT approach. On the other hand, there is a demand among the learners of English to learn it for travelling, bussiness and communicative purposes. This may lead some private institıtions to arrange their curriculum towards the use of CLT approach. I think I will use that approach in my classes, because I want my students to gain both accuracy and fluency in English. Another problem about the CLT is its various interpretations from teacher to teacher and the result of the variety: misconceptions on the CLT. Spada and Thompson summarize these misconceptions very clearly. Most of the teacher think that CLT means not to teach grammar. I believe that if some teachers apply CLT in this thinking way, they will fail teaching grammar which is also necessary for communication to some extent. However, we need to teach grammar implicitly as the CLT defends. This way is much more difficult than just telling the rules to students. I believe that we must avoid using explicit ways of teaching grammar and vocabulary, but I am not totally against this way. Students and teachers must feel free to communicate in the classroom in both L1 and L2. I think most of the teachers in Turkey know CLT with full of these misconceptons and myths. As I have mentioned above, applying CLT in Turkey is difficult for teachers in basic education and secondary education, becasuse the expectations from these teachers are the success of their stuents in YDS and other exams. This requires those teachers to arrange lesson full of explicit and fast grammar teaching. I believe that if the current system goes on this way, CLT wont have much chance in Turkish education system. If we understand the global trend which demands much more communication skills which includes both fluency and accuracy, then we may start to implement CLT in our education system.
ReplyDeleteCommunicative language teaching is an effective method which is being used in foreign and second language teaching environments. It is an applicable method because it serves a communicative aspect to the language teaching and this is very important for the students in this environment in terms of gaining communicative skills. As it is suggested in the article, by this method fluency comes to surface by saving the language learning from bombarded accuracy aspect. By giving more importance to the communicative aspect of language, the students can perform intensive communicative skills and professionalize the fluency of the language they are learning. However, even though this enlightened way of teaching language has so many benefits, it should be applied appropriately in order to be effective and successful. For example, because it is a new trend in the EFL context, the teachers in Turkey are afraid of applying it their lessons because they do not have enough education to perform the necessities of it and they mostly conflict that the student type and the activities do not suit while applying the CLT method. Moreover, there are curriculum issues and the books supplied by the state are not based on the CLT method, so the teachers are always frustrated when they cannot apply the theory in practice. That is a big problem of EFL context in Turkey. For example, when a teacher tries to apply group work so as to make the students learn in a communicative environment, the students think that they are not doing anything related to the lesson, but it is just a game spending the important time just for the sake of unimportant things, so the students have also problems stemming from their habits to learn grammar deductively and explicitly. Furthermore, they find the CLT methods insufficient for their future because their knowledge will not be evaluated by that method, but by testing in state examinations. By these situations, we can understand that even though CLT continue to survive as a beneficial and effective method, there are still concerns about it, especially in Turkey. Another misconception of CLT is about the aspect of grammar, the teacher think that CLT is lack of teaching grammar and it is just a facilitator to teach grammar, it cannot be an end. However, it is not the case because CLT defends that grammar should be taught inductively and implicitly, so group work can help to teach the grammar inductively in an interactive way. I think when the CLT method is used appropriate, it manages to be an end to teach grammar very effectively and the students can comprehend the structures implicitly, so this can help them for long term learning. All in all, by examining these misconceptions we can say that CLT is a method that can be improved day by day and applied all the aspects of teaching because of the needs of the new trend students, the curricula and language learning itself.
ReplyDeleteI believe that CLT is what Turkish education system in teaching foreing languages needs, because with the current system and methods we teach our students only grammar, not the use of it for communicative purposes and we put more emphasis on accuracy although we know that fluency is much more important for communicative function of a language. Implementation of CLT, I think, may solve this problem or at least may bring a balance between these two different functions/skills of language. However, in Turkey, it does not seem to be so easy to use this method, because there is a certain curriculum for english teachers to follow and it includes mostly grammar. Also, our evaluation system, mostly based on multiple choice items, is able to evaluate only receptive skills rather than productive skills which are necessary to gain for communication in the target language. Therefore, when I consider the future of CLT in Turkey, I come to the conclusion that the first thing to change is the curriculum.Only this way english teachers gain autonomy to implement CLT. Also, teachers should be informed and encouraged for the use of CLT so that expectations from english classes may change and communication can gain importance.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the misconceptions about CLT, I see that Thompson explains them and clearly justifies the validity of the opposite ideas about CLT.Among these misconceptions, two of them has always confused me, but in the end I believe that they are 'misconceptions'. THe first one is the idea that CLT means not teaching grammar. At first, it is possible to perceive CLT as a method discarding grammar, but what is certain and what I believe is that even for fluency, one needs at least some basic grammar knowledge. Thus, I come to the conclusion that CLT objects to too much emphasis on grammar, not to teaching grammar. The second one, which proposes that CLT means only speaking, is also opposite to what I believe. As stated in the article, the need for learners to have sufficient practice may be a logical reason for this misconceptions; however, communication happens through both written and spoken medium. Therefore, implementation of CLT cannot be limited to teaching of speaking alone and ignoring other skills.
