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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

LE THI QUYNH YEN

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES ON
STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH READING SKILLS
AT BACH DANG HIGH SCHOOL
Hiệu quả của các hoạt động giao tiếp lên khả năng đọc tiếng Anh
của học sinh tại trường THPT Bạch Đằng.
M.A THESIS
(APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field:

English Linguistics

Code:

8220201

Supervisor:

Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Huong
Dr. Nguyen Thi Que

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

This is to certify that the thesis entitled “The Effectiveness of
Communicative Activities on Students’ Performance in English Reading Skills
at Bach Dang high school” has been written by me and the work in it has not
previously been submitted for a degree. In addition, I also certify that all information
sources and literature have been indicated in the thesis.
Thai Nguyen, June 2019

Le Thi Quynh Yen
Approved by SUPERVISORS
Supervisor 1: Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Huong

Supervisor 2: Dr. Nguyen Thi Que

ii


DEDICATION

To my parents who taught me to be more patient,
My siblings,
My husband, Nguyen Huu Tuyen
My son, Nguyen Hai Tung
My son, Nguyen Thai Son

And my friends
For their endless support
And being my constant sources of inspiration.

iii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the process of carrying out this study, I have received a large amount
of contribution and support from many people.
First, I would like to express the deepest gratitude to my supervisors, Dr.
Nguyen Thi Mai Huong and Dr. Nguyen Thi Que, for their invaluable
encouragement and useful advice during the whole process of this master thesis.
Without his help, this paper could not have been completed.
Next, I am thankful to all my lecturers as well as staff at School of Foreign
Languages, Thai Nguyen University for their great supports and suggestions.
Also, I am grateful to the teachers of English and the students at Bach Dang
high school for their immense help and participation.
Finally, my special thanks go to my beloved family and friends for their love,
care and support during my MA course, especially on the completion of this thesis.

Thai Nguyen, July 2019

iv


ABSTRACT
The goal of this study attempted to test for the effectiveness of
Communicative activities in teaching English reading for the course book English
grade 11 by MOET. The respondents of the study were 30 matched pair students who
were studying at grade 11 at Bach Dang high school, Quang Yen district, Quang
Ninh Province during their second semester of the academic school year 2018-2019.
The experiment was conducted in 8 class-hours for the class within two months. The

t-test for dependent or correlated samples was applied to determine the significance
of the differences between the means of the control group and experimental group.
The result proved that Communicative Approach is more effective in improving
students’ competence in English than the traditional method. As a consequence, it is
recommended that teachers of English take into serious consideration all the
conditions to apply these innovative approaches as well as combine harmoniously
different methods in their teaching so that they could facilitate the students’ learning
to reach their utmost acquisition of the language.

v


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preliminaries

Page

TITLE PAGE …………………………………………………………

i

APPROVAL SHEET…………………………………………………

ii

DEDICATION. ……………………………………………………….

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT ……………………………………………..

iv

ABSTRACT. ………………………………………………………….

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS...……………………………………………

vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................

viii

LIST OF TABLES. ……………………………………………………

ix

LIST OF FIGURES. …………………………………………………..

x

LIST OF APPENDICES…..…………………………………………..

xi

Chapter

Page

1

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Introduction……………. ……...……..…………………………

1

1.2. Aims of the study.....………………….…………………………

2

1.3. Scope of the study…….………………………………………..

3

1.4. Significance of the study…………..………………………........

3

1.5. Definition of terms.………………………………………….…

3

1.6. Outline of the study………………………………………….…

4

2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND STUDIES

6

2.1. Communicative Language Teaching Approach………………… 6
2.2. Communicative Competence…....……………………………...

8

2.3. Methodology Framework of Communicative Activities............... 9
2.4. Groupwork as a Communicative Activity in teaching Reading… 10
2.5. Roles of Teachers and Students in CLT….……….…………….. 13
2.6. Studies on CLT and Teaching Reading Comprehension……….

vi

15


2.7. Concluding remarks……………………………………………..

17
18

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1.Research Design.…...……………………….…………………… 18
3.2. Participants…………………………………………...................

18

3.3. Data Collection Instrument.…………………………………….

19

3.4. Data Collection Procedure..……………………………………

19

3.5. Data Analytical Method…………………………………………

20

4. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF
DATA

22

4.1. Comparison of Data of the Pre-test Scores of the Control and
Experimental Groups…..…………………………………………….

22

4.2. Comparison of Data of the Post-test Scores of the Control and
Experimental Groups…………………………………………………

25

4.3. Comparison of Data of the Pre-test and Post-test Scores of the
Control Group (Using the Traditional Method)……………………..

28

4.4. Comparison of Data of the Pre-test and Post-test Scores of the
Experimental Group (using the Communicative Language Teaching)..

