ELT-44 The Practice Of Communicative Teaching

ELT-44The Practice ofCommunicative TeachingMilestones in ELT

Milestones in ELTThe British Council was established in 1934 and one of our main aimshas always been to promote a wider knowledge of the English language.Over the years we have issued many important publications that haveset the agenda for ELT professionals, often in partnership with otherorganisations and institutions.As part of our 75th anniversary celebrations, we re-launched a selectionof these publications online, and more have now been added in connectionwith our 80th anniversary. Many of the messages and ideas are just asrelevant today as they were when first published. We believe they arealso useful historical sources through which colleagues can see howour profession has developed over the years.The Practice of Communicative TeachingEdited for the ELT Documents series by Christopher Brumfit andpublished in 1986, this book complements an earlier volume on GeneralEnglish Syllabus Design, looking at the implementation of communicativesyllabuses. In the first section of this book, on Specific syllabuses, JPBAllen calls for a variable focus curriculum which provides both foranalytical work on functions and structures and an experiential view oflanguage (fully communicative activities based on ‘authentic languagedata’), while Janice Yalden describes the ‘proportional’ – or adjustable– model of ‘frameworks’ she had been using in work with Indonesianteachers. The second section looks at Materials and methodology. HGWiddowson describes problems in developing communicative teachingmaterials, while JT Roberts examines the use of dialogues in teachingtransactional competence, and Alan Maley addresses the total teachingcontext, asking if communicative competence really can be ‘taught’. Thethird section, on Criticism and research, comprises two papers, by DaweiWang, and Rosamond Mitchell and Richard Johnstone, respectively.The importance of the kind of systematic classroom research intoimplementation which characterises this final paper is highlighted byBrumfit in his Introduction.

PERGAMON INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH (OXFORD)English Language Teaching DocumentsGeneral Editor: C. J. BRUMFITThe Practiceof Communicative Teaching

British Council ELT Documents published byPergamon Press114115116117Video Applications in English Language TeachingTeaching Literature Overseas: Language-based ApproachesLanguage Teaching Projects for the Third WorldCommon Ground: Shared Interests in ESP and CommunicationStudies118 General English Syllabus Design119 Language Issues and Education Policies120 Dictionaries, Lexicography and Language Learning121 ESL in the UK122 Computers in English Language Teaching123 ESP for the University125 Language Teacher Education: An Integrated ProgrammeBack Issues (published by The British Council butavailable now from Pergamon Press):document no.title77/1Games, Simulation and Role Playing104105106Developments in the Training of Teachers of EnglishThe Use of Media in ELTTeam Teaching in ESP110111National SyllabusesStudying Modes and Academic Development ofOverseas StudentsFocus on the Teacher Communicative Approachesto Teacher TrainingIssues in Language Testing113Humanistic Approaches An Empirical View102108109112English as an International LanguageThe ESP Teacher: Role, Development and ProspectsSpecial Issues and Occasional Papers1. The Foreign Language Learning Process2. The Teaching of Comprehension3. Projects in Materials Design4. The Teaching ofListening Comprehension Skills

The Practiceof Communicative TeachingEdited byCHRISTOPHER BRUMFITUniversity of SouthamptonELT Documents 124Published in association withTHE BRITISH COUNCILbyPERGAMON PRESSOxford New York Beijing FrankfurtSao Paulo Sydney Tokyo Toronto

U.K.PEOPLE'S REPUBLICOF CHINAFEDERAL REPUBLICOF GERMANYAUSTRALIAJAPANPergamon Press, Headington Hill Hall,Oxford 0X3 OBW, EnglandPergamon Press, Qianmen Hotel, Beijing,People's Republic of ChinaPergamon Press, Hammerweg 6,D-6242 Kronberg, Federal Republic of GermanyPergamon Press Australia, P.O. Box 544,Potts Point, N.S.W. 2011, AustraliaPergamon Press, 8th Floor, Matsuoka Central Building,1-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, JapanDistributed inCANADAU.S.A.Dominie Press Ltd.,345 Nugget Avenue, Unit 15, Agincourt,Ontario M15 4J4, CanadaAlemany Press,a division of Janus Book Publishers Inc.,2501 Industrial Parkway West, Hayward, CA 94545, U.S.A.Copyright 1986 Pergamon Books Ltd. and The British CouncilAll Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means:electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from thecopyright holders.First edition 1986Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataMain entry under title.The Practice of communicative teaching.(ELT documents; 124)1. English language—Study and teaching—Foreignspeakers—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Brumfit,Christopher. II. Series: English language teachingdocuments; 124.PE1128.A2P68 1986428'.00785-31059British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataThe Practice of communicative teaching.—ELTdocuments; 1241. English language—Study and teaching—Foreign speakersI. Brumfit, C. J. II. British Council III. Series428.2'4'07PE1128.A2ISBN 0-08-033478-4Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter

ContentsIntroduction: Communicative MethodologyviiCHRISTOPHER BRUMFIT1. Specific SyllabusesFunctional-Analytic Course Design and the VariableFocus CurriculumJ. P. B. ALLENAn Interactive Approach to Syllabus Design:The Frameworks Project25JANICE YALDEN2. Materials and MethodologyDesign Principles for a Communicative Grammar41H. G. WIDDOWSONThe Use of Dialogues for Teaching TransactionalCompetence in Foreign Languages51J. T. ROBERTS'A Rose is a Rose', or is it?: can communicativecompetence be taught?87ALAN MALEY3. Criticism and ResearchOptimal Language Learning Based on theComprehension-Production DistinctionDAWEI WANG99

viContentsThe Routinization of 'Communicative' Methodology123ROSAMOND MITCHELLRICHARD JOHNSTONENotes on Contributors145

Introduction: Communicative MethodologyChristopher BrumfitUniversity of SouthamptonCommunicative language teaching has had a history of 15 years or so(the earliest reference to the term that I have found is in Candlin'spaper, 'Sociolinguistics and communicative language teaching', pre sented to the IATEFL Conference in London in 1971). However, manyof the characteristic features of the movement were found in earlierlanguage teaching, and important traditions in communicative lan guage teaching, for example the Council of Europe work, did not startusing the term until it was widely used elsewhere.Nonetheless, the shift away from a view of language as a static,observable system to be learnt to the view that it is a fluid, negotiablesystem to be performed is fundamental to recent developments from awide variety of sources. In the early years of the communicativemovement the emphasis was largely on syllabus design, with a concernfor specifications rather than organization of the specified elements (seevan Ek, 1975, for Council of Europe work on English; Wilkins, 1976,and Munby, 1978, for more general discussions). The tendency of thistradition was to move towards a needs analysis and consequently toconcentrate on those learners whose needs could be predicted with somedegree of accuracy. The kind of work on general syllabuses for ordinaryschool learners that had been characteristic of earlier periods failed toattract much theoretical attention, though its findings were wellsummarized in Alexander et al. (1975). More recently there has been anincrease in interest in general syllabuses (see ELT Documents 118 for acollection of papers on this theme), but this has been accompanied by anincreased interest in classroom processes. Some have argued that thisinterest can be expressed through a redefinition of the role of thesyllabus (Breen and Candlin, 1980); others would see a conflict betweenthe concern with process and the role of the syllabus (Brumfit, 1980,1984).But a syllabus for a teaching institution, like a scheme of work, must beseen as essentially an administrative document. It is necessarily static,whether or not the categories of description are functional, gram matical or notional, for a list of specifications, even when ordered forteaching, can only be translated into activity by means of the decisionstaken by particular teachers and learners in particular classrooms. Asyllabus is a guide for teachers, something which should help them toVll

viiiChristopher Brumfitbe as clear-thinking as possible about teaching - but it will alwaysoperate at a high level of generality. Groups of teachers, or individuals,responding to their own local circumstances, will have to modify fortheir own classes whatever is stated in general terms in any syllabus.This process of modification will be expressed in the lesson plans, theselection of materials, and the impromptu decisions taken by teachersin class.The purpose of this issue of ELT Documents is to examine some ways ofimplementing communicative syllabuses. This discussion can concen trate on a number of different areas. Some writers (Alien, Yalden) giveaccounts of the ways in which they have tried to design specificsyllabuses for particular conditions. Widdowson describes problems indeveloping communicative teaching materials, and illustrates withexamples from what must be one of the very few genuinely notionalcoursebooks ever written. Maley, too, discusses problems in relatingclassroom teaching to communicative principles, though he looks morewidely at the total teaching context. Roberts offers a detailed examin ation of the use of dialogues for teaching. Wang offers a fascinatingpersonal account of response to communicative assumptions from avery different tradition of language learning.All of these papers are concerned with description of implementation byexperienced teachers, methodologists or applied linguists. But whatactually happens when teachers committed to communicative teachingtry to use the principles they believe in? This is the key question forteacher training, and ultimately for the theory of language teachingitself. Unless we can support our intuitions and good ideas with someunderstanding of the impact that such work has on the practice ofnormal teaching, we risk irrelevance and impracticality. And of coursethe practice of language teaching may well vary considerably from oneteaching situation to another, or between teachers at different levels ofthe system, or between native-speaking and non-native-speakingteachers. Indeed, if we are concerned for the well-being of languageteaching, we must interest ourselves particularly in non-nativespeaking teachers, for most language teaching will always be per formed by them.The paper by Mitchell and Johnstone with which this collectionconcludes reports an investigation of French teaching, but the pro cedures used could valuably be adapted to the EFL situation, and theconclusions should be of considerable interest to those working withEnglish teachers. Certainly there is a strong case for replication andmodification of this kind of work in many different countries. It is to behoped that the next decade will see a great deal more observationalwork on language learning classrooms. A future issue of ELTDocuments will, it is hoped, provide more detailed accounts of researchin this area.