In my opinion, communicative language teaching method has a more different and significant place among other language teaching methods in the EFL literature. With regard to its well-known emphasis, CLT uses the target language as a means of communication and interaction between the learners. Therefore, it designs the classes and required activities in the light of this purpose and deals with communicative aspects of the target language. Role-plays, interviews, information gap activities, games, pair and group work activities are some of the most important elements which aim to raise more proficient speakers of the target language in a CLT classroom. This method heavily emphasizes the importance of speaking in the target language because as long as a learner can not communicate with a native speaker of English and express his/her opinions, this means that she/he has not learned anything prominent on behalf of English unlike the main purpose. Therefore, I personally think that in Turkey, we have exactly the same problems in EFL environments because we bring up very proficient students who are perfect in grammar and some other formal aspects of the language; however, generally our students have great difficulties in using the target language in real life contexts. For example, a students who knows how to make a suggestion very well even may forget the right pattern while speaking to a native speaker. I think the reasons behind this deficiency are the lack of necessary practice and beneficial speaking activities in the target language. In Turkey, due to the examination and assessment system, the teachers always ignore these communicative purposes and aspects of English. That is why their students know the target language perfectly well, but still they are incapable of using this knowledge in real speaking contexts. Our schools are far away from utilizing this approach; therefore, today so many English private courses or institutions which promise to make the participants speak English fluently are available everywhere. This also shows that if our system did not have such a heavy emphasis on accuracy, we would raise more proficient communicators of English doubtlessly. When it comes to misconceptions part, firstly, some teachers see CLT as the same with not teaching grammar at all (Spada & Thompson, 2007). However, this is not the real case. Without grammar, it is not possible to rear good communicators of English so it is a must. However, grammar should be taught implicitly as CLT suggests. Another misconception is that some teachers think that CLT is not sufficient because in Turkey, we have a formal examination system in which the students use pencil and paper to show their competency in the target language. This implies that having good communication skills has a secondary place and can be ignored. This is quite a false belief which leads to the setback of Turkish EFL context more and more. As a prospective English teacher, I think that CLT is one of the most effective methods and it has a unique importance. That’s why it must be improved by English teachers in Turkey and taken into consideration because it presents one of the possible solutions for our problems in Turkey.
ReplyDeleteThe goal of Communicative Language Teaching is as the name suggests make the students gain communicative language competence. Unlike to the grammatical competence whose focus is master of rule, communicative competence focuses on the good communicative skills. A person can master all the rules of a language but still is not very successful at being able to use the language for meaningful communication. This is what we complain about in our country, Turkey. However, it should be inferred that CLT means not teaching grammar. Grammar is necessary for communication to take place efficiently but it is never a crucial part of CLT to teach grammar. Instead of traditional treatment of grammar rules it should be given the opportunity to students to discover the grammar. CLT also does not mean teaching only speaking. It just stresses the need for the learners to have sufficient practice on communication. Additionally, CLT does not mean just role play; it is of course a good technique but CLT is means working together to do a grammatical exercise, solve a problem, analyse the new language structures in a text, prepare a questionnaire for other members of the class, or agree on the opinion they want to present to the class. According to Geoff Thompson (1994) the Communicative Language Teaching is ultimately a good approach although it took quite a long time for learners and teachers to work out the connotation for all the features of the teaching/learning process. Also we need to specifically reject some changes which are too important to lose and had to do with learning the part and the parcel of matters rather than limiting the horizon of the learners. A piece of advice to all educators around the world is to expand their perspective and think of the learning process as a rewarding experience for the teachers and learners themselves. Also we have to view learners as individuals. According to Geoff Thompson these misconceptions were very essential to be cleared out otherwise, it would be used to break them and CLT as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIn a CLT classroom the teacher sets up the exercise, but because the students' performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and observe and monitor. A classroom during a communicative activity is far from quiet, however. The students do most of the speaking, and frequently the scene of a classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with students leaving their seats to complete a task. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain confidence in using the target language in general. Students are more responsible managers of their own learning. In Turkey, such kind of active and noisy classroom environment is not preferred by the teachers that is why they mostly utilize traditional methods which kill students’ motivation to learn and their motives to discover and participation. “Language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context, both its linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together to speak)" (Berns, 1984, p. 5).”
