لخّصلي

You may have noticed that the goal of most of the methods we have looked at so far is for students to learn to communicate in the target language. In the 1970s, though, educators began to question if they were going about meeting the goal in the right way. Some observed that students could produce sentences accurately in a lesson, but could not use them appropriately when genuinely communicating outside of the classroom. Others noted that being able to communicate required more than mastering linguistic structure, due to the fact that language was fundamentally social (Halliday
1973). Within a social context, language users needed to perform certain functions, such as promising, inviting, and declining invitations (Wilkins 1976). Students may know the rules of linguistic usage, but be unable to use the language (Widdowson
1978). 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; Savignon 1997).
Applying the theoretical perspective of the Communicative Approach, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) aims broadly to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching. What this looks like in the classroom may depend on how the principles are interpreted and applied. Indeed, Klapper (2003) makes the point that because CLT lacks closely prescribed classroom techniques, as compared with some of the other methods we have just looked at, CLT is ‘fuzzy’ in teachers’ understanding. This fuzziness has given CLT a flexibility which has allowed it to endure for thirty years. However, its flexibility also means that classroom practices differ widely even when teachers report that they are practicing CLT. It is probably fair to say that there is no one single agreed upon version of CLT. Nevertheless, we will follow our usual way of understanding the theory and associated practices by visiting a class in which a form of Communicative Language Teaching is being practiced.
The class we will visit is one being conducted for immigrants to Canada. These twenty people have lived in Canada for two years and are at a high-intermediate level

of English proficiency. They meet two evenings a week for two hours each class.

Experience

The teacher greets the class and distributes a handout. There is writing on both sides. On one side is a copy of a sports column from a recent newspaper. The reporter is discussing the last World Cup competition. The teacher asks the students to read it and then to underline the predictions the reporter makes about the next World Cup. He gives them these directions in the target language. When the students have finished, they read what they have underlined. The teacher writes what they have found on the board. Then he and the students discuss which predictions the reporter feels more certain about and which predictions he feels less certain about:

France is very likely to win the next World Cup. Spain can win if they play as well as they have lately. Germany probably won’t be a contender next time. Argentina may have an outside chance.
Then he asks the students to look at the first sentence and to tell the class another way to express this same prediction. One student says, ‘France probably will win the next World Cup.’ ‘Yes,’ says the teacher. ‘Any others?’ No one responds. The teacher offers, ‘France is almost certain to win the World Cup.’ ‘What about the next?’ he asks the class. One student replies, ‘It is possible that Spain will win the World Cup.’ Another student offers, ‘There’s a possibility that Spain will win the World Cup.’ Each of the reporter’s predictions is discussed in this manner. All the paraphrases the students suggest are evaluated by the teacher and the other students to make sure they convey the same degree of certainty as the reporter’s original prediction.
Next, the teacher asks the students to turn to the other side of the handout. On it are all the sentences of the article that they have been working on. They are, however, out of order. For example, the first two sentences on this side of the handout are:

Argentina may have an outside chance.

In the final analysis, the winning team may simply be the one with the most experience.