ASSIGNMENT ON BACKGROUND TO ELT METHODOLOGY USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGHanoi National University of Education Faculty of English---฀฀฀฀฀--- ASSIGNMENT ON BACKGROUND TO ELT METHODOLOGYUSING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN ENGLIS

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Hanoi National University of Education

Faculty of English -฀฀฀฀฀ -

ASSIGNMENT ON BACKGROUND TO

ELT METHODOLOGYUSING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Academic Year: 2021 – 2022

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Hanoi National University of Education

Faculty of English -o0o -

Academic Year: 2021 – 2022

2 Using communicative activities in English Language Teaching and learning 9

2.5 Advantages and disadvantages of using communicative activities in

I INTRODUCTION

English has become an essential and compulsory communicative language

in Vietnam since we opened up the world in 1986 Many ex-pats using English as asecond language from Asia, Australia, the U.S., and Europe when investing in

Vietnam make it one of many reasons to motivate Vietnameses to learn English tofacilitate effective communication with their partners Languages allow us to

understand cultures and visions, enable learners to be aware of the diversity ofcultures and viewpoints in the world community, bond friendship, and so on

Learners should be able to use English as a fundamental communicative tool aswell as for more accessible and broader access to bodies of knowledge and willhave a vision in leading their lives

Realizing its vast value, The Ministry of Education in Vietnam has beenfocusing on the English language programs and placed them in the curriculum rightfrom elementary to higher education Although English is flourishing, the teaching

of English is not pay off

Vietnamese people's proficiency in using English has fallen for the third year

in a row to reach the lowest point since 2015, according to the 2019 EnglishProficiency Index compiled by the global education firm Education First(EF)

This year’s report, EF’s biggest league table to date, showed Vietnam

drastically dropping to 52nd place out of 100 countries and regions with ascore of 51.57, which is considered “low” proficiency.1

1 (n.d.) EF EPI 2021 – EF English Proficiency Index Retrieved January 7, 2022, from

https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/

Education specialists were not surprised at the poor results, saying the scoresreflect the quality of English teaching and learning in Việt Nam despite aproject from the Ministry of Education and Training to improve the quality

of foreign language teaching nationwide in 2008-20 period

Dr Lê Trường Tùng, chairman of the management board of the FPT

University, told the Voice of Việt Nam (VOV) online newspaper that thequality of teaching English depended largely on the capacity of teachers andteaching conditions In Việt Nam, English teaching and learning methodstend to help students score high in the exam, not help them use the languageeffectively in practice According to Dr Nguyễn Quốc Bình, former

principal of Việt Nam-Germany High school in Hà Nội said the quality ofteaching and learning English at high schools in many localities have notmet practical demand “We have to look at the fact that our teachers have alot of shortcomings Our teaching methods remain outdated and have notcaught up with modern teaching methods,” he said Poor English Exam(Results Reflect Teaching Quality: Education Experts, 2020)

Speaking is a productive skill that seems to be the most important of all thefour language skills because it can distinctly show the correctness and errors that alanguage learner makes Many students equate being able to speak as knowing thelanguage and therefore view leaming how to speak the language Therefore, ifstudents do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in theclassroom they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning On theother hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can

be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English languageclassroom a fun and dynamic place to be

Teaching language with influential theories, directions, and ways of

instructing is a vital topic in the current fields of teaching and learning Locatingthe most appropriate and effective teaching and learning methodologies and

strategies for a given situation is essential for language learning classrooms Overthe years, many theories have been created to meet the needs of the learners of thatperiod However, due to the rapid development of social and cultural

environments, many contemporary theories have been developed and employed in

a variety of different approaches and applications This paper is a literature reviewpaper that discusses the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach Thepurpose of it is to outline the advantages, disadvantages, and applications of CLT.The researcher reviewed some historical and current documents relating to how aCLT approach can benefit the classroom environment

II MAIN CONTENT

1 Literature review of Communicative Approach

1.1 What is Communicative Approach?

Prof Jack C Richards once said: “In my experience many language

teachers when you ask them to identify what methodology they use they often

mention communicative as the methodology of choice However, when pressed togive a more detailed account of what they mean by communicative their

explanations tend to vary Does it mean teaching conversation? does it mean anabsence of grammar in a course? or perhaps an emphasis on open-ended discussionactivities as the main features of a course?” (Professor Jack C Richards -

Communicative Language Teaching, 2017)

According to Richard, 1997, “Communicative Approach in language

learning is an approach that is used in learning the second language or foreignlanguage that emphasizes on the improvement of communicative ability”, that is

”the ability to apply the language principle in order to produce grammatical

sentences and understand ’when, where, and to whom’ the sentences used”2

The communicative method focuses on language as a medium of

communication It recognizes that communication has a social purpose – learnerwho has something to say or find out.” Communication embraces a whole

spectrum of functions and notions” (Richards, Jack C & Rogers, Theodore S.,2001)

In 1980, the applied linguist Michael Canale and Swain published an

influential article in which they categorized communicative competence into fourcomponents They said that “communicative ability is formed by four

competencies: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discoursecompetence, and strategy competence”

Grammatical competence relates to language system mastery, such as:

’vocabulary, word formation, and sentence meaning’ Sociolinguistic competence

is the competence to understand and produce accurate utterance in accordance withthe context in which the utterance happen Discourse competence relates to theability in combining the form and the meaning of a language Besides

understanding the kinds of discourse that is cohesive and coherent, strategy

2 (2012, July 1) Communicative Approach: An Alternative Method Used in Improving Retrieved

January 7, 2022, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079667.pdf

competence refers to the ability to overcome obstacles and simultaneously improvethe effectiveness of communication (1983: 6-10).3

According to Littlewood, communicative competence means, a degree ofmastery of a very considerable range of linguistic and social skills which depend inpart on the learners’ sensitivity to meaning and appropriacy in language and onhis/her ability to develop effective strategies for communicating in the secondlanguage.’ (Littlewood, 1981.87)

K Johnson and K Marlow say that communicative competence is ‘the ability to beappropriate, to know the right thing to say at the right time.’ (Johnson and Morrow,1981.2)

International Encyclopedia of Education defines communicative competence as the

“effective use of language in social contexts.” (The International Encyclopedia,1985.834)

According to Widdowson, communicative competency is “the ability to producesentences for communicative effect.” (Widdowson, 1978.1)

It is revealed from the above definitions that communicative competence is – Theability to use language appropriately in a given social context The ability to beappropriate to know the right thing at the right time

Linguistic competence plus an understanding of proper use of language in variouscontexts Knowledge which is additional to linguistic competence

Ability to communicate something which is grammatical, proper, socially

accepted, formally possible, fluent in a particular context

3 (2016, March 29) A Brief History of ELT: Part 2 - Communicative Language Teaching Retrieved

January 7, 2022, from

http://theeltexchange.com/2016/03/29/brief-history-elt-part-2-communicative-language-teaching/

In this way communicative competence includes both grammatical knowledge andthe ability to use this knowledge to perform different kinds of functions like

enquiring, suggesting, greeting, denying, advising, reporting, apologizing, inviting,and promising

The communicative approach is based on the idea that learning a languagesuccessfully comes through having to communicate real meaning When learnersare involved in real communication, their natural strategies for language

acquisition will be used, and this will allow them to learn to use the language

To illustrate, practicing question forms by asking learners to find out personalinformation about their colleagues is an example of the communicative approach,

as it involves meaningful communication

In the classroom, classroom activities guided by the communicative approach arecharacterized by trying to produce meaningful and real communication, at alllevels As a result, there may be more emphasis on skills than systems, lessons aremore learner-centered, and there may be the use of authentic materials

