The communicative approach to teaching speaking pupils at the intermediate level of high school

· Information Gap Activities

Information Gap activities usually split the information needed to complete an activity between a pair or group. Therefore, the pupils must communicate with each other in order to find all the necessary information to complete the activity. There are many different levels of info gap activity. Some can be very structured, with the pupils using specific vocabulary and grammar to communicate information. Others can be totally unstructured with pupils free to draw on all or any knowledge they have of English. Structured info gap activities are easy to apply to almost any situation. Unstructured (which is my favourite) is best used with pupils who already have an intermediate level of English.

There are loads of benefits to using information gap activities. The main one being that it forces pupils to communicate in “real” English in order to complete the task. Also, the puzzle solving component can be motivating and fun for many pupils. We find that usually the curriculum is very tight and there is very little time at school for revision. Everyday we seem to be introducing new vocabulary and grammar to the pupils. With unstructured info gap, the pupils are able to practice their existing English knowledge. This can be satisfying as they can see the end result of putting all their English together.

There are not too many drawbacks to structured info gap, however, the more structured the activity, the more you move away from “real” communication.

As for unstructured info gap goes, one drawback is that pupils must have some English knowledge to draw from. Also, finding time in the curriculum to do unstructured info gap can be challenging.

To take a step further than info gap, ideally the pupils would not only exchange closed information, but also their own opinions in activities. However, this requires a lot more time and a very open class. It may just hamper the flow of the class and the English Communicative aims.

We are under no illusion that these techniques alone are the answer to successful foreign language teaching. A lot depends on the school, class, teacher, teaching partner, etc… However, some of these techniques at times have proven very useful for us. We hope some of them may be of use to you!

The communicative approach which developed at the beginning of the 1970's and has now permeated all branches of foreign language teaching, was in fact the indirect outcome of an academic debate between linguistic scientists on what language competence actually meant. In the nineteen sixties the structuralist linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky coined the phrase competence to mean an idealized grammatical knowledge that he said all human beings have about their own mother tongue. He put forward the theory that with this knowledge the brain is in possession of a finite number of grammatical rules which can be used to generate an infinite number of unique utterances. Chomsky differentiated between this “deep” knowledge or linguistic competence, and the way language is used in practice, which he called performance. However, his work concentrated purely on formal linguistic elements and did little to explain how human beings can use language to such great instrumental effect. This omission caused other linguists and in particular, the sociolinguists Dell Hymes, William Labov and John Gumperz, to criticize Chomsky's use of the term competence. The average native speaker of any language, they said, “knows” a great deal more about how to use their language than merely how to construct grammatically correct sentences. Thus, the term communicative competence came into being. At the same time as this debate was taking place, the growth of the European Common Market and the growing interdependence of western European countries was making functional foreign language learning for adults an ever more important concern. As a result, The Council of Europe had made it a priority to invest means and money in developing ways of making language learning more effective and relevant. Applied Linguists began investigating and proposing new approaches, taking into account the research and debate going on amongst the theoreticians. Obviously, in these circumstances the linguistic/communicative competence debate could not fail to excite their attention.

Comments on the Communicative Approach.

Communicative approach is an eclectic collection of emphases in the teaching of language that tend to promote or lead to the teaching and learning of a language as and for communication. The communicative approach stresses the importance of using the language rather than learning the rules of usage. The goal of communicative approach is to increase learners' communicative competence, that is the ability to use language appropriate to a given social context. As Littlewood (1981) pointed out, “one of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language”. [6, 12] According to Brown (1983), the definition of communicative language teaching includes four characteristics:

(1) Classroom goals are focused on all the opponents of communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence.

(2) Form is not the primary framework for organizing and sequencing lessons. Function is the framework through which forms are taught.

(3) Accuracy is secondary to convey a message. Fluency may take on more importance than accuracy. The ultimate criterion for communicative success is the actual transmission and receiving of intended meaning.

(4) In the communicative classroom, pupils ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts.

When we consider applying communicative teaching method in classroom activities, there are a number of problems we are likely to encounter. The principal difficulty of teaching foreign language in communicative settings is the language environment. Certain differences exist between real life and the classroom environment. Another problem for communicative language teaching is difficulties in the classroom. The CA teaching demands that the class is learner-centered. Teacher may find it hard to control the class. The third problem is the difficulty in assessing the results of communicative language teaching. Teachers may find it quite hard to tell which is the most appropriate expression because of the different social contexts and different ways of expressing the same function. Besides, the requirements of CA teaching method put a heavy burden on a nonnative foreign language teacher whose own communicative competence needs to be good enough and very proficient in the second language to teach effectively.

