clt unity within diversity - p heip - 2007

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Communicative language teaching:unity within diversity

Pham Hoa Hiep

Recent articles in theE LTJournaloffer interesting debates onC LT. On one side,Bax (2003) proposes thatC LTshould be abandoned since the methodology

fails to take into account the context of language teaching. On the other side,

Liao (2004) suggests thatC LTis best. However, within the broad theoreticalposition on whichC LTis based, different understandings ofC LTexist, and itis not clear what version(s) or element(s) of CLTthese authors reject oradvocate.

This article presents what are considered to be the key theoretical tenets of CLT. Itthen discusses the meanings ofC LTtheory in classroom practices, showing thedynamics of context that construct these meanings. Drawing on a study ofteachers beliefs and implementation ofC LTin Vietnam, the article argues thatinherent inC LTis a view of language, of language learning, and teaching thatmost teachers aspire to. When C LTtheory is put into action in a particular context,

a range of issues open up, but these issues do not necessarily negate the potentialusefulness ofC LT.

Communicativelanguage teaching

Since its birth in the early 1980s, definitions ofC LT and the matter of itsappropriateness in certain cultures have constantly been debated. Brown(1994) notes thatC LTis based on a broad theoretical position about thenature of language and of language learning and teaching. This broadtheory has generated many different ways of understandings, descriptions,and uses ofC LT, challenging what it actually means to classroom teachers.

This article first identifies the common tenets ofC LT as proposed by the

main scholars in the field, and discusses the potential meanings ofC LTinclassroom practice. It then documents how a group of teachers in onecontext define and appraiseC LT, and how they struggle to implement thekey aspects ofC LTthey value. The findings imply that ongoing debate,exchange with peers and students, support from policy makers and fromteacher education courses can empower teachers in their aspirations todevelop communicative techniques appropriate to their context.

The theoreticaltenets

Current understandings ofC LT can be traced back to Hymes (1972), whoproposed that knowing a language involved more than knowing a set of

grammatical, lexical, and phonological rules. In order to use the languageeffectively learners need to develop communicative competencethe

ELTJournal Volume 61/3 July 2007; doi:10.1093/elt/ccm026 193 The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

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ability to use the language they are learning appropriately in a given socialencounter. Hymes notion of communicative competence was elaborated bya number of practice-oriented language educators, most notably by Canaleand Swain (1980) who contended that communicative competencecomprisesgrammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discoursecompetence, and strategic competence.

While North American scholars focused on communicative competence asthe goal of second language learning, British educators tended to viewC LTin terms of syllabus and methodology. For example, Breen and Candlin(1980: 98) set out the essentials of a communicative classroom which:

. . .can serve as a focal point of the learning-teaching process . . .[it] nolonger needs to be seen as a pale representation of some outsidecommunicative reality. It can become the meeting place for realisticallymotivated communication-as-learning, communication about learning,and meta-communication. . . . A communicative methodology willtherefore exploit the classroom as a resource with its owncommunicative

potentials.Savignon influenced even further reflections onC LT. Drawing on theimplications of Canale and Swains definition of communicativecompetence, and elaborated over two decades, Savignon emphasized thatCLT put the focus on the learner: Learner communicative needs providea framework for elaborating program goals in terms of functionalcompetence (2002: 3). She continued to propose five components ofa communicative curriculum which would help support boththe theoreticaland practical foundations ofC LT:

1 Language arts includes those elements that teachers often do best; it maybe all they have been taught to do including exercises used in mothertongue to focus attention on formal accuracy.

2 Language for a purposeis the use of language for real communicationgoals.

3 Personal English language userelates to the learners emerging identityin English.

4 Theatre artsmeans to teach in a way that can provide learners with thetool they need to act in new language such as to interpret, express, andnegotiate meaning.

5 Beyond the classroomrefers to the need to prepare learners to use the

language they learn in the world outside the classrooms.

The scholars above illuminate views of whatC LT should be within thecommunicative theory of language and language learning. All see theessenceoflanguagelearningtobebasedonrealcommunicationratherthansimplyon learningthe vocabulary, grammar, and structureof a language. Inother words, their common agreement is that the need for meaningfulcommunication supports the language learning process, and thusclassroom activities should focus on learners genuine communication.While communicative activities are considered to be the means to developlearners communicative competence in the second/foreignlanguage, theseactivities cannot take place without the control of grammar, but situate

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grammatical competence within a more broadly defined communicativecompetence (Savignon op. cit.).

