The Communicative Approach

Over recent years the tendency to conceive language in terms of communication rather than as a set of structures has become all-pervading. There is now a vast literature on the topicalmost a cultand certainly a whole new glossary of terms and jargon. For those who would pursue the subject, suggestions for reading are given (see Appendix 2). Meanwhile let me try to outline the parameters to some extent. There has been a gradual switch of emphasis in language matters towards greater interest in the functions and appropriacy as distinct from the form of language. For a long time the learning of language was seen as the mastery of a set of structures. The then current theories of learning linked well with this notion and the learning of language became that of linguistic habits. This had given way in the late 1960s to a concern with rule-learning and what, following Chomsky (1965), became known as transformational grammar. The learner gained language competence by manipulating the rules of syntax. A purely linguistic concept of language had become psycholinguistic. But still there was the notion of language as a set of some-things to be learnt and that once you had this collection you were there. It is important to remember too that the rules were those of form or grammar. There was no concern as yet with the purposes to which people put language and the diverse patterns of performance or use.

Then in the 1970s began the move towards language as communication. People became interested in the individual utterance. What were the things which made each one a unique event? How was the performance of language affected by the personal needs of the user and by his role in the social situation? Now the social psychology dimension had entered the language scene and sociolinguistics had become important. The term 'communicative competence' began to be used, seen as a kind of opposition to grammatical or linguistic competence, a knowledge of the conventions of use as against that of structure. This was reckoned to be a considerable advance and very soon became the accepted orthodoxy in most areas of language study and teaching. Discussions on the nature of language, its acquisition, development, pedagogy and testing have all been affected, with influence on syllabuses, methodology and techniques. It might be useful now to highlight just a few of the more salient notions of the approach which are particularly relevant to the language teacher.

Salient notions of the communicative

1.    Focus on Message rather than Medium. This suggests that the teacher should be more concerned about meaning and understanding than about how the learner expresses himself. (In this book the learner will be referred to as 'he' and the teacher as 'she'. I apologise if this offends some readers but I find the s/he attempts at unisex tedious!) The accuracy of the utterance is less important than the fluency and the communication engendered. It also carries implications for the manner in which the teacher deals with error. The communicative approach sees error as a useful indicator of a stage of learning or interlanguage and it must be allowed. In the days of concentration on form and system, error was seen as deviation from that system and must be eliminated as soon as possible. Exercises were set to prevent it and the learner was drilled in the correct patterns. There was concern to offset the interference from the first language. With its emphasis on fluency as opposed to accuracy the communicative approach suggests a more flexible classroom regime.

2.    The Information Gap. Briefly this means that in the teaching of language the student is likely to learn more quickly if he is asked to use his learning for real purposes. The authentic text is essential, either spoken or written. The teacher should set up classroom situations where students and teacher interact, student to student and student to teacher, exchanging information that is really needed, say, for the completion of a real task which they are working on together. Questions are asked because people want to know something. This is in reaction to the kind of technique where the teacher held up a pencil for instance and asked the class, 'What's this?'. Everyone knew what it was. There was virtually no information to be given and therefore no communication, other than the message perhaps that language is boring! In a sense this idea of language learning through tasks could stand as another issue here in its own right. Many who embrace the communicative approach use this kind of methodology.2 It assumes that language is what language does, as Halliday (1969) described the developing language of the young child. To provide tasks dependent on language so that the learner has to bear the responsibility for his own mistakes seems to be both stimulating and conducive to language learning.

3.    Focus on Process rather than Product. There is a link here with the task issue. What appears to be meant is that the outcome of the task may be less important than the talk which goes on to facilitate it. Most of us have experienced meetings where the decisions or materials produced seem to have been less important than the ongoing communication and interchange of ideas. In terms of language teaching the teacher must sometimes be prepared to devalue the end product in the interests of the learning in transit, as it were.

4.    Emphasis on Negotiation rather than Pre-determination. This suggests that the learners should be able to participate in their own learning process. The teacher must not be afraid to throw away the lesson plan occasionally and to enter in to real (this word is constantly to the fore) conversation with her pupils, using the moment, the things the learners offer, while at the same time, presumably, linking all this with the overall aims and the general direction of the curriculum. This means a role for the teacher which is facilitative and catalytic rather than strictly instructive. The classroom becomes a market-place of negotiation instead of a place where all the time pre-determined and rigid lessons are offered to passive students sitting in serried ranks with the instructress out front. The atmosphere is relaxed or, to use Krashen's term (1982: 33), there is a low affective filter and students are not pressurised. This could mean at times that no language production is expected before sufficient time has been given for listening, imbibing and processing (which is very different from passive acceptance). But the degree to

5.    which input becomes intake depends to a great extent on how comprehensible the former is. Use of the Learner's Own Resources. This notion seems to link with much of what has been said above. Take the last point made, for instance, about the importance of comprehensible input. Teachers are notoriously bad at recognising one of the best teaching resources of all, the human beings in the classroom. What each group/community brings is likewise a source of enrichment and learning and the shared experience both within the school and beyond it is something that teachers must exploit in the participatory atmosphere of the communicative classroom. The teacher must know her students so that she can guide the learning procedures from the known to the unknown.

There is obviously a great deal more that could be said about all of these, and no doubt other notions which might have been focused upon, but perhaps enough has been said to give a flavour of current thinking. These notions will be appearing again in one guise or another in later sections of the book as we consider this orthodoxy in terms of the young child. Before going on, however, there is one other issue I should like to consider in particular and that is the significance or otherwise of the acquisition/learning dichotomy, a notion which seems to spread across the others and which will feature strongly in the methodology sections of the book.