I personally support Communicative Language Teaching and on the side of this method should be extensively used in Turkey because we learn language by using it. In order to develop communicative competence it should be given extra importance on this method instead of overloading students with grammar rules which they do not know how to use and in which situations and contexts they expected to use. However, because of some shortcomings of Turkey in terms of huge class sizes, lack appropriate resources and untrained teachers to use this method, it seems that to use this method effectively will take some time.
In my opinion communicative language teaching is a very effective, beneficial and important approach since it enables the students communicate in real life like a native speaker. While learning and teaching English, speaking and communication is as important as grammar, reading and writing. However, in Turkey, unfortunately because of the education system, the students and the teachers give more importance to grammar, reading and writing rather than speaking, listening and communication. They become very accurate and advanced in grammar, reading and writing, but on the other hand, they are very poor in communicating. They can’t speak English fluently and they have difficulty in talking to a native speaker. They don’t see themselves competent enough to communicate with a native speaker. I want to use communicative language teaching in my classes in the future because I want to improve their speaking skill besides grammar, reading and writing skills. Although communicative language teaching is a very effective approach, there are misconceptions about it. The teachers don’t think that they can teach grammar by using communicative language teaching. This misconception results from that teachers don’t know what communicative language teaching exactly is. Grammar can be taught implicitly as suggested by communicative language teaching. Also English language teachers believe that communicative language teaching is not an effective approach because in Turkey we have an education system which blocks the effectiveness of communicative language teaching. Therefore, teachers prefer not using communicative language teaching because the students won’t need it when they take the exam. Communicative language teaching should be given more emphasize in EFL context in Turkey to raise fluent speakers of English in Turkey. Hence, the teachers should be aware of the importance of this approach. I believe that the importance of communicative language teaching will be understood in the future in Turkey.
ReplyDeletecommunicative laqnguage teaching and it tells us that communicative language teaching is based on communicative language use.It focuses on communicative competence rather than grammatical structures, anf it gives primary importance to meaning.It is constructed upon two systems of meanings; one is notions, and the other one is functions.Also, contextualization is a basic principle, and attemps by the learners to communicate are encouraged from the beginning of the classes, and a new language system is learned by struggling to communicate one's own meaning, and through interaction with others. In addition, material is determined according to the context, and students' interests. Activitiesd are arranged according to students interests, and there are wide range of activities. Activities are involved real communication situation, and thse are interactive language games, information sharing, task based activities, social interaction, and functional communication.
ReplyDeleteCLT is not sufficient because in Turkey, we have a formal examination system in which the students use pencil and paper to show their competency in the target language.
CLT is one of the effective ways of teaching English. It doesn’t mean not to teach grammar. While using that approach, we can also teach grammar explicitly. I think most of the teachers who are opposed to this approach think like that because of that reason. However, the effectiveness of the communicative language teaching cannot be underestimated. In addition, only teaching grammar doesn’t mean to teach a language. There seems to be another misconception about CLT. It doesn’t teach speaking only; it focuses on communication as its name suggests. What students needs is communication, I think. In our country, teachers deal with grammar only, speaking or the other skills are somehow ignored. Therefore, students need to practice speaking. Students have the chance to practice the language with CLT, but this doesn’t mean just teaching speaking. Teachers of CLT need to be ready to answer what students ask and they should interact with them in a natural way. For teachers, it is a little bit demanding, so they should be aware of that. I think I will use that approach in my classroom. Students learn the language better when they interact in a communicative environment where the target language is used. It will also create warm and enjoyable atmosphere in the classroom; students won’t get bored because they actively participate in the lesson. In the future, if the same misconceptions continue to exist, CLT may not be used in our country. The first thing we need to do is to change our minds. We need to understand what teaching a language exactly means.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you
DeleteOne of the most remarkable problem in teaching English as a foreign language is the importance given to grammar. First of all, in countries like Turkey, English is considered as a second necessity. For example, people may want to learn English in order to get a better job or study in a university in which the instruction medium is English. The point here is that nobody is aware of that the small world today needs a global language, a language that all people can learn and speak it, and since English is the lingua-franca today, it is essential to learn it and even learn other foreign languages. But this is not the case in Turkey and most of the countries. While exams such as KPDS and YDS emphasis on grammar knowledge, nobody would like to waste time on learning pronunciation of the words. As a result, there is no choice for the teacher in public schools, they must teach only the books provided by the Minister of National Education and make no changes, unfortunately. Even in universities like METU where most of the students are in advanced level in English, students only considers English as a tool not an aim. In fact, Spada and Thompson made good points about the misconceptions on CLT that freaks both the teachers and the learners. Since it is impossible to only teach speaking and listening in a foreign context, grammar rules are also needed as well as the other skills. Pair work and group work are also needed but not all the time. Students have to do some work on their one to develop self-confidence. Teacher is playing the role of the guide in this context but s/he also have the authority to set the rules for the activities. Finally, CLT is getting popular day by day and I believe that in the future methods like grammar-translation will be substituted by CLT even in public schools, because it is one of the globalization results after all.