How to developcommunicativecompetence

What varies, however, is how real communicative competence is to bedeveloped. While Savignon believes that even exercises in the mothertongue can be one of the many ways to develop communicative competenceso long as these exercises are not overused, others posit that communicative

competence will emerge naturally from practice in communicativeinteraction that has meaning. In either case, the issue left for classroomteachers to discover is what communication means, and how it can becreated within their context. The implication is that teachers need to workthat out for themselves. As Richards and Rodgers (1986: 83) put it veryearly on:

Communicative Language Teaching is best considered an approachrather than a method. Thus although a reasonable degree of theoreticalconsistencycanbe discerned at thelevelsof languageand learningtheory,at the levels of design and procedure there is much greater room for

individual interpretation and variation than most methods permit.

CLTin practice As seen above, althoughthetheory of communicative competenceon whichCLTis based is uniform, it is broad. As a result, what C LTlooks like inclassroom practices may not be uniform. These practices may varydepending on the dynamics of a certain context which constructs the actualmeaning of communicative competence as well as the tools to develop it.

In the Western English speaking context, where immigrants learn Englishin order to conduct their present and future life in communication withnative and other competent English speakers, the English languageclassroom operates on the principle of immersing learners in Anglo-Saxonsociety. It is, thus, important in the Western classroom to establish whatHolliday (1994: 54) calls the learning group ideal or the optimuminteractional parameters, within which, learners, by interacting with eachother on meaningful things, can best develop the communicative skills theyimmediately use in their real life. To facilitate this learning group idealBrown (op. cit.) describes the practices to be used in the classroom such as:

1 A significant amount of pair work and group work is conducted.2 Authentic language input in real life context is provided.3

Students are encouraged to produce language for genuine, meaningfulcommunication.

Nunan (1989: 194) also stresses the use of activities [that] involve oralcommunication, carrying out meaningful tasks, and using language whichis meaningful to the learner, and the use of materials [that] promotecommunicative language use; they are task-based and authentic.

However, when the above practices are used in Vietnam or China, a rangeof issues emerge, given that the socio-cultural, political, and physicalconditions of these countries markedly differ from those in the UK or theUSA. For example, in Vietnam, English language students share the samemother tongue and thus do not have the immediate need to use English inthe classroom. Nor do many of them have this need outside the classroom.

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The principle of doing tasks in the classroom which are applicable to theworld outsidethe classroom is thusquestioned. WhenVietnamese studentsare asked to use English to conduct a real life game in pairs, the questionraised is whether they are really engaged in genuine communication.1

Furthermore, the use of authentic material, meaning authentic to nativespeakers of English can be problematic in the Vietnamese or Chineseclassroom. As Kramsch and Sullivan (1996) point out, what is authentic in

London might not be authentic in Hanoi. Also, the large class size inVietnam (between forty and sixty) also challenges the use of pair work andgroup work.

For thepast 15 years, researchersand writers (for example,Pennycook 1989;Holliday op. cit.; Kramsch and Sullivanop. cit.) have continuedto argue thatit can be problematic to take a set of teaching methods developed in one partof the world and use it in another part. These authors point out thateducation is situated in a particular cultural environment, and that withinthisenvironment,the definition of goodteaching is sociallyconstructed. Inthis way, assuming that what is appropriate in one particular educational

setting will naturally be appropriate in another is to ignore the fact that ELTmethodology is grounded in an Anglo-Saxon view of education. This, asPennycook (op. cit.: 611) notes, constitutes cultural imperialism in Englishlanguageeducation, carried out by the many Western teachers abroad [who]blithely assume superiority of their methods. More recently, Bax (2003)strongly criticizes what he terms as the C LT attitudethe assumption thatCLTis modern, most progressive and always works across contexts.

However, while there are certainly problems in the transfer ofCLTmethodsfrom the Western contexts to others, it is questionable whether theseproblems negate the potential usefulness of theC LTtheory. Larsen-Freeman (2000: 67) warns that in the combat against imported methods,we may fail to understand the cause of the problem and run the risk ofoveracting and losing something valuable in the process. Undoubtedly, CLToriginates in the West, but to decidea priorithat this teaching approach isinappropriate to a certain context is to ignore developments in languageteaching, and this might lead to the de-skilling of teachers.