31

4.5. Comparison of the Mean Gain Scores of the two groups………

34

5. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

38

5.1. Summary……….….….……………………………....................

38

5.2. Findings….....…………….….………………………………….

39

5.3. Conclusions……………………………………………..............

40

5.4. Recommendations………………………...…………..................

41

REFERENCES

42

vii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviation

Full word

MOET: Ministry of Education and Training
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
NFLP: The National Foreign Language Project
EFL: English Foreign Language

viii


LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 1

Statistical Treatment of the data

Table 2

Comparison of Pre-test Scores of the Control and Experimental
Groups

Table 3

23

T-test Results of the Pre-test Scores of the Control and
Experimental Groups

Table 4

26

Comparison of Post-test Scores of the Control and Experimental
Groups

Table 5

26

T-test Results of the Post-test Scores of the Control and
Experimental Groups

Table 6

29

Comparision of the Pre-test and Post Test Scores of the Control
Group

Table 7

29

T-test Results on the Pre-test and Post-test Scores of the Control
Group

Table 8

32

Comparision of the Pre-test and Post test Scores of the
Experimental Group

Table 9

32

T-test Results on the Pre-test and Post-test Scores of the
Experimental Group

Table 10

Table 11

22

34

Comparison of Mean Gain Scores of the Control and
Experimental Groups

35

T-test for Two Independent Samples for Mean Gain Scores

38

ix


LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1

Framework of communicative activities in teaching

Figure 2

Distribution of the Pre-test Scores of the Control and
Experimental Groups

Figure 3

25

Distributions of the Post-test Scores of the Control and
Experimental Groups

Figure 4

28

Distribution of the Pre-test and Post test Scores of the
Control group

Figure 5

Figure 6

10

31

Distribution of the Pre-test and Post-test Scores of the
Experimental Group

34

Distribution of Mean Gain Scores of Two Groups

38

x


LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix A

Letter asking permission.

II

Appendix B

A Letter to the Respondents

III

Appendix C

Achievement Test

IV

Appendix D

Answer Key to Achievement Test

X

Appendix E

Result of Achievement Test

XI

Appendix F

Statistical Analysis

XII

Appendix G

Lesson Plan

XV

xi


CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction
Due to the growing effect of globalization, the international communication in
English isbecoming widespread. To meet the challenges of this modern trend, most
of the non-Englishspeaking countries around the world are becoming more receptive
to English language. Same scenario prevails in most of the Asian countries and
certainly in Vietnam. To cater this requirement of making our students literate in
regional and international communication, the demand for communicative
competence in English is increasing day by day.
In Vietnam, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 1400/QĐ-TTgon
approving the 10-year National Plan for “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages
in the National Education System, Period 2008 to 2020”. In 2010, Vietnamese
Ministry of Education launched “The National Foreign Language Project 2020”
(NFLP 2020) with the goal of "comprehensively renovating the teaching and learning
English within the national education system; … so that by the year 2020, most
Vietnamese youth whoever graduate from vocational schools, colleges and

universities will have been able to use a foreign language confidently in their daily
communication, their study and work in an integrated, multi-cultural and multilingual environment, making foreign languages a comparative advantage of
development for Vietnamese people..., serving the cause of industrialization and
modernization for the country” (MOET, 2010). As a result, changes and innovations
in English teaching and learning have never become more prominent in all
educational institutions with the hope to make a break through in language education
across the country.
Of all remarkable approaches in language teaching, Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) Approach is one of the method of choice. CLT refers to the beliefs

1


and theories of the language teaching, which emphasize that the goal of language
teaching is communicative competence (Richard& Roger, 1985). Moreover, as a
learner-centered approach, CLT is claimed to make language learning more relevant,
interesting, enjoyable and effective. Therefore, the application of this method in
teaching - learning process is expected to enhance students’ achievement in English.
Bach Dang high school where the researcher is working is located in a
mountainous area of Quang Ninh province. As an observator, English is not a strong
skill but frightening subject to study just for tests for many students here. That is the
reason why students find little motivation to study and use English inside and outside
the classrooms.
The above situations and observations, together with the researcher’s own
interest in finding out whether CLT is really effective and enhances students’
performance in reading English at her teaching context, a study on “The
Effectiveness of Communicative Activities on Students’ Performance in English
Reading Skills at Bach Dang high school” is expected to be the topic of her study.
2. Aims of the study
The main purpose of this study is to test for the effectiveness of

Communicative Activities on the reading achievement of the grade 11 students at
Bach Dang high school. Specifically, the study aims to apply different activities in
Communicative Approach in the teaching of selected textbook contents to see
whether CLT really enhances students’ achievement in reading comprehension at a
high school in QuangNinh province.
More specifically, the study aims to seek the answer for the following
research question:
To what extent does the use of Communicative Activities improve grade 11
students’ performance in English reading skills?

2


3. Scope of the study
This study mainly concentrates on investigating the effectiveness of CLT in
teaching English reading to high school students in order to see whether there is any
improvement in reading after the experimental period.
The participants joined in this research are a group of 30 students of grade 11
at Bach Dang high school, Quang Ninh province. They were administered with a pretest before and a post-test after the experimental teaching period to see if there was
any improvement in their reading performance.
4. Significance of the study
The current study is believed to make important contributions in some ways.
First of all, the research results would help teachers and educators of English to
recognize how communicative language teaching affect their reading classes and
then adjust their teaching so as to meet the students’ needs. It can also provide
teachers with possible suggestions to improve the use of communicative language
activities in their classrooms.
Secondly, through the communicative activities in the classes, it is hoped that
students will be more interested in learning reading and become more confident
when communicating and reading in English.

Finally, administrators will also be beneficial from the results and
suggestions when knowing important roles of communicative activities in improving
students’ competence in language skills, so that appropriate policies should be given
to support English language teaching and learning at their institutions.
5. Definitions of terms
The following terms are defined for better understanding of the study:
Methods of Teaching: It refers to the traditional method in teaching the control
group and CLT used in the experimental group.

3


Traditional Method: It refers to method of teaching in which students learn reading skills
by translating sentences from English to Vietnamese before doing any reading tasks.
Communicative Teaching Approach: It refers to method of teaching in which students
learn and practice the English language through the interaction with one another and
the instructor and through the use of the language for communication purposes.
Effectiveness: It refers to a change or changed state occurring to the students as a
direct result of the CLT method
Experimental Group: This refers to thirty students belonging to a group who are
subjected to communicative activities.
Traditional Group: This refers to thirty students belonging to a group who are
subjected to traditional method of learning reading skills.
Students’ Achievement. It refers to the standard performance in English reading
comprehension. It is determined by the mean score of the respondents in reading
English. Such scores can be gathered from the achievement test.
Pre-test. This is a test given to both groups before teaching the lessons which give
focuses on reading tasks, i.e. matching, True/False ... This is to diagnose the
strengths and weaknesses of the students in the subject matter.
Post-test. This is a test given to both groups at the end of teaching the lessons to

determine the achievement level of the students.
Mean Score. This refers to the difference in scores obtained by the students in the
pre-test and post-test.
6. Outline of the thesis
As required, the paper will have such main parts as follows:

4


Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION, presents statement of the problem and
rationale for the study, aims, scope, definition of terms, significance, and outline of
the study.
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW, clarifies theoretical background and
related studies relevant for the research.
Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, elicits information related to
research questions, research methods, data collection procedure and data analysis.
Chapter 4: PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
OF DATA is the main part of the study and will be divided into two subsections,
correspondent to the research question. First, the extent to which communicative
activities influence students’ reading ability is reported. Subsequently, students and
teachers’ opinions and attitudes towards the use of this method is displayed.
Chapter 5: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS,
summarizes essential findings, provides some linguistic and pedagogical implications,
and gives suggestions for further studies.
Besides, there should be REFERENCES and APPENDICES if any at the
end of the research.

5

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter is to present an overview of the theoretical background, which
consists of three main parts. The first part deals with the communicative teaching
approach in general and an overview of communicative competence. The second part
discusses the framework of communicative teaching and the communicative reading
teaching in Vietnamese education context and their application in reading classes.
Finally, related previous studies are considered to figure out how communicative
activities have been utilized to teach reading.
2.1 Communicative Language Teaching Approach
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the most influential language
teaching methodology in the present world. Speaking about CLT characteristics
(Richards, 2006), emphasis that people learn one language when they use it to do
things, rather than by studying its functions, we have a lot of different examples
where students learned a second foreign language because of their needs for that kind
of language. In every CLT activity, communicative intent is always emphasized.
This approach appeared during the 1970s and its main principles at that time were
the following ones:
- Make real communication the focus of language learning.
- Provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they
know.
- Be tolerant of learners’ errors as they indicate that the learner is building up his or her
communicative competence.
- Provide opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency.

- Link the different skills such as speaking, reading, and listening together, since they
usually occur so in the real world.

