Firstly, communicative activities provide “whole-task practice”: In considering how people learn to carry out various kinds of skilled performance, it is often useful to distinguish between (a) training in the part-skills of which the performance is composed and (b) practice in the total skills, sometimes called “whole-task practice”. When mentioning the roles of communicative activities, Littlewood
(1981) says that “In foreign language learning, our means of providing learners with whole-task practice in classroom is through various kinds of communicative activities”. With such advantage, language teachers should design various activities in order to suit the learners’ level of ability.
Secondly, communicative activities provide motivation. The learner’s ultimate objective is to participate in communication with others. They will be motivated to learn if they can see how their classroom learning is related to this objective and helps them to achieve it with increasing success. In addition, most students’ prior conception of language is as a means of communication rather than as a structural system. Their learning is more likely to make sense to them if it can build on this conception rather than contradict it.
Thirdly, they can provide natural learning. Language learning takes place inside the learner and it also consists of many aspects that sometimes they are beyond the teachers’ pedagogical control. It is likely, in fact, that many aspects of language learning can take place only through natural processes, which operate when a learner is involved in using the language for communication. As a result, communicative activities (inside or outside the classroom) are important parts of the learning process.
Moreover, communicative activities can create a context that supports learning. They provide opportunities to promote relationship among learners and between learners and teachers. These relationships are able to “humanize” the classroom and create a friendly environment that supports the students in their efforts to learn.
At last, communicative activities such as working in groups, in pairs or singing etc. create a relatively safe environment for making mistakes along with relaxed atmosphere, for there is little error correction or distract attention. Students are not judged and corrected. Moreover, students have a lot of fun when they learn with communicative activities. This reduces their stress and anxiety about their performance.
In group work, learners communicate between each other and complete class work. Being defined as the one of the most important way of learner activation (Ur, 1996) He points out the special focus that group work in foreign language learning.
According to him, there are two significant reasons for this. First, group work builds many foreign language communication skills learners. Second, it assists them learn how to respectfully hold each other accountable.
Johnson (2004) questions why the use of group work is introduced and it is increasing transparently in the classroom. According to her, the choice of partners or groups is significant in group work activities, and so each of learners can talk freely without teacher’s control. Also, all of them are equal and free in groups.
Group work is a crucial way to change the pace in the classroom. It is quietly efficient as compared to the climate of traditional classroom in which teachers dictate their notes and lectures to the students and try to put data into the minds of the learners. Therefore, effective teachers comprehend the effects and outcomes of using the group work in the classes.
According to Richards and Rodgers (2001, p.196), “Positive interdependence is created by the structure of cooperative learning tasks and by building a spirit of mutual support within the group”. They also maintain that “Group work is an important factor in creating positive interdependence”. Hence, the importance of group work in learning foreign language cannot be overlooked.
Not having good note-taking would appear to be one reason that some do not perform efficiently in classroom. Ellis (1994) states that evaluating group work provides valuable information about the use of group work which enhanced learners’ assessment of study and achievement of learning outcomes. Additionally, evaluating group work provides that the students ask more specific questions about their tasks. Generally, evaluation occurs at the end of their task (Ur, 1996).
As Ur (1996) points out, there are many ways for designing on evaluation such as questionnaire, checklist, and focus group, etc. From among these ways, questionnaire which involves completing a task in class is more common than the
others. Ellis (1994, p.586) notes that “One reason for the prevalence of questioning is undoubtedly the control which it gives the teacher over the discourse”. Thus a question allows the students to comprehend what is the most crucial part of their task.
Evaluating takes place in two types in the foreign language learning. There are self and peer evaluation. They note that self-evaluation contains the individual deciding on the valve or quality of their own learning work. On the other hand, in peer evaluation, the individual reflects on the work of other group members.
Classroom interaction can be provided with the help of group work activities.
Foreign language learners effectively improve their communicative competence and language performance through being implemented group work in classroom.
Moreover, according to Ur (1996), the communicative tasks implemented within a group reflect better real life situations which are very restricted outside the classroom. Thus, advantages of group work are usually subcategorized as social, psychological, and cognitive advantages.
According to Richards and Rodgers (2001, p.165), “In CLT, classroom activities are often designed to focus on completing tasks that are mediated through language or involve negotiation of information and information sharing”. In addition to this, authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities. Therefore, CLT promotes language learning through communication in group work activities such as discussion, problem solving, role plays, etc.
Although the beneficial effects of group work in the foreign language classroom are potent, it needs being careful to plan group work activities. However, the major benefit of group work is that it enables learners to deepen their knowledge in foreign language and it also gives opportunity to use effectively foreign language.
Pair work is the way that students working together in pairs. One of the main motivations to encourage pair work in the English language classroom is to increase the opportunities for students to use English in the class.
Teachers can evaluate the impact and effectiveness of pair work on their students by using action research tools such as asking the students how they feel about working like this or by actually participating in an activity in a pair and evaluating this experience afterwards.
In conclusion, with these most important roles, communicative activities contribute a crucial part to the success of language teaching and learning. Moreover, they develop a pattern of language interaction within the classroom that is as close as possible to that used by competent performers in normal life. Therefore, students feel comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have sufficient opportunities to speak.