Language is for communication and communicative approach may be a better way to achieve this purpose. Now more and more teachers of English have realized the importance of the communicative approach. As educational policy calls for the necessity and improvement of teaching foreign languages for communicative purposes, we are sure the ultimate goal of communicative language teaching will be achieved some day.

Where does communicative language teaching come from?

Its origins are many, insofar as one teaching methodology tends to influence the next. The communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators and linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audio-lingual and grammar-translation methods of foreign language instruction. They felt that pupils were not learning enough realistic, whole language. They did not know how to communicate using appropriate social language, gestures, or expressions; in brief, they were at a loss to communicate in the culture of the language studied. Interest in and development of communicative-style teaching mushroomed in the 1970s; authentic language use and classroom exchanges where pupils engaged in real communication with one another became quite popular.

In the intervening years, the communicative approach has been adapted to the elementary, middle, secondary, and post-secondary levels, and the underlying philosophy has spawned different teaching methods known under a variety of names, including notional-functional, teaching for proficiency, proficiency-based instruction, and communicative language teaching.

What is communicative language teaching?

Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that pupils are likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the audio-lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave pupils in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Pupils' motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics.

Margie S. Berns, an expert in the field of communicative language teaching, writes in explaining Firth's view that "language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context, both its linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together to speak)". [7, 5]

What are some examples of communicative exercises?

In a communicative classroom for beginners, the teacher might begin by passing out cards, each with a different name printed on. Using a combination of the target language and gestures, the teacher conveys the task at hand, and gets the pupils to introduce themselves and ask their classmates for information. They are responding to a question. They do not know the answers beforehand, as they are each holding cards with their new identities written on them; hence, there is an authentic exchange of information.

Later during the class, as a reinforcement listening exercise, the pupils might hear a recorded exchange between two English freshmen meeting each other for the first time at the Gymnasium doors. Then the teacher might explain, in English, the differences among greetings in various social situations. Finally, the teacher will explain some of the grammar points and structures used.

The following exercise is taken from a 1987 workshop on communicative foreign language teaching, given for Delaware language teachers by Karen Willetts and Lynn Thompson of the Center for Applied Linguistics. The exercise, called "Eavesdropping," is aimed at advanced pupils.

Instructions to pupils: Listen to a conversation somewhere in a public place and be prepared to answer, in the target language, some general questions about what was said.

Who was talking?

About how old were they?

Where were they when you eavesdropped?

What were they talking about?

What did they say?

Did they become aware that you were listening to them?

The exercise puts pupils in a real-world listening situation where they must report information overheard. Most likely they have an opinion of the topic, and a class discussion could follow, in the target language, about their experiences and viewpoints.

Communicative exercises such as this motivate the pupils by treating topics of their choice, at an appropriately challenging level.

Another exercise taken from the same source is for beginning pupils. In "Listening for the Gist," pupils are placed in an everyday situation where they must listen to an authentic text.

Objective: Pupils listen to a passage to get general understanding of the topic or message.

Directions: Have pupils listen to the following announcement to decide what the speaker is promoting.

(The announcement can be read by the teacher or played on tape.) Then ask pupils to circle the letter of the most appropriate answer on their copy, which consists of the following multiple-choice options:

 a. a taxi service b. a hotel c. an airport d. a restaurant

Gunter Gerngross, an English teacher in Austria, gives an example of how he makes his lessons more communicative. He cites a widely used textbook that shows English children having a pet show. "Even when learners act out this scene creatively and enthusiastically, they do not reach the depth of involvement that is almost tangible when they act out a short text that presents a family conflict revolving round the question of whether the children should be allowed to have a pet or not". He continues to say that the communicative approach "puts great emphasis on listening, which implies an active will to try to understand others. This is one of the hardest tasks to achieve because the children are used to listening to the teacher but not to their peers. There are no quick, set recipes. That the teacher be a patient listener is the basic requirement".

The observation by Gerngross on the role of the teacher as one of listener rather than speaker brings up several points to be discussed in the next portion of this digest. How do the roles of the teacher and student change in communicative language teaching? Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less and listening more, becoming active facilitators of their pupils' learning. The teacher sets up the exercise, but because the pupils' performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and observe, sometimes acting as referee or monitor. A classroom during a communicative activity is far from quiet, however. The pupils do most of the speaking, and frequently the scene of a classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with pupils leaving their seats to complete a task. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, pupils may find they gain confidence in using the target language in general. Pupils are more responsible managers of their own learning [8, 55].