As noted at the beginning of this article, C LTtheory proposes a focus onlearning; it holds that learning is likely to happen when classroom practicesare made real and meaningful to learners.C LT sets the goal of language

learning to be the teaching of learners to be able to use the languageeffectively for their real communicative needs, rather than simply to providelearners with the knowledge about the grammar system of that language.This goal is consistent with the long-term goal, if not the immediate goal, ofEnglish language instruction in many contexts of the world. Thus, whileteachers in many parts of the world may reject theC LTtechniquestransferred from the West, it is doubtful that they reject the spirit ofC LT.

While many common Western C LT practices as well as issues associatedwith the use of these practices are well identified and criticized in theliterature, what these practices and issues mean for the local teachers

thinking and actions has yet to be fully explored. What are teachers beliefsand values aboutC LT? How do teachers go about implementing thesignificant aspects ofC LTthey espouse, if there are any, and how are they

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challenged in this process? Is it possible for teachers to incorporate thetheoretical tenets ofC LT without using common Western practices?

Teachers beliefsand use ofC LT: acase study

The data reported here are drawn from part of a study which sought toaddress some of the questions raised above. The study was conducted ina micro setting in Vietnam but it seems likely that the findings can stillilluminate some issues ofC LT that other teachers working in similar

contexts may encounter.

Participants The three teachers in this study comprised two senior teachers and onejunior teacher. They were teaching at a university in Vietnam. Two of themhadcompletedanMAdegree,andoneaPostgraduateDiplomain TESOL inAustralia. While the teachers did not represent the full diversity of potentialparticipants, and all were female, they did represent diversity in ages,seniority, teaching specialization, and length of experience.

The data presented here are sourced from 13 recorded 60-minuteconversations, conducted at intervals of 23 weeks, with these teachers, and

observation of their classes during a 12-week semester. Conversations andobservations were interwoven.

I acknowledge that the data presented below are necessarily selective andpartial. In theattempt to present to thereaders what I have found significantto the inquiry, I have chosen to include in the teachers quotations, excerpts,and classroom incidents that I believe best represent their thoughts andbehaviour. In doing so, I was aware of reporting the data from my ownperspective.

Beliefs aboutC LT All three teachers in the study highlighted the potential usefulness ofC LT,stressing thatC LT primarily meant teaching students the languagemeaningful for their future life, and helping to improve the classroomatmosphere. For example:

I am aware that the point of teaching [English] is for people to succeed inreal life communication. SoC LTis considered the best method in thisregard. . .Think of our students motivation. Most of them want to workin a foreign company, some want to become a tour guide, others wish towork in an internationalN GO. These jobs require good Englishcommunicative skills. (Xuan)2

I have no doubt thatC LTis the right method, not only for teachingEnglish but the spirit of it can also benefit teaching other subjects. It aimsto teach things practically useful to students in a relaxing manner. (Thao)

Studentscan learn best if thelearning atmosphere is fun, stimulating andstress-free. They should not feel that learning imposes on them. So I feelthatC LTis a good teaching method as it aims to create such anuninhibited atmosphere in the classroom. (Lien)

ImplementationofC LT

The majorC LT principle of teaching shared by the three teachers was theneed to create meaningful communication to support the learning process.Xuan said this meant to encourage students to use the language ina meaningful way not necessarily in an accurate form. Thao claimed it was


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to create a fun, stimulating and stress-free atmosphere. . .to facilitatemeaningful communication. Lien emphasized that the use of task-basedmaterials promoted communication among students.

However, when talking about the techniques to realize these principles, theteachers were more ambivalent. For example, Thao was conscious that themanyC LTtechniques that she had learnt in Australia contradicted herteaching context:

Iknowthat CLTcanbepromotedbytheactivitiessuchaspairwork,groupwork, role-play or simulation. Yet, I find it difficult to use these activitiesin my class. A major challenge is the lack of a real environment forthe students to use English. . .When asked to sit together to preparefor a role-play, a report, or to write a story, the students usually useVietnamese to do the work. . .. Since the teacher is Vietnamese, thestudents are Vietnamese, there is no motivation, no reason for them touse English. Its not like the context in Australia . . . where we are obligedto speak English because our teacher speaks English, the students from

different countries all speak English. . .

. Its quite difficult to motivatestudents to speak English in our condition.

Xuan noted that pair and group work are difficult to use because herstudents:

only want to pass exams for a university degree. . .. This piece of paper,you know! Though everyone claims they wish to speak English well, towrite English well. . .they seem to care more about passing exams. . ..You know how structure-based our exams are!