1.2 What is its main goal?

The goal of the communicative approach lies in activities Practicing withcommunicative activities can certainly help students develop their language

abilities Harmer (2002) states that communicative activities are aimed at

developing students' ability to use language to interact with people in real

situations Hymes (1978 as cited in Angwattanakul, 1994) explains that

communicative abilities can enable learners to use language or interpret it correctly

in social interactions Communicative activities make learners notice who is

talking with whom, when they should or should not say something, and how theyshould say something In short, a communicative approach is a teaching approachthat encourages learners to use language inappropriate situations and social

interactions To have a full understanding of the communicative activity, we need

to consider its definitions as well as its benefits and drawbacks

2 Using communicative activities in English Language Teaching and learning.2.1 What are Communicative activities?

As mentioned above, activities are the goal of the Communicativeapproach So, what are Communicative activities? Communicative activitiesrefer to the classroom activities that provide a genuine information gap andmake it possible for language learners to communicate with the target

language in Communicative Language Teaching Approaches (Liao, 2000)

Communicative activities include any activities that encourage andrequire a learner to speak with and listen to other learners, as well as withpeople in the program and community

In other words, communicative activities are activities that givestudents both a desire to communicate and a purpose that involve them in avaried use of language They have real purposes, such as to find information,

to break down barriers, to talk about oneself, and to learn about the culture.Even when a lesson is focused on developing reading or writing skills,

communicative activities should be integrated into the lesson

Communicative activities are fluency-based activities (TaitS.,2001) Whilesuch activities may involve students to practice a particular grammaticalform, they are likely to do more than this The key element is that the

activity is based on a realistic situation This could be anything from anencounter in a department store to a group of friends discussing holidayplans, etc Within this kind of context, students should be required to

negotiate for meaning This is likely to require multiple turn-takings

2.2 Kinds of communicative activities

There are various types of exercises and activities in thecommunicative approach which “help students to achieve the

communicative competence and engage learners in communication”

(Richards, 2001) Communicative activities play a vital role in

communicative language teaching These activities are helpful for the

teachers to broaden their repertoire of techniques and activities so as toenable the learners to communicate more effectively in foreign languages.Communicative activities are purposeful and objective-oriented

According to Littlewood, the communicative activities can berepresented diagrammatically as follows (Littlewood, 2003.86)

● Structural activities

● Pre-Communicative activities

● Quasi Communicative activities

● Functional Communicative activities

● Communicative activities

● Social interaction activities

(This diagram is adapted from Littlewoods’ Communicative Language

Teaching, P.86 )4

In these two major categories, the first types (Pre-communicativeactivities) serve to prepare the learner for later communication

2.2.1 Pre-communicative activities

The two sub-categories of pre-communicative activities are:

- Structural activities: Focus is on the grammatical system and on ways

in which linguistic items can be combined

- Quasi- Communicative activities: Focus is on one or more typicalconversation exchanges Some resemble drills, but other is closer todialogues Drills and dialogues can be combined so as to provide abridge from formal exercise to communicative use

4 (n.d.) Littlewood, W (1981) Communicative language teaching Retrieved January 7, 2022, from

https://www.scirp.org/(S(lz5mqp453edsnp55rrgjct55))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx?ReferenceID=9 91780

2.2.2 Communicative Activities

The two sub-categories of communicative activities are:

- Functional Communicative activities include such tasks ascomparing sets of pictures, noting similarities and differences, working out

continuously following directions, and so on In these activities, learners mustwork towards a definite solution for a problem

- Social interaction activities comprise the exchange of words,converse with others, improvisations and debates Here, teachers preparelearners about the varied social contexts in which they will need to performoutside the classroom using different social interaction activities

There is no clear dividing line in reality between these different categories andsub-categories; they represent differences of emphasis and orientation rather thandistinct divisions For instance, cued dialogues can be undertaken both as

pre-communicative activity and as communicative activity Similarly, it would bearbitrary if we try to specify how much attention must be paid to communicativefunction before an activity can be called quasi- communicative, or how significantsocial meaning must become before it falls into the social interaction sub-category.This distinction depends on the varying orientation of individual learners

(Characteristics Of Communicative Language Teaching English Language Essay,2015)

2.3 Characteristics of communicative activities

The success of a communicative activity can be determined by the extent towhich learners are dependent on the teacher Tasks should be devised in a mannerthat learners gain autonomy and independence while learning

The role of the teachers is to give clear and to-the-point instructions andprovide the appropriate environment for learners to interact and exchange

information