Communicative Language Teaching

         

The Communicative Language Teaching method is also known by its acronym CLT.  This method is specially applied to enable students to communicate in the target language based on the use functions and forms. Some people observed that even though students knew the linguistic rules, they were unable to use appropriately the language outside the classroom in real life situations. For this reason, teachers started to use this method to teach students, through activities and real context materials, to know when and how to say what to whom.  For being more specific, they started to teach students how to perform a function teaching them how to choose the most appropriate forms. Thus, if students learn that one function can have many different linguistic forms, they would also be able to learn about cohesion and coherence.  

           The role of the teacher in the classroom is to establish different real life situations to allow students to communicate with one another. This communicative interaction encourages cooperative relationships among students, which at the same time, has to do with opportunities for negotiating meanings. In this part, students put in practice the three main features of the Communicative Language Teaching: information gap, choice and feedback. The information gap occurs when students cannot truly communicate with one another. Thanks to the situations that the teacher facilitates, students have the opportunity to talk about different topics with one another and, at the same time, to shared different points of view and information. Likewise, they have a choice not only about what to say, but also about how to say it, but if they do not have the options for expressing what they want to communicate, they are not going to receive feedback or to evaluate if they were really understood.

            To conclude, if a teacher really wants his or her students to succeed with this method, he might never forget that everything is done with a communicative intent. Teachers should use a lot of didactic materials to teach and allow students to express their own knowledge because even though it might be incomplete, they have to make themselves understood by people around them. Besides, if students feel they are learning to do something useful, they might be more motivated to study.

Communicative Language Teaching Principles
1.Teacher´s goal	-To enable students to communicate in the target language using functions and forms appropriately.
2.Teacher and students´ role	-Teacher: To facilitate situations for promoting communication skills. -Students: They are communicators. They need to be responsible for their own learning.
3.Characteristics of CLT	-CLT´s activities have three main features: Information gap, choice and feedback. -CLT promotes the use of authentic material.
4. Nature of students-teacher and student-student interaction	-Teacher-student interaction: The teacher is the facilitator, not always interact with students. -Student-student’s interaction: Students interact with one another through activities that the teacher facilitates.
5.Students feelings	- It is assumed that they are more motivated to study since they will feel that they are learning to do something useful.
6.View of language and culture	-Language is for communication. -They learn to use appropriately the language depending on the social context. -Culture is the everyday lifestyle of people who use the language.
7. Areas of language that are emphasized	-Language function over forms is emphasized. -A variety of forms are introduced for each function. -Learning of cohesion and coherence. - Four skills are worked from the beginning.
8. The role of the students´ native language	- The use of the target language should be used for every activity during the whole class. The students’ native language should be used just when it is necessary.
9.Evaluation	-Informal evaluation: The teacher could evaluated them when he is an advisor or co-communicator. -Formal evaluation: The teacher should use and integrative test which has a real communicative function.
10. Students´ errors	-They are tolerated. -The teacher notices them during activities and return to them later with an accuracy-based activity to help them correct or understand their errors.

University of Costa Rica
Atlantic Branch – Turrialba Campus

Lesson Plan

Institution:
Date:
Group: 9-3

Target Content: Causes, effects, and Prevention of Environmental Pollution
Linguistic Objectives	Mediation Activities	Evaluation of Learning Outcomes and Strategies	Time allowed
SWBT: To identify environmental issues based on factual texts. To understand ideas and information in the text through making inferences.  To link sentences and paragraphs, structuring ideas.   To analyze pictorial information for expressing possible solutions to different environmental problems.	1.The teacher begins the class by greeting students and specifying the topic and objectives of the class. (2  min) 2. After that, the teacher distributes a handout in which there are some factual stories about environmental issues in Costa Rica. The teacher tells them that they have to underline the causes with one color and the effects of the problem with another color. ( 10 min) 3.Then, the teacher asks students to form groups of four people to compare their answers. After they finish, the teacher asks students to read what they have underlined and to say why they think it is a cause or an effect. (10 min) 4.After that, the teacher asks students to put away everything. The teacher gives them some paper strips in which there are written some causes and some effects based on the previous reading. While they are reading the causes and effects, the teacher draws a chart, with the names of the environmental problems they have been seen, vertically in the whiteboard. After that, the students have to go to the whiteboard and to write the appropriate sentences on the corresponding name of the problem. Then, the teacher reads the answers and asks students if they agree. (9 min) 5.The teacher distributes one picture to each group in which there is a clear visual representation of an environmental problem. Students have to work on it discussing about possible solutions to that problem. When they finish, they have to go to the front of the class and to say their solutions. (9 min)	The teacher evaluate students’ progress acting as an advisor or co-communicator Student’s errors are tolerated. The teacher notices them during activities and return to them later with an accuracy-based activity to help them understand and correct their errors. Students are able to communicate choosing their own ideas. Students might receive feedback from others classmates. They work in groups to develop problem-solving skills sharing different points of view.	40 minutes
Resources: Handouts of environmental problems, markers, different pictures of environmental problems, paper strips with causes and effects.
Chronicle: