II. Introduce the communicative approach

1. The definition of communicative approach

   Communicative approach refers to the theory of teaching according to the principle that the students and teachers should genuinely communicate with each other using the target language.

2. Two principles of communicative approach

   Among the numerous principles of communicative approach, there are two pieces of principles, which are more important in China’s English teaching.

2.1 Create more realistic situation

   The current teaching methods don’t emphasize the real world situations and fail to cultivate students’ spontaneity. Artificial conventions and mechanical question-and-answer sequences fall short of the flexible, spontaneous kind of communicative interaction required for performing a task with the context of situation relevant to the real world. Such classroom teaching forces learners to talk about things that are not of their own choosing and not based on their actual needs. Instead, they are provided with a rigid set of guided structures in isolation. Taught in this way, the learners frequently fail when they are faced with the read to produce the language related to a specific situation.

    Simulation techniques seem to be a better alternative, as they seek to place learners in a situation where they are asked to take on different roles and to. accomplish their specific tasks, including problem solving. They offer an opportunity for the learners to practise using the language in the right place at the right time and as appropriately as possible.

    The most obvious advantage of these kind techniques is that it puts the learners in realistic situations. By simulating the physical circumstances of certain situations, the students can have the opportunity to use and to practise the sort of language, particularly the vocabulary related to that situation, so that learners are rehearsed for real life. In addition, they can express what they want to say whenever the situation calls for it. The teacher provides the best conditions for learning through creating the realist situation.

2.2 The class should be students-centered

    The focus of classroom should be shifted from the teacher to students. The present teaching in China, however, is just the opposite; the class is just mainly teacher-centered.

    The teacher does most the talking and always has the whole class under his strict control by lecturing, questioning, correcting students and often supplying correct answers to the exercises.

    In such a class, the teacher is obviously the most authoritative person. Students always act according to what the teacher wants them to accomplish put not what they themselves want to accomplish.

    Such kind of teachers’ role, in fact, encourages the students to depend too much on teachers without thinking independently. So it appears that sometimes, even if the students have understood the text they are reading, they do not have the courage to speak out when called upon, for fear that they may not be right. As a result, the long-term practice of teacher-centeredness in education has actually lessened the opportunities for the students to analyze and judge things for themselves, and it has possibly encouraged the students’ laziness in thinking. Giving up their natural instincts for active thinking, they may spend most of their time copying from the blackboard, following the teacher’s talk and taking the note. Too much of this will harm the students’ initiatives and reduce their enthusiasm in study.

    51 The class should be learners-centered. Communicative approach makes learners to be themselves and requires the classroom instructor to play a secondary role, trying to keep focus on the students not on himself and encouraging students to communicate among themselves. The teacher is expected to “lead from behind”, i.e, to act more as adviser and to participate in the interactions if possible. The teacher should allow full scope for his students’ spontaneous learning process and give more opportunities for the students to talk, perform and express their own ideas. In this way, the students will no longer feel inferior. Gradually, they will form a positive attitude toward English studying. The proposed teachers’ role in the classroom is significant not only for classroom methodological reasons, but also, as we shall see, for its effect on human relationships in classroom. This relationship will contribute favorably to effective learning.

    The role and relationship between the teacher and students are fixed by the students-centered principle. It is to say that the students are the main part in communication, while the teacher helps the students to communicate. The teacher can play several roles in the class: he directs the class activities, designs the scene of communication, and also he is a consultant ------ guiding the communication and solving the problems in communication. At the same time, the teacher should be a partner of communication ------ he takes part in the students’ communication. Of course, the students should throw themselves into communication actively. They can learn the target language through communication, and improve their listening and speaking ability through communication.

    These two pieces of principle, of course, will not solve all the problems, for communication teaching does not only involve methods and techniques but also material development, testing, class organization and possibly the retraining of the staff. These big issues have to be dealt with if a genuine communicative approach is to be followed.

    The communicative approach is an effective teaching method, which helps the students to develop the ability to use a new language practically. In specific language environment, it requires the students to communicate each other in the language they are learning. The students and teachers should put themselves into the “real” scene. Gradually, they accumulate the perceptual knowledge of English and then develop the sensibility of this language, thus, to achieve the purpose of grasping a language. Communicative approach, on the one hand, emphasizes teaching the students the real language; on the other hand, emphasizes that the students are the hubs of the class. The teacher should just organize and guide the students to have the communicative activities. From some aspects, we can say in the communicative activity, the process is more important than the result. So the teacher must arouse the students’ enthusiasm to the rein of their subjective initiative completely. It can not only avoid the drawbacks of grammar translation methods but also eliminate the ignorance of the students’ listening and speaking ability. It requires the stressing of listening, speaking, reading and writing. It also emphasizes the meaningful real communication. So in the teaching process, it sets up some language models which can be used in the real communication. Its focal point is to train the students to use the language in communicative circumstance. it helps the students to develop the skill of listening and speaking. It gives the students the chances to participate in the teaching activities.

The aim of teaching English is to develop the student’s ability of using language communicative ability. We say the process of teaching is the process of communication, so English teaching should use the communicative approach.

 III. Adopt communicative approach to improve students’ ability to listen and speaking

1. Three stages of communicative teaching

    Communicative approach is a good way to improve the students’ ability of listening and speaking, and it is thought highly by more and more people. Communicative teaching is a very complex process. The teacher can divide the students’ learning into three stages:

    In the first stage, the teacher is a sort of information --- he selects material to be learnt and presents it so that the students can understand it and remember it as clearly as possible. The students may do little talking but they should by no means be passive. Unfortunately this is often a stage which is prolonged unduly---indeed some lessons may consist of this stage only.

    The second stage is the practice stage. Mere the students do the talking organized from cue by the teacher--- this practice should be meaningful and memorable.

    The third stage is often ommitted by many teachers. It is a production stage; “No learning can be assumed to have taken place until the students are able to use the language for themselves (H.G. Widdowson).” They should be allowed, under the guidance of the teacher, to use the language freely, even if they make some mistakes as a result. This requires a more flexible attitude from the teachers to mistakes, if the student is constantly stopped and corrected, then eventually he will become discouraged and cease to be motivated to speak. Thus the teacher must prepare to take a backseat earlier in the learning process. After all, it is the students who are doing the learning, not the teacher (although of course, the teacher is learning all the time in other ways from the students).

    If the students can use the language for themselves, then they become aware that they have learnt something useful and are encouraged to go on learning: perhaps the most important factor is to keep up motivation in the learning process itself.

2. The class communicative activities

    Language learning takes place among the students and teachers who know their frequent frustration, many aspects of it are beyond their pedagogic control, it is likely, in fact, that many aspects of language learning can take place only through natural processes, which operate when a person is involved in using the language for communication. If this is so, communicative activity ( inside or outside the classroom) is an important part of the total learning process.

    Communicative activity provides opportunities for positive personal relationships to develop among learners and teachers. These relationships can help to humanize the class and to create and environment that supports the individual in his efforts to learn.

    Because of the limitation of the classroom, this requires the teacher to create more various social situations and relationships in the class. Simulation, role-playing, discussion and other teaching aids are important techniques for creating a wider variety of social situations and relationships.

    In looking for ways of creating more varied forms of interaction in the classroom, teachers of foreign language have turned increasingly to the field of simulation. Learners are asked to imagine themselves in a situation which would occur outside the classroom, and they are asked to behave as if the situation really excited.

    The following is an example of asking the way and giving direction. First, to test comprehension and introduce new language to the students. The students try to tell the teacher where they have arrived according to the teacher’s direction. then the students are able to practice their own using the models given. To gain as much practice as possible and to drill the structures, the students are required to change partners--- think themselves into being a stranger and ask the way, etc. Again the teacher acts as a guide--- he sets the activity in motion and monitors individuals, he controls the lesson from indirect distance.

    Teaching a foreign language is difficult because the teacher is trying to teach in the classroom something which is normally learnt outside and used outside the normal range of experience of the classroom. Thus in the classroom the teacher and students have to try to create similar conditions to those outside the classroom in order to facilitate the learning process.

    The teacher sometimes can produce a particular kind of interaction. There will also be increasing scope which gives learners greater responsibility for creating the interaction themselves. The control doesn’t determine so much the specific meanings that learners express. It is directed at the higher level of situation and the goals that learners have to achieve through the communication. The situation is a discussion about a real or simulated issue. The learners’ roles ensure that they have shared the adequate knowledge about the issue and they have different opinions or interests to defend. At the end of the activity, they may have to reach a concrete decision or put the issue to a not.

     For example, here is an activity form over to you, learners work in groups of four. Learners are a group of people who are anxious to help the old in their small town, and they are managed to make a start by collecting 1000 from local inhabitants and holding jumble sales. The students study their roles and then discuss how the money can best be used.

Student B: Role: Mr. Rix, the local vicar. He wishes to found an Old People’s Club which will meet in the church hall. Some of the & 1,000 that have been collected were raised by holding jumble sales in the church hall.

Student C: Role: Mr. David, headmaster of the local primary school. He is anxious for the pupils at his school to play a role in helping the aged.

Student D: Role: Mrs. Foster, widow. She thinks the money should be used to renovate an old country house which would be used as an old people’s recreation center.

    This example illustrates how a discussion may intergrate a number of different kinds off language activity, involving a variety of skills. Thus, learners must first digest the information relevant to the issue. This involves them in reading. In other activities, it might also involve them in listening to talks or discussions.In the second part, learners most discuss in small group, where the roles for speaking are informed. They must present their views in a more public context, there are sticker rules governing who speaks, when and to whom, and a higher level of formality is expected. The student’s ability of listening and speaking can be improved in discussions.

    “Role-playing” is one method of getting the students to imagine they are someone else and play that part. The following is an example, used in context of discussing television. The teacher can use cue cards, which are designed as prompts for a conversation. Notice that this activity involves the students in group work, which is also an important feature of reproducing real life confitions inside the classroom. In everyday life people often talk together in groups and the students must be able to follow and join in, if they are not to feel excluded from the society they are trying to be members of. Again the students are doing the work, i.e., speaking and listening, they are doing the learning.

Cue cards ( each member of the group of 4-5 is given one of the following cards and required to become the person.

   When the teacher does this sort of exercise first he can explain how to use the cards. This type of group work is very important for those students who are too shy to speak in front of the whole class and directly to the teacher for fear of making a fool of themselves. In a group situation they can join in without so much fear of making mistakes and if mistakes do occur, classmates or the teacher can correct them directly. The prospect of standing up in front of everyone and saying something in a foreign language really is a terrifying prospect for some students and it is no wonder that they say “I’m sorry”, “I don’t know”, when the teacher ask them in front of the whole class. Pair work is also a good way of giving the shy student encouragement to speak. If these methods are not used, the only students who will ever open their mouths will be hold ones who are certainly not in the majority. The less hold will eventually give up, get bored and think about everything else except English in class. In oral work, the teacher is essentially an organizer, not the one who does all the talking, with a few contributions from the better and braver students.

    Pictures are another extremely useful visual aid. Pictures of people and places are much more interesting than ordinary objects. This is another chance for group work and genuine discussion. The class can be divided into groups of four and five and each given a picture of a person. They have then to decide on how old the person is, whether the person is married or single, what his job is and what his personality is. they should also give their reasons for their opinions. Each group gives 3-4 reasons for their opinions. Each group is given 3-4 minutes to agree on the information about the person in the picture. The picture is then passed on to the next group, and so on. When all the groups have looked at and discussed all the pictures, the teacher can pool the impressions of the various groups and compare the impressions. This can lead to some interesting differences of opinion and further discussion. Here again the students are being drilled in giving personal information without realizing it. In addition, they are being drilled meaningfully and communicatively because they are expressing their own ideas.

    A variation on this is a sequence of pictures of people and places. Here the students are required to put the pictures in a logical order and tell a story according to the arrangement. This provides practice in speaking for longer periods of time. Once the group has worked out the story, one member of his group will go to another group and try to decide the story of that group from the arrangement of the pictures. They may ask the remaining member questions and the teacher can guide them if necessary, without actually telling them the story. Thus the students at an advanced level can be motivated to speak English for quite prolonged periods of time without becoming bored. These are only two ways in which pictures can be used --- there are more if the teacher uses his imagination. It have several advantages, the main one is that it keeps the students active when listening and speaking.

    Communicative activities are very important in language learning. It may be useful to consider briefly what the teacher might hope to achieve through the communicative activity in the classroom. Since this will determine his own attitude toward it and what he gives it in his overall methodology. The learners’ ultimate objective is to take part in communication with others. Their motivation to learn is more likely to be sustained if they can see how their classroom learning is related to this objective and helps them to achieve it with increasing success.

3. Achieve the goal of English teaching through communicative approach. English is an international language. It is like “ a window on the world”. Moreover, as the result of frequent, contacts among people in different nations, the ability of listening and speaking becomes more important. We accept that the purpose of learning a foreign language is to enable the learner to behave in such a way that he can participate to some degree and for certain purpose as a member of a community other than his own. Teachers, who adopt the traditional method of teaching, neglect the ability of students’ listening and speaking. Now the teachers have faced with the problem of improving the students’ ability of listening and speaking. But now we lack the environment of studying foreign language, and our English lessons are limited. Under these circumstances, communicative approach is a good method to improve the students’ ability of listening and speaking. For ex: In China, nowadays the teaching of English plays a very important role in socialist modernization. The world is the hope-for-world of economic growth, advanced technology and applied science. The role of English. In the teaching of English, the basic questions are why the students are learning English and what the students will use the language for. We think that the purpose of learning a foreign language is to enable the learner to behave in such a way that he can participate to some degree and for certain purposes as a member of a communicate with each other, and so the ability of listening and speaking is very important. We always talk about listening and speaking together. We must be aware of the fact that oral communication is a two-way process between speakers and listeners. In our class, both the teacher and students are speakers and listeners. Thus the speakers do not always imitate, they also respond to what they have heard (e.g. answering a question or making a comment). While the listeners do not always remain silent ------ they are normal expected to make some sort of response.

The old methods of learning a language are slow. Secondary school students have taken six years to master the essentials of English and still are not able to speak the language well in many cases. The traditional methods of teaching do not allow the learners to express their own ideas, activities and personality, which is though t to be important especially for students. For example, mechanical drills do not allow the students to express their own ideas, therefor , they will not be interested in listening, their listening efficience will be impaired. Under the present situation, communicative approach is a better way to improve our English teaching. For the teachers, the new method means more varieties to devise the lessons; for the students as well, the new method more opportunities to practice their listening and speaking, and to have the freedom to express themselves. Thus, the communicative approach makes the teaching more fulfilling. Just as some linguists have said: “English language teaching should be made of communication by communication and for communication.”