Lien saw the issue of culture challenges group work:

I always want the students to interact more with each other; they shouldrely less on the teachers. But when I give them opportunities to do that,for example, when they sit in pairs or groups to exchange opinions abouttheir answers to an exercise, they usually quarrel and cannot come toa compromise. One tends to think that his/her idea or way of doing thingsis better than his friends. I wonder if this is part of our [Vietnamese]classroom culture. People of the same status are not willing to collaboratewith each other, to accept criticism from their equal, while they feel moretolerant to accept ideas and suggestions from someone with a higherstatus . . . . They just want me to tell them what I think, to show them my

ideas, rather than listen to their friends.

The challenges the teachers envisaged and experienced in implementingthe common CLT techniques such as pair and group work made all of themtalk about the need to adapt rather than simply adopt C LT. However, theyappeared to lack confidence or skills to generate independent CLTpractices.Lien admitted:

IhavetroubleidentifyingwhatIdoisCLT,whatisnot.WhenIpreparefora particular activity, I open the methodology book, read again aboutC LTtheory, and see if the technique I want to use is C LT.

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Thao wondered if shewas really using CLTwhen she did something that didnot look exactly like a Western communicative technique. She confided, forexample:

I keep asking myself if I am using C LT when I allow the students to useVietnamese for their group discussion, then one [group member]presents [the work] to the whole class in English. They prefer this way.

The observation data showed all these three teacherstried hard to realize theCLT principles they espoused. For example, Xuan encouraged students toread texts without understanding the meaning of all the words, then sharedtheir responses with the whole class. Thao used role-play and group workin her class. Lien used current Vietnamese newspapers as prompts forstudents discussions in English. However, the teachers felt that thesecommunicative activities were, in general, not very successful. The failurescan be attributed in part to the factors reported above such as large class size,or lack of motivation to use English, and the concern for examinations.However, it was also clear that some teachers lacked repertoires to realize

CLT techniques such as group work in their context, as shown for example,in Thaos class:

T repeated the instructions several times asking Ss to form groups. StillSs could not organize themselves to form the groups. The class becamereally chaotic, with many Ss walking around, asking and explaining toeach other about what they were supposed to. After some 20 minutes,T finally managed to get about half of the Ss in the room to form newgroups. Yet, many otherswere still sitting in thewrong place . . . .Tlookedtired and desperate.

However, there was a positive note as she reflected on the event:

I wish I have a chance to see how group work could be done successfullywith large classes, with low-motivated students. Maybe, there is some wayto do it, but I dont know. . .

Unlike Thao, Lien did not experience the difficulty in getting students intogroups. However, her students did not have enough English tocommunicate with each other, and were not accustomed to doing so. Thefollowing was noted in her class:

During the work [whereSs were asked to play a role play], somepairs were

seen to be writing the script for the task. Others spoke in Vietnamese,asking each other how to say some Vietnamese word or phrase inEnglish. . . . The teacher movedaround to ensure that the studentsdidthework. She kept reminding the students: Try to speak English, noVietnamese, no writing please. . .. After the students finished, T askeda couple in the front to perform their work. The students stood up andread from their notes.

Xuans problem with usingC LThad more to do with the teacherherselfshe unconsciously retained her authority in the classroom.Although she said I keep encouraging students to talk more and do more

with English. . .

I give them more choice, some classroom exchanges suchas the one below seemed to be underpinned by a very different power in theteacher-student relationship:


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T: Everyone should work, try to speak English. I will randomly point atsome pairs and you must present your work to the whole class. If you do itwell I will add a credit to your semester mark. Remember that, classparticipation, as I said before, will make up to 30 per cent of your finalmark. . .. So be vocal.

Conclusion The data indicate that teachers tend to hold certain beliefs about their work.

Contrary to what Bax (2003) suggested, many teachers embraceC LT, notsimply becauseC LT represents a modern and progressive way of languageteaching. Neither do they embrace it simply because they want to please theeducational policy makers. The teachers in this study espouse firmly theprimary goal ofC LTto teach students to be able to use the languagebelieving that this is consonant with the students ultimate goal of learningEnglish in their context.

However, when it comes to the level of practice, teachers often encountermany difficulties. Their desire to implementC LT, which is manifestthrough efforts to promote common WesternC LT practices such as pair

work and group work, conflicts with many contextual factors. These factorsrange from systemic constraints such as traditional examinations, largeclass sizes, to cultural constraints characterized by beliefs about teacher andstudent role, and classroom relationships, to personal constraints such asstudents low motivation and unequal ability to take part in independentactive learning practices, and even to teachers limited expertise in creatingcommunicative activities like group work.

