THE COMMUNICATIVE – STYLE TEACHING Ionela Tatiana RACOLȚA – Școala cu clasele I – VIII „Rudolf Walther”, Timișoara As teachers in general, and… [600466]

1
THE COMMUNICATIVE – STYLE TEACHING

Ionela Tatiana RACOLȚA – Școala cu clasele I – VIII „Rudolf Walther”, Timișoara

As teachers in general, and English teachers in particular, it is essential for us to ask
ourselves a certain question whenever we enter a classroom: “ What should my students really be
able to do at the end of this class/semester/school year? ” For it is extremely easy to get lost in all
those grammar rules and explanations in all the repetitive drills and translation exercises. What we
need to bear in mind is the fact that the ultimate g oal of the educational process we are leading is to
have our students prepared for real -life situations.
Just like in any field of activity, in English teaching methodology the way of doing things
has greatl y evolved over the past decades. If until several years ago, the grammar and translation
(also known as the grammar – translation method) exercises we mentioned before were considered
the favourite and most efficient ac tivities of learning and practis ing among Romanian English
teachers, the modern literature comes forward, suggesting a new approach: the communicative
language teaching.
In Romania, the communicative approach seems to gradually take roots (if not put in
practice, at least acknowledged), but it is still necessary to clarify its underlying principles, to
emphasize its importance and illustrate it in practice.
Firstly, the communicative – style teaching relies on authentic use of language in classroom
exchanges. Thus, it makes use of real -life situations, in which students engage, motivated by their
desire to communicate in efficient and meaningful ways. Interaction becomes the key to good
classroom practice, both as means and as the ultimate goal of learning English. In this respect,
Berns exp lains that “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 aft er 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, 5).
The communicative approach plays such an important part in the educational proces s due to
the fact that it does not merely involve learning a language for the sake of passing exams; it rather
makes use of language for true communication. It is the student: [anonimizat], and no longer the teacher. Thus , the role of the teacher shi fts from that of
controller to that of facilitator and monitor. In communicative activities, the emphasis is on
meaning, rather than form. In other words, the focus is on students’ fluency and efficiency in
getting the message across, while the accuracy of language ranks second. The teacher sets up

2
activities similar to real -life situations, and in order to motivate the students and determine them to
engage in exchanges, s /he makes use of topics with which they are already famil iar and directly
interests them. The resources that are employed are authentic (newspaper and magazine articles,
recipes, poems, news bulletins, videos), exploited in various ways, and related to the students’ own
lives and interests so as to provoke pract ical communicative language. The use of songs, games and
flashcards is also meant to stimulate the students’ active participation. Moreover, language is not
used in monotonous , repetitive ways, but in natural, meaningful contexts.
From this perspective, s tudents learn how to be spontaneous and improvise, they are
prepared to cope with unforeseen situations that may occur in real life, when they are no longer
students, but speakers. In order to achieve this goal, students need practice, they need to learn h ow
to use language in a flexible and intuitive way. This is another reason why communicative – style
teaching is of paramount importance in the educational process.
During the communicative activities, mistakes are seen as a natural part of learning the
language and the feedback and correction stage is usually performed at the end of tasks, rather than
at the point of error, so as not to interrupt the students’ flow of ideas and discourage them. One
aspect that needs to be highlighted at this point is repr esented by the fact that communicative
activities involve two different kinds of feedback. “Context feedback” (Harmer: 1991, 237) concern
an assessment of how well the students have performed the task, whereas “form feedback”
(Harmer: 1991, 238) focuses on telling the students how well they have performed linguistically,
how accurate they have been. Teachers are recommended to offer their feedback in a discreet
manner, encouraging their students to learn from their own mistakes.
In order to shed a more pr actical light on the features of the communication approach we
mentioned, we need to think of clear examples of communicative activities. First of all, these should
be based on a realistic and relevant situation and should involve a large spectrum of commu nicative
functions, such as socialising, apologizing, telephoning , giving and asking for directions,
complaining, expressing likes and dislikes, job interviews , etc. These could take the form of role-
plays, simulations, reaching a consensus, projects , deba tes, discussions, surveys, etc., that is
activities that are characterised by spontaneity, creativity and improvisation , and which are likely to
require multiple turn taking.
However , there are a few steps that need to be followed when creating such an ac tivity. At
first, we need to think of a realistic situation in which the language structures we have taught might
be employed and picture a setting, with concrete participants, a clear purpose of the ir conversation,
etc. Secondly, we should b ear in mind th at making the task interesting is a leading facto r to getting
our students involved. Thirdly, we should think if the task we imagined requires preparation time or
not, and for which type of student groupings it is appropriate (pairs, smaller or larger grou ps). Once

