To what extent is CLT applicable to the Chinese teaching context?

Zha　Min

【Abstract】Chinese people all know that English is very important for the future development of China. What is the goal for learning a foreign language? It is for communication, but not for taking examinations. However, most of the time in class are taken up by teaching grammar points instead of giving them opportunities to communicate .A lot of Chinese teachers notice that, so CLT is frequently used in class these years. This essay aims to argue that, to some extent, CLT is applicable to Chinese teaching context . In the following paragraphs, I will analyze the goal of using CLT for Chinese teachers in the first and second paragraphs. In the third and fourth paragraph, I will mainly refer to the characteristics of CLT process. The fifth and sixth paragraphs illustrate and emphasize the benefits students can get from Communicative Language Teaching.

【Key words】Communicative Language Teaching;communicative activities; interaction; motivate

【作者簡介】Zha Min，Chizhou No.11 Middle school.

Most of the students may know grammar rules of language very well, but they don’t know how to use it in communication  (Widdowson，1978). In China,it is also a common phenomenon that some students may be good at grammar rules, but not good at using the second language to communicate with others. Language is a tool for us to communicate not only study for exams. As for me, my task is to motivate my students to use them as much as possible in my class although it is a second language. Communicative approach is frequently used in my class. In fact, students are willing to take part in the  communicative activities which teachers organized in class.  (Widdowson，1978). For teachers, CLT is an efficient approach and it can help students to develop their communicative abilities.(Savigion, 1997). The most important thing I should do is to create a communicative atmosphere for my students. For example, I often organize my students to do some role plays while teaching speaking . And they are eager to take part in some communicative activities like this. What’s more, students can master a lot of sentence structures during this communicative and interactive process . If teachers can design a lot of interesting activities for our students, they can provide students with more chances to communicate.(Lee, And van Patten. 1995).

In addition, students need to master the linguistic forms, meanings and functions, a lot of students may be under much pressure when they do some communicative activities. They can’t really get involved and enjoy the communicative process. One important thing I should do is to encourage my students and give them chances to express themselves. If they can express their own ideas, they may be willing to engage in the activities which teachers organize. For example, I sometimes organize interesting communicative activities in class such as group-work. Divide students into several groups, then they can discuss and share their own ideas with each other . As a result, they may not be very anxious about their performance and engage in the communicative activities actively. In addition, I also have the responsibility to observe their performance and give them feedback to help them improve their fluency and accuracy.

With these years’ experiment on CLT in my class, it has some obvious characteristics. Above all, teachers frequently focus on students’ communication through interaction in the target language and establish prompt communication among students. So activities should be for true communicative purpose , according to Morrow( Johnson and Morrow 1981). Besides, all these communicative interactions should be meaningful and realistic . So creating real situations is very necessary. When I teach speaking, I select the materials from course books and choose materials which are really related to their real life. And design some activities which happen in their daily life. All that I have done can motivate my students to participate in some classroom activities and arouse their interests. For example, I create a scene of shopping in class while teaching clothes and price. I create a scene of a restaurant while teaching how to order food. Students can easily deal with these activities because we create real situations for them to use language and they have interests in expressing their opinions.

Another characteristic of CLT process is that the focus of class is students not teachers. We call it student-centred class. In traditional class, teachers are the main roles in class, so students are not willing to express themselves most of the time. Communicative approach requires us to focus more on students and give them opportunities to communicate with each other.(Widdowson 1994:36) .The teacher should be a helper and an observer(Widdowson 1994:44). Finally , CLT process includes a lot of communicative activities such as dialogues , role plays and so on. Students can share information with each other. If there is no sharing and communicating, there will be no language process. Through these activities, students’ communicative abilities will be improved in a natural way .

In Chinese traditional English class, students usually just listened to what teachers said. They are forced to study . However, Communicative Approach can make interactions happen.  Students take part in the activities not to be forced and they can also learn a lot from these communicative activities. This approach also can make students creative. That is to say, students have the opportunities to express their own opinions and share with each other. It is so meaningful for them. Students also can affect each other, some brilliant ideas may be produced through interaction . For example, when I ask my students to do some discussion guessing , their imagination and interaction can bring a lot of excellent ideas. During the communicative process, they can also learn a lot from each other , such as new vocabulary , useful sentence structures and so on. As a result, students make a great progress by cooperating with their peers.

What’s more, a lot of interactions can help students to get their security. Since teachers are not so dominant in class, students can be more independent. (Littlewood, William 1981). They can try to communicate by themselves and really enjoy the process of learning knowledge and communicating with each other. The stress will be lower if I am not in control of them too much . For example, when I teach reading , if the reading material is too complicated, I will divide my students into groups, they can discuss in tables. They can collect answers to my questions through discussing and sharing. To some extent, my students are not afraid to answer my questions or engage in the communicative activities . Security is very important for the students who learn English as a second language(Littlewood, William 1981).

Conclusion

In conclusion, my essay shows that the aim of learning language is for communication. Teachers should give students more opportunities to communicate and interact with each other in English class to develop their communicative competence which is good for their further learning. The good features of CLT process are very obvious. Meanwhile , it can motivate my students to get involved , be more creative and enhance the security of learning. However, there are still some challenges for us. For example, how can we design some good communicative activities for students ? How can we balance between the aims for communicating and taking exams while teaching? I will continue to research in these aspects and use this approach more efficiently in my class.

References：

[1]Widdowson, H.G.1978. Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

[2]Savignon, Sandra. 1997. Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice. (2nd edn.) New York: McGraw-Hill.

[3]Lee, James F. and Bill van Patten. 1995. Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen.

[4]Littlewood, William. 1981. Communicative Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[5]Johnson,Keith and Keith Morrow(eds.)1981. Communication in the Classroom.Essex: Longman.

[6]Richards, Jack C. Communicative language teaching today. SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 2005.