ReplyDeleteI think communicative language teaching has a prominent place in English language teaching. It focuses on communication and interaction between students. It gives importance to meaning rather than the form of the language. In my opinion using communicative language teaching method has an effect on students in a positive way because learning a language means you communicate in that language, which is the focus of this approach. Since this approach requires interaction between teacher and students, classroom environment should be arranged according to it. In this teaching method the students generally work in pairs and groups. The important skills are speaking and listening. Through speaking and listening the students acquire the language. Thus, the activities in the class should give importance to these skills. For example teachers can do role plays, forming up dialogues, talking with native speakers. If such activities are arranged in the class, the communicative teaching method can be useful for the students. When we look at the situation in Turkey, I cannot say this approach is correctly applied in the classroom environment, because the teachers in Turkey give importance to grammar rather that the meaning or usage of the language. Even the foreign language exams consists of grammar and writing parts, so such skills as speaking, listening are not given equal importance, which is the opposite of the communicative language approach. The students in Turkey are proficient in grammar but not the speaking and this situation hinders the communication in that language. The students are lack of communication with real environment. Teachers in Turkey generally do not use CLT method maybe because of some misconceptions about this method. CLT method is thought not to focus on grammar and it only teach how to talk with a foreign speaker ; however, it is not true. As it is known two types of grammar teaching method exists; explicit and implicit. The CLT method give importance to implicit way of grammar teaching. The students both learn how to interact with others and also they learn the necessary grammar structure. Thus, the grammar and speaking have a balance. Another misconception towards CLT is that it is seen as a waste of time. Applying the CLT method in Turkey can be difficult because of the classroom environments, the number of students, so the teacher would not prefer to use this method. However, if the teachers want their students to be perfect in language, they should always give importance to this method and apply it correctly and effectively.
ReplyDeleteI think communicative language teaching is one of the most effective ways of teaching a language. Language is for communication and communicative language teaching provide students speaking skill. Some teachers and students think that grammar is more important than the speaking and speaking is not enough for the learning of a language but I think speaking and listening are the most important skills of learning a language. The main reason of this misjudgment is the accepted procedures and systems in our country. In our country the system is based on grammar and literacy skills. The students who know the grammar rules are accepted as a successful speaker of this language. Students want to pass the course with memorizing some grammar rules. However, knowing grammar rules is not sufficient for a person to understand and speak the language. The most successful universities such as METU and Boğaziçi in our country also accept students who have the highest scores in grammar exams and then want students to become a fluent speaker of the language. In high school most of the students work grammar and reading for the YDS. The teachers do not give importance to listening or speaking. Students get the highest scores in the exam. When these students take a course from a teacher in METU they cannot understand the teacher and they cannot create three sentences in a row. I think speaking and listening are more important than the grammar. I do not say that grammar is useless but it can be acquired later while listening to other people. This was the natural way of learning a language. In the two articles the writers point out that some people describe the communicative language teaching as an approach based on meaning and speaking fluently. According to some instructors communicative language teaching is useless in teaching a language. They claim that this approach cannot teach grammar. However, I think grammar can be also taught with teaching speaking and listening. As a prospective English teacher I will use this approach to teach English because I want my students to be able to speak and describe their opinions in English. The possibility of implementation of the communicative language teaching in Turkey is almost impossible especially in pre and high schools. The education system is based on grammar in foreign languages. Teachers use explicit way of teaching grammar but it is the most effective way for an exam prepared to ask questions for explicit rules. No one cares about the speaking skills of the students. I think using this approach in Turkey is not possible in near future because of the thought of the teachers and the students. Some English teachers cannot speak English in our country. In this situation we cannot expect them to use communicative language teaching. This approach can be used in special courses for the transportation and tourism sectors in Turkey.