Traditionally, teachers' responsibilities are to follow the guidelines set in language courses, which rely on textbooks containing grammatically sequenced materials, and to present the structures of the target language and let pupils grasp them by drills and exercises. The relationship between teacher and learner is that of the classical teacher-centered methodology. In the early 1970s, there were a number of changes in second language teaching.

Some of it had produced perfectly acceptable results, some others was not satisfactory. In language teaching today, although courses based on structures are still very widely used, other aspects of language are receiving increasing attention in the classroom.

One of the basic problems in language teaching is what language the proficiency learners should achieve.

There are three famous figures we should be familiar with in order to understand the second language proficiency: Chomsky, Hymes and Halliday. Chomsky made a distinction between linguistic competence and linguistic performance. He claimed that linguistic competence meant that the rules of grammar were internalized in the head of the speaker, and provided the basis for the speaker understands of linguistic relations. Hymes reacted what Chomsky claimed, he was concerned with language in use. He assumed that linguistic theory was integrated with theory of communication and culture. In his theory, competence includes interactional competence, which is called “communicative competence”. Individuals involve in language development. “Grammaticality is only one of four factors of communicative competence, whereas for Chomsky, grammaticality was competence” (Yalden, 2000). Halliday is concerned with the description of speech acts. He is interested in language in its social context, and in the way language functions are realized in speech. Though Hymes and Halliday dealt with Chomsky's competence-performance distinction in two different ways, both of them added social context to it, which affect the concept of proficiency in language. Hymes's concept of communicative competence is useful to language teaching. It affects deeply notions of what should or can be taught and what sort of preparation and responsibility the language teacher should have. Based on Hymes's theory, we made a new course design or curriculum design.

Chomsky and the critique of behaviourism.

The methods such as AL, based upon a behaviourist theory of learning, and on Bloomfieldian linguistics, were challenged by the theories of language and language-learning of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky argued that it was impossible for people to acquire a language by simple repetition and reinforcement. Children, he said, do not learn a language this way, for they do not, in fact, repeat what adults say, but produce their own sentences, and create phrases which they have never heard before. They also make systematic errors, and no amount of correct input or of error- correction will stop them from doing so. Children do not so much learn the grammar of a language, as they construct it.

It should be said that even if this was the case for children learning their mother-tongue, we could not simply assume that adults and adolescents learn a FL in the same way. Nevertheless, the idea that over-learning of typical structures would lead to mastery of an FL seemed to be very dubious in the light of Chomsky's critique of Behaviourist approaches to language learning. However, Chomsky himself did not feel that linguistics could do much to help language teachers. Indeed, he wrote that neither linguistics, nor psychology could do or say much to further the cause of classroom learning.

Moreover, Chomsky's own model of language quickly came under fire from people who were at least sympathetic to his attack on behaviourism. This was because Chomsky's model appears to construct an ideal, and unreal, image of the language user. Chomsky, extending Saussure's distinction between 'langue' and 'parole', differentiates between competence and performance. The proper object of study for the linguist, he says, is not language as it is produced in everyday situations - that is performance - but the inner and ultimately innate knowledge of grammar that everyone has in their minds - that is competence.

To study language, then, we need to turn away from real usage, in which the actualization of grammar is always partial, interrupted and likely to be over-ridden by other concerns, and look to the prior knowledge of grammar that all speakers possess, and which has nothing to do with the social situation within which they happen to find themselves. From the start, this conception of the linguist's task aroused criticism, and one of the most telling critiques was made by the sociolinguist Dell Hymes.

Dell Hymes and “Communicative Competence”.

Hymes first of all draws attention to the image of the ideal speaker that Chomsky's model draws:

The image is that of a child, born with the ability to master any language with almost miraculous ease and speed; a child who is not merely moulded by conditioning and reinforcement, but who actively proceeds with the unconscious theoretical interpretation of the speech that comes its way, so that in a few years and with a finite experience, it is master of an infinite ability, that of producing and understanding in principle any and all grammatical sentences of language. The image (or theoretical perspective) expresses the essential equality in children just as human beings. It is noble in that it can inspire one with the belief that even the most dispiriting conditions can be transformed; it is an indispensable weapon against views that would explain the communicative differences among groups of children as inherent, perhaps racial.

But, says Hymes, this image is also misleading, for it abstracts the child as learner, and the adult as language-user, from the social contexts within which acquisition and use are achieved. And because it does this, it produces an ideal speaker who is a very strange being indeed.

Consider now a child with just such an ability (Chomsky's competence). A child who might produce any sentence whatsoever - such a child would be likely to be institutionalized: even more so if not only sentences, but also speech or silence was random, unpredictable. For that matter, a person who chooses occasions and sentences suitably, but is master only of fully grammatical sentences, is at best a bit odd. Some occasions call for being appropriately ungrammatical.

We have then to account for the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences, not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others.

Hymes suggests, then, that linguistic competence is but a sub-division of a greater whole - communicative competence. Language is but one mode of communication among others, and full communication involves mastery of all the codes - gesture, position, non-verbal vocalization, use of visual aids and so on. And language itself varies from situation to situation, from communicative dyad to communicative dyad ; bilingual and multilingual people, Hymes points out, often differentiate the contexts within which one language or another can be used - the Berber uses the Berber language for everyday interaction, and reserves Arabic for discussions of transcendental matters. The change in social relationships that in French is signified by the shift from 'Vous' to 'Tu' is, in Paraguay indicated by shift of a whole language, from Spanish to Guarani. Within a single language, differences and distinctions may be denoted by changes in code or register, by the use of specific kinds of vocabulary, or by the way silence is used. These constraints on language use are as important as the rules of grammar. Hymes writes:

The acquisition of such competency is of course fed by social experience, needs, and motives, and issues in action that is itself a renewed source of motives, needs, experience. We break irrevocably with the model that restricts the design of language to one face toward referential meaning, one toward sound, and that defines the organization of language as solely consisting of rules for linking the two. Such a model implies naming to be the sole use of speech, as if languages were never organized to lament, rejoice, beseech, admonish, aphorize, and inveigh, for the many varied forms of persuasion, direction, expression and symbolic play. A model of language must design it with a face toward communicative conduct and social life.

The Speech Act - Austin and Searle.

Hymes insists, then, on the utility of language, and the need to understand it as a tool - or set of tools - that people use to carry out different tasks. This will bring us to a consideration of the concept of the 'speech act': the idea that when someone says something, she is not simply sitting back and describing the world, but intends to produce some kind of effect, some kind of change in the world.

This concept is usually traced to the work of the English philosopher, John Austin, who, in his book How to Do Things With Words, pointed to a class of enunciations which he called 'performatives'. When a vicar, on splashing a baby's head with holy water, announces “I baptize thee Sarah Jane Featherstonehaugh”, his words actually ensure that the baptism has force. Similarly, if I say “I bet you that England beat Australia', then I am - however absurd it may seem - making the bet. The statement has, in Austin's terms illocutionary force.

This insight has been extended by other thinkers and in particular by John Searle, for whom all language use can be seen as functional. Searle identifies five classes of speech acts:

Representatives: language is used to describe a state of affairs - e.g., a news item on the radio, a comment on the weather.

Directives: language is used to put the listener under an obligation to act in a certain way in the future - e.g. a command or a request

Commisives: language is used to contract an obligation on the part of the speaker to act in a certain way in the future - e.g. a promise or an offer

Expressives: language is used to express a psychological state - e.g. a declaration of love, an apology or congratulations

Declaratives: language is used to render effective the content of the act - e.g. baptism, a sentence pronounced by a judge

Now, if we look at these speech acts carefully, we will note that, if we want to carry them out efficiently, we have to understand not only the language that we wish to use, but also the social situation within which the act is to occur. For a statement to have illocutionary force, it must be said by the right person at the right time, and said in the right way. This is quite obvious with declaratives : I may say to anyone I choose : 'I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead', but my declaration will have no effect, for not only am I not a judge sitting in a Criminal Court, but the death penalty has been abolished.

But even for the other kinds of language acts, the social situation, the underlying rules and social relationships, are important. A request for information may be misunderstood not only if it is badly formulated from the grammatical point of view, but also if it is socially inappropriate : Hymes gives the examples of the Araucanians of Chile - amongst whom the repetition of a question is regarded as an insult - and of the Mexican Tzeltal Indians, who never ask direct questions.

If we are to master a foreign language, then, we must master:

The language as a system - the grammar, phonology and vocabulary that were traditionally seen as the object of the FL class.

The rules determining what language can be used by whom in which situation. This includes both an understanding of the social situation itself, and an understanding of the different forms of language - or the different types of discourse.

The non-linguistic codes that we may manipulate in order to repair damaged or partial utterances on occasions when our knowledge of the language as a system is not sufficient.

Thus we can, with Canale and Swain, define communicative competence as consisting in three factors -

1. Grammatical competence.

2. Sociolinguistic competence.

3. Strategic competence.

The Communicative Syllabus.

What does this mean for the teacher and the learner? One corollary is that if we stress the social nature of language, then the speaker, as social actor, is central. From the point of view of FL learning, this means that the characteristics of the learner, her/his aims and needs, are of paramount importance, for if language is a tool-kit, then we need to know what it is to be used for, and it is only the learner herself/himself who can, in the end, determine this.

This implies that a communicative approach will begin with an analysis of the needs of the learner, and that this analysis will be carried out in consultation with her/him. Furthermore, we can imagine that as the learner's competence grows, so her/his needs will expand and change; this implies that we need to maintain an open dialogue with the learner, to listen to her/his constantly in order to adjust our teaching to her changing needs and priorities.

How far can such an approach be applied within a compulsory school system?

A second corollary is that we can no longer hold back certain grammatical forms until we feel that the pupil is “ripe” for them, but must present the forms in terms of their utility. Now this may mean that learners will need to be exposed to complex forms from the beginning of their course, in which case we cannot be sure that they will necessarily acquire them from the start. So we will need to return to these forms, deepening the learner's grasp and capacity to use them at each new stage: this, then, gives us the basis for our curriculum, which will move out from the most immediate needs of the learner, to gradually encompass the more remote ones, all the time going back over material that has already been seen.

But what will the development be based upon? We have seen that it cannot be simply determined as a grammatical progression - in fact, we don't really know what is difficult and what is easy, anyway. If we look at the textbooks today, we will see that most of them are based not simply on the language as a system, but also on speech acts, and on the lexical field.

In some of the textbooks, you will see the terms Functions and Notions. Both of these can be traced back to the idea of the speech-act, as it was put forward in what is known as the Functional-Notional Syllabus. It is to this that we wish to turn now.

The Functional-Notional Approach which can be seen as one version of the communicative school as we shall see, there are others - arose out of the work done by the Council for Cultural Co-operation of the Council of Europe, which, in the 1960s, became interested in both “Permanent Education” - and in language teaching. In 1971, a group of experts was set up, which decided that an analysis of how language was best taught should be based upon three preliminary investigations that would:

"Break down the global concept of language into units and sub-units on an analysis of particular groups of adult learners, in terms of the communicative situations in which they are characteristically involved. This analysis should lead to a precise articulation of the notion of “common core” with specialist extensions at different proficiency levels.

"Set up on the basis of this analysis an operational specification for learning objectives.

"Formulate ... a meta-system defining the structure of a multi-media learning system to achieve these objectives in terms of the unit/credit concepts."

The idea was that language should be classified in terms of what people wanted to do with it - functions - or in terms of what meanings people wanted to put across - notions - rather than in terms of grammatical items. Further, the language was to be categorized by level, starting with the basic level, which would permit the learner to survive when visiting the country in which the language was spoken. For English, this work was done by Jan van Ek, who, in 1975, produced The Threshold Level, the basic syllabus that would serve as a foundation upon which to build more sophisticated speech capacities as the learner progressed. In the handbook, van Ek gave a list of 6 basic functions - we shall see the extent to which they differ from Searle's:

1. Imparting and seeking factual information - identifying, reporting - including describing and narrating, correcting, asking;

2. Expressing and finding out intellectual attitudes - expressing agreement and disagreement 

- inquiring about agreement or disagreement 

- denying something, accepting an offer or invitation 

- declining an offer or invitation 

- inquiring whether offer or invitation is accepted or declined 

- offering to do something

- etc.

3. Expressing and finding out emotional attitudes

- expressing and inquiring about pleasure, liking 

- expressing an inquiring about displeasure, dislike 

- expressing and inquiring about surprise, home, satisfaction, dissatisfaction 

- expressing and inquiring about intention 

- expressing and inquiring about want and desire 

- etc.

4. Expressing and finding out moral attitudes

- apologizing 

- expressing appreciation 

- etc.

5. Getting things done (suasion)

- suggesting a course of action 

- requesting, inviting, or advising others to do something 

- warning others to take care or to refrain from doing something 

- instructing or directing others to do something

6. Socializing

- to greet people 

- when meeting people 

- when introducing people and being introduced 

- etc.

Within any functional category, there will be a number of different realizations. Thus, for example, a request could take the following forms:

- Please open the window 

- Open the window, please. 

- Would you open the window? 

- Would you mind opening the window? 

- I wonder if you would mind opening the window? 

- It might be a good idea to open the window.

Each form will be appropriate to a specific role within a specific situation. Van Ek added to his list of functions a set of criteria for the specification of situations:

1. Social roles

stranger/stranger, friend/friend, private person/official person, patient/doctor, etc.

2. Psychological roles

neutrality, equality, sympathy, antipathy

3. Settings

A. Geographical location (foreign country where the TL is the native language, foreign country where the TL is not the native language, own country)

B. Place

a) outdoors (park, street, seaside) 

b) indoors; private life (house, apartment, room, kitchen)

4. Surroundings

family, friends, acquaintances, strangers ...

Van Ek also added a grammatical component, and a set of topics. All of these are to be set within the spiral curriculum, in typical communicative fashion.

The recent developments in language teaching, then, have been motivated by a number of factors, including changes in linguistics, in learning psychology, and in the immediate political environment, with the increasing importance of global institutions. Also, increasing dissatisfaction with the results of earlier methods, such as G/T or AL, lead to a search for more efficient methods and approaches. These lead to the elaboration of the Communicative Approach, based upon:

1. The idea that the learner should be at the centre of our preoccupations - her/his needs, wishes, and learning styles should be at the basis of language programs 

2. The idea that language is not grammar, phonology and vocabulary alone, but a set of communicative tools, which can only be properly learned within communicative situations.

We shall go on to look at the ways in which this has changed not only the programs and syllabus, but also the basic techniques of classroom teaching, and the conception of the role of the teacher within her class. We shall see that the teacher has been asked to take on more of a role as advisor and facilitator than of instructor, and that it is one of her basic functions to set up communicative situations and activities within her class. We will also need to look at what the limits of the Communicative Approach are, and how we might expect the approach to develop in the future.

Functional-notional Approach.

This method of language teaching is categorized along with others under the rubric of a communicative approach. The method stresses a means of organizing a language syllabus. The emphasis is on breaking down the global concept of language into units of analysis in terms of communicative situations in which they are used.

Notions are meaning elements that may be expressed through nouns, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives or adverbs. The use of particular notions depends on three major factors: a. the functions b. the elements in the situation, and c. the topic being discussed.

A situation may affect variations of language such as the use of dialects, the formality or informality of the language and the mode of expression. Situation includes the following elements:

A. The persons taking part in the speech act

B. The place where the conversation occurs

C. The time the speech act is taking place

D. The topic or activity that is being discussed

Exponents are the language utterances or statements that stem from the function, the situation and the topic.

Code is the shared language of a community of speakers.

Code-switching is a change or switch in code during the speech act, which many theorists believe is purposeful behavior to convey bonding, language prestige or other elements of interpersonal relations between the speakers.

Functional Categories of Language.

Mary Finocchiaro [9, 65-66] has placed the functional categories under five headings as noted below: personal, interpersonal, directive, referential, and imaginative.

Personal = Clarifying or arranging one's ideas; expressing one's thoughts or feelings: love, joy, pleasure, happiness, surprise, likes, satisfaction, dislikes, disappointment, distress, pain, anger, anguish, fear, anxiety, sorrow, frustration, annoyance at missed opportunities, moral, intellectual and social concerns; and the everyday feelings of hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, cold, or warmth

Interpersonal = enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships: Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships:

· greetings and leave takings

· introducing people to others

· identifying oneself to others

· expressing joy at another's success

· expressing concern for other people's welfare

· extending and accepting invitations

· refusing invitations politely or making alternative arrangements

· making appointments for meetings

· breaking appointments politely and arranging another mutually convenient time

· apologizing

· excusing oneself and accepting excuses for not meeting commitments

· indicating agreement or disagreement

· interrupting another speaker politely

· changing an embarrassing subject

· receiving visitors and paying visits to others

· offering food or drinks and accepting or declining politely

· sharing wishes, hopes, desires, problems

· making promises and committing oneself to some action

· complimenting someone

· making excuses

· expressing and acknowledging gratitude

Directive = Attempting to influence the actions of others; accepting or refusing direction:

· making suggestions in which the speaker is included

· making requests; making suggestions

· refusing to accept a suggestion or a request but offering an alternative

· persuading someone to change his point of view

· requesting and granting permission

· asking for help and responding to a plea for help

· forbidding someone to do something; issuing a command

· giving and responding to instructions

· warning someone

· discouraging someone from pursuing a course of action

· establishing guidelines and deadlines for the completion of actions

· asking for directions or instructions

Referential = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future; talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic function: = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future; talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic function:

· identifying items or people in the classroom, the school the home, the community

· asking for a description of someone or something

· defining something or a language item or asking for a definition

· paraphrasing, summarizing, or translating (L1 to L2 or vice versa)

· explaining or asking for explanations of how something works

· comparing or contrasting things

· discussing possibilities, probabilities, or capabilities of doing something

· requesting or reporting facts about events or actions

· evaluating the results of an action or event

Imaginative = Discussions involving elements of creativity and artistic expression

· discussing a poem, a story, a piece of music, a play, a painting, a film, a TV program, etc.

· expanding ideas suggested by other or by a piece of literature or reading material

· creating rhymes, poetry, stories or plays

· recombining familiar dialogs or passages creatively

· suggesting original beginnings or endings to dialogs or stories

· solving problems or mysteries

2.2 The use of the communicative approach in teaching speaking

Any language can be acquired if one develops four basic skills in that language i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and speaking are interactive processes that directly affect each other. Speaking is an expressive language skill in which the speaker uses verbal symbols to communicate, while listening is a receptive language skill, which involves the interpretation of those symbols into meaning. Writing is also expressive language skill in which the writer uses written symbols to communicate, while reading is a receptive language skill which involves the interpretation of those symbols into meaning.

Listening and speaking and also reading and writing were viewed as separate subjects within the school curriculum and usually were taught as a number of discrete skills; however, the 1980s and early 1990s have brought another perceptive. Listening and speaking and also reading and writing are now considered interactive and taught as one communicative process. Interactive process of reading and writing skill, seen in the class, is very less. One can find more interactive process of listening and speaking skill in any type of class. `Machure M' in his book named as `Oracy-current trends in Context' (1988) termed this process as “oracy” means `oral communication' or “oral language”. It includes both listening and speaking.

The term: the communicative approach.

Willbrand M. L. & Riecke R.D. in their book named as `Teaching oral communication in Elementary schools' (1983) defined `Oral Communication' as the process of interacting through heard and spoken messages in a variety of situations. And instruction which integrates the teaching of listening and speaking over various situations has been termed “the communicative approach to language teaching.”

The communicative approach is relative new, as most of the teachers and prescribed texts separate the instruction of listening and speaking. Usually when listening and speaking are separated, specific skills are identified in each area and a sequence of these skills is established. No particular attention is given to the situation, or context, in which a specific skill is to be used, as the focus is on teaching listening and speaking and not on communication. We can develop listening skill by conducting the entire lesson in that language only. We may make use of Audio-Visual aids such as tape-recorder, gramophone etc. we may make the pupils to listen to Radio lessons to develop the skill. Moreover we may develop the listening skill by ear-training exercises, by articulation exercises, by mimicry exercises or by exercises in fluency. We may develop the speaking skill by giving picture lessons, by saying and doing exercises, by arranging oral composition, by developing the ideas on the topic within their range, by reproducing telling or completing a story, by dramatization, by arranging talks and discussions, by asking questions. But special attention is not given to the situation or context, in which a specific skill, listening or speaking, is to be used. When specific attention is given on a situation or a context and develop these skills we follow communicative approach.

Characteristics of the communicative approach.

Although no single methodology has been described for the communicative approach, several characteristics are summarized as follow: communicative approach stimulate “real life”, communicative experiences.

Froese V. in his book named as `Introduction to whole language teaching and learning' (1991) mentioned this characteristics of communicative approach. Learners should conduct an interview because they actually need information. In role playing process, the purpose is to learn how to formulate appropriate questions. But here, as Froese V. noted these activities should not only stimulate real life experiences but, whenever possible, should actually be real life experiences.

The learning task is content-based, theme-based, project-based or some combination of the three.

