Caveats of Communicative Approach

The caveats of Communicative Approach have been summarized as follows:

1. Beware of giving lip service to principles of CLT (and related principles like Cooperative Learning, interactive teaching, learner-centered classes, content-centered education, whole language, etc. —see the next sections in this chapter) but not truly ground your teaching techniques in such principles. No one these days would admit to a disbelief in principles of CLT; they would be marked as a heretic. But if you believe the term characterizes your teaching, make sure you do indeed understand and practice your convictions.

2. Avoid overdoing certain CLT features: engaging in real-life, authentic language in the classroom to the total exclusion of any potentially helpful controlled exercises, grammatical pointers, and other analytical devices; or simulating the realworld but refraining from “interfering” in the ongoing flowing of language. Such an “indirect” approach (Celce-Murcia et al., 1997) to CLT only offers the possibility of incidental learning without specific focus on forms, rules, and principles is manifested in a “direct” approach that carefully sequences and structures tasks for learners and offers optimal intervention to aid learners in developing strategies for acquisition.

3. Remember that there are numerous interpretations of CLT. Because it is a catchall term, it is tempting to figure that everyone agrees on its definition. They don’t. In fact, some of those in the profession, with good reason, feel uncomfortable using the term, even to the point of wishing to exorcise it from our jargon. As long as you are aware of many possible versions of CLT, it remains a term that can continue to capture current language-teaching approaches (Brown, 2001: 44-46). Closely allied to CLT are a number of concepts that have, like CLT, become bandwagon terms without the endorsement of which teachers cannot be decent human beings and textbooks cannot sell! The following is a brief summary about these terms related to CLT.

Learner-Centered Instruction, Cooperative-Collaborative Learning, Interactive Learning, Whole Language Education, Content-Based Instruction, Task-Based Instruction, Theme-Based Instruction, etc. will be explained in the following chapters.