ReplyDeleteCommunicative Language Teaching is seen as a new way of teaching English with the increase of the importance of English as a global language. As I understand from the article, CLT can be considered as one of the most beneficial ways of English teaching in classes. As it is stated in the article, CLT is based on sociolinguistic and communicative views of language which is effective in all contexts. In my opinion, CLT approach can be useful for both students and the teacher. However, it is difficult to apply this approach in Turkish state and private schools because of Turkish education system. This system gives importance to grammar rules. In state schools in Turkey, students start to learn English in 4th grade, but they focus on only grammar structures because of the prerequisites of the education system. As a result of it, students have no chance to improve their listening and speaking skills in English. I was also exposed to this system and until I come to university, I couldn’t speak English well. We focused on just grammar during high school. Our English teachers also didn’t speak English in our classes and we didn’t take comprehensible input much. If teachers change their attitudes toward teaching English, CLT approach makes it easier and more effective to teach English. Nevertheless, there are some misconceptions about CLT among teachers. According to Thompson’s article, they think that CLT doesn’t teach grammar, it teaches only speaking to the students, it always demands pair or group work, and it expects much from teacher. However, these are only misconceptions. I think CLT can be applied by the teachers in an effective way. As a prospective teacher, I will use CLT approach in my classes, because I want to give importance to speaking and listening abilities other than grammar. They are necessary skills for students to be able to be familiar with English. However, as I mentioned above, it is a challenge to implement CLT in Turkish classes. Due to the fact that exams give importance to only grammar and vocabulary, teachers have to arrange their curriculum according to demands of exams. If Turkish education system changes and wants students to learn other skills apart from grammar and vocabulary, teachers will have a chance to apply CLT in their EFL classes. Students can also develop other English skills. As prospective teachers, we will also have a chance to implement CLT in our classes to be more effective to our students.
ReplyDeleteI think CLT method is a useful method for teaching English to young learners. It is explained as a meaning based and a learner-centered aproach in the article of Spada. In CLT, fluency is important rather than accuracy. The emphasis is on the comprehension and production of messages, not on the teaching or correction of language forms. Language is a way of communication. Learning a language is important because the person who learns the target language wants to use it in appropriate situations. However; in our country, the people who learn English or other languages can’t use the language out of classroom because in our education system, teachers give importance only to grammar. They don’t take serious the communicative aspect of language. However; it is the most important feature of a language. In our schools, students learn the English with the purpose of communication with native speakers. They expect that when they graduate from the school, they will speak fluently English. However students learn only grammar structures in the school. Teachers don’t speak in English and they give grammar forms explicitly. Students have to memorize these grammar rules, but when they graduate from the school, they can’t speak or can’t understand the language. For example; I am the product of this system. In my school, our teachers teach only grammar rules, and I have to memorize these grammar rules because in our university entrance exam, they only ask grammar rules. Thus, when I came to university, I couldn’t speak English and couldn’t understand it properly. I had no experience of using it. CLT method becomes important in this part. In CLT method, teachers focus not only on the grammar rules, but also on the communicative aspects of the language. Thus, students learn speaking along with these rules. It is more useful for students because they speak the target language fluently and accurately. They reach their goals. I think I will use this approach in my classes because I want my students to speak the language properly. I think today’s teachers should also use CLT approach in the classrooms, however; there are some misconceptions about CLT among the teachers because its implementation and interpretation differ teacher to teacher. These misconceptions are summarized by Thompson and Spada in their articles. The teachers think that they will focus only on meaning in CLT. They don’t give importance to the form; they only look to the meaning. However; this is wrong because knowing a language includes knowing how to use forms appropriately in different contexts beside meaningful use of the language. Thus, teachers should focus on not only the communicative aspect of the language but also they should give some forms and structures to the students to make them use the language properly. Some teachers think that there is no corrective feedback in CLT. If there is no corrective feedback, how students will learn the correct form of the structures. In this method learners are at the center. Thus, some teachers think that students must speak every time. They focus on pair or group works. However, these works may contain false input for the students, and after a while these errors fossilizes and it becomes hard to correct them. In CLT classes teachers can use L1 while teaching L2 because L1 helps students learn the forms of the language by negotiating these rules with the L1 rules. I think this approach should be used in our schools because it gives importance both to the communicative aspect of the language and to the forms of the language’s grammar. I think our education system should be renewed. Thus; students who graduate from the schools speak their foreign language properly.