3
we have followed the se steps, we should make sure students know and understand all the details
concerning the task (who their characters are, where they are, what they are supposed to do and why
they are talking). If necessary, we should allow ou r students some preparation time and we should
monitor their activity. During the performance of the students, we should not interrupt the students
in order to correct their mistakes, but we have to make sure that at the end of the activity we involve
our students in the self -correction of errors so as to make them aware of the problematic issues they
have encountered, help them learn from their mistakes and avoid, as much as possible, repeating
them.
Here are a few examples of real -life situations that c an constitute the obje ct of
communicative activities during our class work:
1) Oral activities:
A. Role -plays :
 Imagine you are at a restaurant with a good friend of yours. You heard from some
friends that the restaurant was really nice, but when you got t here, you encountered
serious problems: you couldn’t find a parking space, you got a table in the
“smoking” section although you specifically mentioned you were not a smoker, the
waiter was late in taking and bringing your order and finally the bill was hi gher than
you calculated based on the menu . So, you asked to talk to the manager, in the
presence of the waiter. Act out the scene.
 Imagine you were invited at the cinema by your boyfr iend/girlfriend, but when you
get there, you cannot decide which movie you want to watch : “Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory” or “Schindler’s list”. You usually enjoy childish, light movies
that make you feel optimistic, but your friend tends to be in favour of reality -based,
serious movies. Act out the conversation and decid e which movie to watch.
 Imagine you want to pay a visit to a good friend who recently moved to a different
city. You take the train a nd arrive in that city , but you don’t know how to get to your
friend’s house. You could call him, but you don’t want to ru in the surprise.
Fortunately, you know his exact address and you get across an extremely nice local
man who offers to help you and give s you the directions. Act out the conversation.
B. Discussions:
 Think of as many consequences of drinking alcohol as pos sible.
 Talk about the main advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet for solving
school tasks.
 Think of as many summer holiday activities as possible.
C. Reaching a consensus:

4
 You are going in Paris for the weekend (it’s July) , but you are not a llowed to take
much luggage with you. Decide on ten objects you should take with you.
 You saw an older colleague of yours stealing m oney from another student in your
school. Decide what you should do: a) report the incident to the headmaster; b)
ignore th e incident; c) talk to the “thief” in private and try to solve the situation on
your own.
D. Debates:
 Smoking should be strictly banned from all public places. Give arguments for and
against.
 All schools should impose uniforms for their students. Give you r pros and cons.
 Violent movies should be forbidden on all TV channels. Give your pros and cons.
2) Written activities:
 Design an advertisement for a new brand of make -up/cars.
 Design a news broadcast about a serious accident that occurred in your town.
 In groups, take turns writing only one sentence in order to make up a story starting from the
following line: “Once upon a time there was a poor girl who lived with her sick mother in an
old, shabby house.”
 Choose a colleague in your class to be your penfr iend. Exchange letters in which you advise
each other, get to know one another better, etc.
Of course, the list of communicative activities1 could go on, but this is not the purpose of the
present paper.
In conclusion, this paper does not militate in fav our of the idea that the communicative -style
teaching is the sole and only method of English teaching, but it surely shouldn’t be ignored on the
path of our educational process, as we need to give our students the opportunity to practice real
speech acts a nd to learn how to be confident speakers. Only in this way will they be prepared to go
to a foreign country and cope with a variety of everyday situations.

Bibliography :

 Berns, M. S., Savignon, S., Initiatives in communicative language teaching . A book of
readings, Reading, MA: Addison – Wesley.
 Larsen – Freeman, D. (1986), Techniques and principles in language teaching , Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
 Harmer, J. (1991), The Practice of English Language Teaching , London: Longman.

1 The examples o f communicative activities presented a bove chiefly focus on groups of students who have an intermediate up to
advanced level of English. However, communicative activities can be easily created also for beginner, elementary or lower –
intermediate English users.