Harmer (2003: 292) notes that the concerns ofC LT are not with themethodology itself, rather with how they [CLTideas] are amended andadapted to fit the needs of the students who come into contact with them.The teachers cited here are not successful, at least in their eyes, in realizingcertain Western techniques such as pair work and group work. This failurecan lead to their rejection of these techniques. However, they do not rejectthe communicative approach, believing that learning must have a goal,and learning can best take place when the learning task is meaningful. Intheir aspirations to implementC LT, the teachers are going througha process of becoming reflectivethey have become conscious of theirown instructional practices, have started to question their ownunderstandings of whatC LT actually means, and are seeking alternativeways of action. Of course, how they can best be assisted and supported in

the process to make communicative techniques become apparent and realto their students within the potentials and constraints of their context, isan issue that needs further investigation.

CLT should not be treated as a package of formulaic, prescriptive classroomtechniques. Teachers in Vietnam or elsewhere need to make further effortsto develop and generate, within the communicative approach, classroomtechniques appropriate to their condition. However, teachers should not beleft alone in this process. Support from peers, students, from policy makers,from training courses as well as findings from empirical research on theuse ofC LTin certain contexts, particularly in non-Western contexts (forexample, Kramsch and Sullivan op. cit.) is deemed important in thisprocess. As Bax (2005: 90) says, teachers are capable of determining the

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best way to teach the lesson, so long they are empowered, encouraged andhelped to do so. But the best lesson is no doubt the one in which teachersfeel satisfied in their aspirations to create the learning atmosphere to teachthe language and the skills they believe are useful for their students.

Revised version received April 2005

Notes

1 I understand the argument that within theclassroom setting, regardless ofE SLorE FL, allcommunications/interactions taking placethrough role plays, games, or simulations areartificial, since they do not take place in the realsettings, such as the shopping centre or the postoffice. However, in manyE S Lclassrooms, theneed to communicate in English even forsimulations or exercises is real, at least becausestudents from different language backgrounds

cannot understand each other unless they useEnglish.2 All the names of teachers cited in this article are

pseudonyms.

References

Bax, S.2005. Correspondence. E LTJournal59/1:901.Bax, S. 2003. The end ofC LT: a context approach tolanguage teaching.E LTJournal57/3: 27887.Breen, M.andC. Candlin.1980. The essentials of

a communicative curriculum in language teaching.Applied Linguistics1/2: 89112.Brown, H. D.1994.Principles of Language Learningand Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice HallRegents.Canale, M. and M. Swain. 1980. Theoretical bases ofcommunicative approaches to second languageteaching and testing.Applied Linguistics1/1: 147.Harmer, J.2003. Popular culture, methods, andcontext.E LTJournal57/3: 28794.Holliday, A.1994. The house ofT ES EPand the

communicative approach: the special needs ofstate English language education. E LTJournal48/1:311.Hymes,D. 1972. On communicative competence inJ. B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds.).Sociolinguistics.Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Kramsch, C.andP. Sullivan.1996. Appropriatepedagogy.E LTJournal50/3: 199212.Larsen-Freeman, D.2000. On the appropriatenessof language teaching methods in J. Shaw,D. Lubeska, and M. Noullet (eds.).Language andDevelopment: Partnership and Interaction. Bangkok:Asian Institute of Technology.Liao, X.2004. The need for CommunicativeLanguage Teaching in China.E LTJournal58/3:2703.Nunan, D.1989.Designing Tasks for the

Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.Pennycook, A.1989. The concept of method,interested knowledge, and the politics of languageteaching.TE S O LQuarterly23/4: 589618.Richards, J.andT. Rodgers.1986.Approaches andMethods in Language Teaching. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Savignon, S. J.2002. Communicative curriculumdesign for the 21st century.English Teaching Forum40: 27.

The author

Pham Hoa Hiepis a lecturer in the Department ofEnglish at Hue College of Foreign Languages,Vietnam, where he teaches undergraduate andpostgraduate courses inTESOLand appliedlinguistics. He has also worked as a teacher educatorfor many projects in Vietnam. Hiep has an EdDin Language Education from the University ofMelbourne, and an MA in Bilingual/ESLStudiesfrom the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His

professional interests include teacher education,English as an international language, socioliguistics,andtranslation. He haspublished inEnglish TeachingForum,E LTJournal,TE S L -E J ,RELCAnthology,the

Journal of AsianTE F L, andTeachers Edition.Email: [email protected]


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