ReplyDeleteCommunicative Language Teaching is one the effective approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages.It emphasizes ‘’interaction’’ in learning a language. We can aslo see its importance from the activities. For instance, Role Play,Interviews,Information Gap and Games can be used in CLT which is effective way in teaching. Considering the article the writer mentions that for most teacher Communicative Language Teaching is known as learner-centered approach that is, fluency is more important than accuracy.Unfortunately, the imprtance of CLT is ignored in Turkish system because it is not use effectively in schools.We just learn a language and I there are some unimportant informations that should be omitted.Because I they are taught in vain and these informations aren’t used in the future.So I think there is no need to such importance.For instance, when we enter to the METU for there were no problem in our English. We supposed that we knew everything. Because we just learned qrammar which worked only in the exams.But there were a great problem in our speaking especially with me.Only grammar should not be taught because it helps only in one way.And all these show that Turkish education system is away from CLT. Actually, learning a language changes to learner’s aim. Some are learn just to get basic knowledge and learn qrammar.But there are also other people who learn it for a different purpose such as travelling,business or may be just for communication. So while teachning both fluency and accuracy are important .Another problem about CLT is expecting too much from the teacher. In my opinion this argument is actually true, since it requires the teachers to be unique in all the skills of English and to have a high level of proficiency while communicating with stundents and interacting with them in a natural way as if it is their mother-language.In the article Spada and Thompson state on this misconceptions clearly. While teaching grammar it should be taught implicitly not explicitly because students should be free while learning or communicaitng.Because these misconceptions are problems in Turkish system CLT will loose its importance and effect in this system.I think the problem is ignoring the importance of communication.If the system take it seriously it can be implemented into Turkish education system.
ReplyDeleteCLT has a growing influence on language teaching practice around the world since there is an ever growing demand for good communication skills and fluency in English language. CLT sets as its goals the teaching of communicative competence. It doesn’t focus only on grammatical competence which refers to the knowledge we have of language that accounts for building blocks of sentences (parts of speech, tenses, phrases, clauses, sentence patterns etc.) and how this sentences are formed. While grammatical competence is an important dimension of language learning, it is not that is all involved in language learning because one can master the rules of sentence formation in a language and still not be successful at being able to use the language for meaningful communication. CLT aims for this language skill which provides the learners with the necessary practice to be effective communicators in the target language. This communicative competence includes knowing how to vary our use of language according to the setting and participants in different contexts, being able to maintain the communication despite having limitations in one’s language knowledge (communication strategies) etc. Although CLT is an effective method for the EFL classes, there are some challenges and prevailing misconceptions about the nature of the CLT facing the implementation of the approach in Turkey. First of all, there is a lack of training on the behalf of the teachers on the method. The Turkish examination and assessment system require students to show their competency with pen and paper exams. This leads teachers to focus on the grammatical competence rather than the communicative competence. The learners’ expectations rely on the policies of the Turkish educational system and they do what the system wants them to do mostly. When it comes to the issue of misconceptions, the most prevailing misconception is teachers generally assume that CLT means not teaching grammar (Spada & Thompson, 2007). The teaching of grammar is of course a delicate issue and CLT doesn’t mean we eliminate grammar as a whole. Rather the concept behind the idea of teaching grammar is that it shouldn’t be explicit, direct overloading of students with rules and structures. This misconception is similar to the fairly widespread misconception that CLT means only teaching speaking. Apart from the misconceptions about the nature of CLT, there are also misconceptions about the techniques of the method. There is a general assumption that CLT means too much pair work and this means mainly role play activity. However, the techniques are flexible and the pair or group works differs according to the nature of the lesson. I personally believe that these misconceptions and limitations can be solved out and the importance of CLT can be further understood in the future of language learning area.
ReplyDeleteI think, CLT is one of the best ways to teach a language. You learn both the characteristics of a language and use it fluently. In this point, there are some misunderstanding with CLT. It is thought that with CLT, grammar cannot be learned. However, students learn grammar in an inductive way. However, CLT requires a small envorinment because to provide conversation on a crowded class is really difficult. Teachers cannot be dealt with each and every student. Therefore to make the class number less can be a solution to this. With the help of this,teachers can be more dealt with the learning process of every student.
ReplyDelete