Communicative language teaching

A large body of research into modern foreign language teaching methods has indicated the importance of communicative language teaching approach, which “has

64

been acknowledged most widely over the past two decades” and the discussion on how it has been interpreted and understood in the UK has been highly focused (Mitchell 1994; Pachler, Barnes et al. 2009). Communicative language teaching has been widely known and introduced in China since 1979 (Li 1984) and teachers of Mandarin Chinese are likely to be educated or trained in communicative language teaching approaches which may affect their teaching in Mandarin Chinese classes. In order to answer the research question about how they teach and learn Mandarin Chinese, the literature relating to the communicative language teaching approach needs to be further considered.

The concept of communicative competence was originally developed as an innovation in language teaching in the U.S.A, in the 1970s, by the sociolinguist Hymes, and was further developed in the early 1980s by Canale and Swain (1980). According to Canale (1983), communicative competence refers to “the underlying systems of knowledge and skill required for communication” (p.5). He argues that communicative competence consists of four components, namely grammatical competence; sociolinguistic competence; discourse competence and strategic competence. Richards and Rodgers (1986, p.66) state that “the aims of CLT are to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and to develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication”. The form that communicative approach presents can be varied rather than being restricted to group activities in

65

which focused on oral communication practice. It is possible to incorporate cognitive teaching of grammar which "should be taught more liberally, with greater respect of the individual" (Holliday 1994, p.167).

As a reaction to traditional language teaching approaches such as Audiolingualism, classic communicative language teaching (1970s to 1990s) focused on language ability much more than grammatical competence (Richards 2006). While grammatical competence put great emphasis on how to produce a grammatically correct sentence rather than the meaning of the language. Classic communicative language learning argued that language ability should be involved much more in language teaching and learning than grammatical competence. Richards (2006) indicated that traditional grammatical and vocabulary syllabuses and teaching methods did not include information and knowledge for language skills towards different communication purposes such as making requests, giving advice and making suggestions. The notion of communicative competence reflected on examinations and their syllabus. For example, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) which was introduced in the mid-1980s, and two consecutive National Curriculum documents which was published in the 1990s “emphasised communication in a narrowly defined number of topics with clearly specified linguistic items/phrases, functions and structures at the expense of accuracy” (Pachler, Barnes et al. 2009, p.158). In this sense, at that time foreign language teaching and learning put more emphasis on

66

language appropriate for various communication purposes than on grammatical competence.

In recent years, “grammar has seen something of a renaissance” (Pachler, Barnes et al. 2009, p.158). The large amount of attention that was given to focus on meaning and language abilities in communicative purposes has led in some cases to the impression of CLT that it advocates meaning and message and do disregard grammatical structure. According to why grammar is important Savignon (2002) indicated that “learners seem to focus best on grammar when it relates to their communicative needs and experiences”. Pachler et al (2009) argued that grammar competence should not be seen as separate entities of communicative competence “pupils need a grammatical base in order to be of others” (p.159). Pachler et al (2009) also argued that “to teach learners certain grammatical features as set phrases can be legitimate in so far as it can stand pupils in good stead” (p.160). It is particularly work when pupils prepare for their public examinations. For example, the GCSE consultation Criteria (QCA 2007) required candidates “for each of AO2 (speaking) and AO4 (writing), at least 10% of the total marks for the subject must be allocated to knowledge and accurate application of the grammar and structures of the language prescribed in the specification” (cited in Pachler 2009, p.158). This research focuses on Mandarin Chinese’s teaching and learning in schools in the English context, in addition, in traditional Chinese teaching methods, grammar-translation method had been promoted in foreign language classes for many decades. As the teachers of Mandarin

67

Chinese might be from which means they might be educated in Chinese education system. It is worth to “reconcile the Grammar-translation Method with CLT to promote strategies that lead to a greater emphasis on communication” (Rao 2006, p.505).

Sociolinguistic competence which was mentioned by Canale (1983) was later broadened by Savignon (2002) into the notion of socio-cultural competence. Pachler et al (2009) identified that “the ability to understand the cultural context of foreign language use is a key aspect of effective communication in the target language” (p.181). According to language learners who enter into a new language and culture, lack of information and knowledge regarding different cultures. Social-cultural competence refers to interpret the target social context. It broadens learners mind, knowledge and sensitiveness. Pachler et al (2009) further argued that cultural awareness is not only limited by understanding target language and its culture, especially since foreign language learners familiar with new language and its culture. Socio-cultural competence then aimed to “enable pupils to identify with, recognise and draw comparisons between the cultures of their own country and the countries where the target language is spoken” (p.181).

The foreign language assistant was treated as a cultural resource (Pachler 2009), because they “can present a very valuable opportunity to enhance MFL work across all stage of cultural awareness” (p.199). As it was presented in Table 2.1, every year

68

there were around 100 Chinese language assistants teaching abroad for one year. Working and learning with language assistants provided a direct link for both teachers and pupils in English context access and understand the Chinese language the Chinese culture.