Instruction in listening and speaking, as well as reading and writing, is given within the context of handling various learning tasks, which involve learners with language. This learning task is content based according to Early M & Tang M as described in their book named as Helping ESL pupils cope with content -based text (1991), “theme-based” according to Candling C & Edelhoff C as described in their book Challenges (1982) and “project based” according to Fried-Booth D as described in the book “Project Work” (1986). Within the context of an interview, questioning skills can be taught. Pupils need the opportunity to express themselves through a variety of experiences and tasks.

Analysis of language is done in specific contexts.

Language drills, recitation and isolation grammar exercises are not the ways to acquire any language. Analysis of language is done in specific contexts. Decontextualized language is not used as a basis for skill instruction.

The focus is not upon listening and speaking but upon using language to communicate and to learn.

As pupils use language to learn in various subject areas, it becomes necessary for them to communicate with peers in large and small groups as well as with the teacher. Collaborative talk can occur between peers in quite an informal way or in more formal cooperative learning groups.

Listening and speaking skills as vehicles for learning across all subjects' areas.

Barnes D. in his book named as “Oral language and learning” (1990) described that listening and speaking become valuable not only as isolated skills or groups of skills, but as vehicles for learning across all subject areas. Oral communication should be integrated with other areas of instruction.

Classroom Implementation.

Little research has been done to indicate how the above characteristics might best be operationalised in the classroom, but some literature does exist on the subject.

1.  Fundamentally it is important to establish an appropriate physical and psychological atmosphere in the classroom.

Instructors must be dedicated to the belief that oral communication is an important for learning and be willing to arrange classroom furniture so that talk between pupils in large and small groups is convenient. The psychological atmosphere should be one in which pupils feel comfortable and take increasing risibility for their own learning.

2. Coakley and Wolvin in their book named a “Listening in the educational environment” (1991) have suggested specific ways in which teachers effectively model listening in the classroom. So that they should follow communicative approach. These include the following -

(a) Providing a wait time for pupils to answer.

(b)  Engaging in attending behaviors such as eye contact and responsive facial expression.

(c)  Giving pupils undivided attention when they are speaking.

(d)  Providing a supportive climate by being approachable.

(e)  Not interrupting pupils.

(f) Withholding judgments until pupils have finished speaking and

(g)  Giving prompt and thoughtful responses to pupils' questions.

3. Robinson S. in his book named as “Oral language Developing pragmatic skills and communicative competence” (1988) has suggested that instructors can model the use of various speaking skills within appropriate classroom settings so that they should follow communicative approach. Important conversational skills include turn taking imitation strategies maintenance strategies and termination strategies. Coakley and Wolvin (1991) have viewed one of instructor's role as that of presenter, and with that role such practices as speaking clearly with adequate volume and engaging listeners by means of appropriate nonverbal behavior can be modeled.

4. Many authors have suggested creative activities for involving pupils in various kinds of talking experiences. Drama, role-plying, puppetry, debate, formal reporting and small and large group discussions have been covered in language arts text books.

5. There are two types of communicative activities that can be implemented in the class. One controlled communicative activities and the other, free communicative activities. Controlled communicative activities include situations creation, guessing games, information gap exercises, exchange of personal information etc. and free communicative activities include pair work and group work, eliciting, role play etc.

6. To follow communicative approach in the class, one should use workouts. Workouts are language learning and language using activities, which enhance the learner's overall acquisition process, providing by the teacher with variety of ways through which to make this process engaging and rewarding. Samples of such workouts are presented here under different categories.

6. 1. Operations/ Transformations enable learners to focus on semantico-grammatical features, which are necessary when aiming at accuracy in language use. All learners require such predictable and controlled workouts at times if their goal is to achieve accuracy in language production an interpretation. For example element of language are added, deleted, substituted, recorded, or combined; alternative language elements are presented so that learners must make a choice.

6.2. Warm-ups/Relaxes are motivational workouts, which add an element of enjoyment and personal involvement. They can be used at various points during the examinations, especially when a relief of tension or a change of pace is called for. For example, games, songs, physical activities, puzzle.

6.3. Information-Centered Tasks enable learners to use the language naturally while being fully engrossed in fact gathering activities. For example, share-and-tell in the classroom, gathering information outside the classroom, treasure hunts outside the classroom, interviews with peer and others.

6.4. Theatre Games encompass all activity types, which simulate reality within the classroom situation. These workouts are especially important since they enable the language session to broaden its context beyond the four walks of the classroom. For example, improvisation (creating a scene based on a given setting or situation); role playing (assuming the role of someone else, or playing oneself in a typical situation); play enacting; story telling.