Byram (2002) extends Canale’s definition of communicative competence to include intercultural communicative competence. He argues that communicative competence also can be interpreted from an intercultural perspective which focuses on the relation between language and culture. Moreover, Cortazzi and Jin (1999) identified intercultural communicative competence as a fifth aspect of communicative competence which hereafter referred to as ICC. According to Byram, ICC encourages learners employing the target language as the primary communication code when they participate in a variety of activities. It contains the connotations of both socio-cultural competence and strategic competence of communicative competence, whilst broadened the scope of “social context” to recognise the hypbridity of source and target cultures. Today, CLT has been widely adopted in language teaching in both Chinese and British classrooms, creating a parallel between the two cultures in pedagogical methods.

Discourse competence emphasises the learner’ ability to use the target language in spoken and written discourse. Savignon (2002) identified two kinds of processing in discourse competence – “bottom-up” and “top-down”. “Bottom-up” process requests

69

learners a 100% understanding of the text with identification of certain words; and “top-down” process requests learners’ identification of certain words based on their understanding of the theme and purposes of the text. Discourse competence refers to the learners can combine grammatical forms and meanings in their writing and speaking.

The last component in the model is strategic competence. It refers to the ability of employing target language to cope variety communication situations, and also keep the communication channel open (Alptekin 2002). Strategic competence requests people use “both verbal forms and non-verbal communication to compensate for lack of knowledge in the other three components” (Dahmardeh 2009). It is interesting to explore whether the teachers and pupils can find ways to compensate for areas of weakness in Mandarin Chinese teaching, if so, the Chinese teaching and learning has communicative efficacy.

Recent critiques of CLT indicated some shifts which are taking place and will eventually change language teaching practice radically. Bax’s (2003) article “The end of CLT: a Context Approach to language teaching” argued that CLT is no longer the central paradigm in language teaching. However, Harmer(2003) did not show agreement with Bax. Harmer (2003) believed that in teacher’s teaching, methodology is at the heart of professional. He pointed out that “more fundamentally I have a problem with the idea that the learning context is necessarily the first place to start in

70

any educational exchange” (p.288). Harmer further criticised Bax’s (2003) work by arguing that,

“If, as Alastair Pennycook suggests, we ‘need to see English language teaching as located in the domain of popular culture as much as in the domain of applied linguistics’ (Pennycook 1998, p.162), then Stephen Bax’s article would seem to be a timely reminder that the social context in which learning takes place is of vital importance to the success of the educational endeavour. Nor would he find many, nowadays, who would argue that an insensitive insistence on a rigid methodology at the expense of classroom and learner realities was a course worth pursuing.” Harmer (2003, p.288)

The issues of authentic materials in language teaching has been described and discussed by many researchers (Richards 2001; Crawford 2002; Martinez 2002; Richards 2006). Richards claimed that:

• “Created materials can also be motivating for learners. Published materials are often designed to look like teenage magazines and other kinds of real world materials and may be just as interesting and motivating for learners.

• Authentic materials often contain difficult language and unneeded vocabulary items, which can be an unnecessary distraction for teachers and learners. Since they have not been simplified or written to any lexical or linguistic guidelines,

71

they often contain language that may be beyond the learners' abilities. • Created materials may be superior to authentic materials because they are

generally built around a graded syllabus and hence provide a systematic coverage of teaching items.

• Using authentic materials is a burden for teachers. In order to develop learning resources around authentic materials, teachers have to be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time locating suitable sources for materials and developing activities and exercises to accompany the materials.” (Richards, 2001, p.253)

Regarding to the use of authentic materials Crawford (2002) argued that “it is very difficult to find such materials which scaffold the learning process by remaining within manageable fields. It is also difficult for teachers legally to obtain a sufficient range of audio-visual materials of an appropriate quality and length” (p.85). Martinez (2002) concurs with above findings, furthermore, he highlighted that authentic materials may be “too culturally biased”. As different languages relay on different cultural structures, Martinez then argued that many structured mixed in language teaching process, which due to “lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts”(p.120).

72

It has been widely accepted that learner-centeredness is a distinctive feature of CLT (Richards and Rodgers 2001), as CLT inclined to “put a particular priority on learners and their communicative needs” (Xue 2009, p.27). Savignon (2002) argued that “the essence of CLT is the engagement of learners in communication to allow them to develop their communicative competence” (p.22). He also argued that “learner communicative needs provide a framework for elaborating program goals in terms of functional competence” (Saviganon 2002, p.3). However, some researchers (Holliday 1994; Saviganon 2002) questioned the differences between the definitions of “learning-centeredness” and “learner-centeredness”. In their view, CLT ought to be “learning-centered” rather than “learner-centered”. Holliday (1994) challenged the term of “learner-centered” which only emphasis the image of learners, and neglected teachers’ role in the learning process. O’Neill (1991) also emphasized the key role of teachers in the language learning process. He claimed that in language learning, it is not enough for learners learning with their own, and teachers only intervening when learners needed. According to O’Neill’s (1991) finding, many students feel more comfortable when they worked with teachers.

In CLT, the teacher serves as more of a facilitator, allowing students to be in charge of their own learning and this is known as a learner-centred classroom. According to Larsen-Freeman (1986), the teacher plays a less dominant role, with learners being persuaded to shoulder a greater level of responsibility for their own learning. Teachers are still required to set up exercises and give directions to the class, however, they

73

carry out more communicative classroom activities and students are engaged in considerably more speaking activities and communicating than would be the case in a traditional classroom, which allows them to learn more actively for themselves and to see how language works as “a formal system” (Beale 2002).