- Let students induce or discover grammar rules.
(Richards, 2006, p. 13)

6


According to the recent study of Richards and Rodgers (2001), CLT method is
considered the best as approach rather than a method. “It refers to a diverse set of
principles that reflect a communicative view of language and language learning and
that can be used to support a wide variety of classroom procedures.” (p.73). In
addition, Freeman (2000, p. 23), further affirms that “Communicative Language
Teaching method aims broadly to apply the theoretical perspective of the
Communicative Approach by making communicative competence the goal of
language teaching and by acknowledging the interpendence of language and
communication”.
Ahmad (2013) has concluded that “communicative approach is better than the
traditional method (GTM) in teaching English at the higher secondary level in
Pakistan. The experimental study included in this research proved the fact that, if
provided

with

suitable

conditions,

Pakistani

learners

can

increase

their

communicative ability. Ozsevic. (2010) in his use of Communicative Language
Teaching Method has concluded that “The results show that Turkish EFL teachers,
whilst aware of the achievements, observe many difficulties in implementing CLT in
their classrooms. These difficulties stem from four directions, namely, the teacher,
the students, the educational system, and CLT itself. The results suggest that despite
showing keen interest in change and being eager to identify with CLT, Turkish
teachers are not rather optimistic about the complete adoption of CLT, and thus feel
that only by overcoming the difficulties from those four sources, and by
establishing more favorable conditions for the implementation of CLT can
teachers truly benefit from CLT in their English classrooms.”
Incommunicative class, students use the language a great deal through
communicative activities, (e. g., games, role play, group work etc.). According to
Zaman (2008), there are four basic aspects of CLT.
1. An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target
language

7


2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation. For example,
newspaper, magazine etc., are authentic texts.
3. An enhancement of the learners’ own personal experiences as important
contributing elements to classroom learning.
4. An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside
the classroom.
In sum, the researcher agrees with Brown (2007) when he gives his definition of

CLT as “an approach to language teaching methodology that emphasizes
authenticity, interaction, student-centered learning, task based activities, and
communication for the real world, meaningful purposes”.
2.2 Communicative Competence
Canale and Swain (1980) referred communicative competence as the
interaction between grammatical competences or the knowledge of the rules of
grammar and sociolinguistic competence or knowledge of the rules of use. They
identified grammatical, sociolinguistic and discourse competence as part of
communicative competence.
Sociolinguistic competence is crucial in interpreting utterances for their `social
meaning’. Discourse competence relates to the learners’ ability to combine
grammatical forms and meaning in an appropriate order for discourse needs.
Discourse competence highlights that learners must also be aware of the discourse
patterns of the language they are learning (Canale, 1980). Savigone (1997), cited by
Aleixo (2003), characterizes communicative competence as having the following
elements:
-

Communicative competence is a dynamic rather than a static concept. It
depends on the negotiation of meaning between two or more than two persons
who share same symbolic system.

-

Communicative competence applies to both written and spoken language, as
well as to many other symbolic systems.

8

-

Communicative competence is context specific. Communication takes place
in an infinite variety of situations and success in a particular role depends on
one’s understanding of the context and prior experience of a similar kind.

-

Communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the
cooperation of all the participants.

-

There is a difference between having the knowledge necessary to produce
sentence of a language and applying this knowledge. It is a difference between
what a person knows, which is linguistic competence is and how he uses this
knowledge in actual speech production and comprehension, which is his
linguistic performance. Communicative Language Teaching always gives
importance on proper performance.

2.3 Methodological Framework of Communicative Activities
There are two kinds of communicative activities. They are: precommunicative activities and communicative activities. Through pre-communicative
activities, the teacher isolates specific elements of knowledge or skills which
compose communicative ability, and provides the learners with opportunities to
practice them separately. The learners exercise some parts of skills rather then
practicing the total skills. The learners learn different structures of target language
through the pre-communicative activities.
In communicative activities, the learners have to activate and integrate their
pre-communicative knowledge and skills in order to use them for the communication
of meaning. Then they practice the total skills of communication. In functional

communicative activities, the learners are placed in a situation where they must
perform a task by communication as best they can; with whatever resources they
have available. The criterion for success is practical: how effectively the task is
performed. In social interaction activities, on the other hand, the learners are also
encouraged to take account of the social context in which communication takes
place. They are required to go beyond what is necessary for simply ‘getting the
meaning across’, in order to develop greater social acceptability in the language they

9


use. This methodological framework can be represented diagrammatically as
follows:
Communicative activities

Communicative activities

Pre-communicative activities

Structured
activities

Quasicommunicative
activities

Functional
communicative
activities

Social

interaction
activities

Figure 1: Framework of communicative activities in teaching. (Littlewood, 1981)
2.4. Groupwork as a Communicative Activity in Teaching Reading
As Richards and Rodgers (2001) stress, communicative learning activities
arethose which promote learning through communication itself; therefore, the range
of instructional practices that may be employed in CLT is bounded only by the
creativity of curriculum designers and classroom instructors in developing authentic
communicative tasks. Breen (1987) described these as structured activities which
“have the overall purpose of facilitating language learning - from the simple and
brief exercise type, to more complex and lengthy activities such as group problem
solving or simulations and decision making” (p. 23).
Littlewood (2002, p. 1) has stated that one of the characteristic features of
CLT is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of
language, combining these into a more communicative view. Furthermore, Nunan
(1991, p. 297) has described five characteristics of CLT:
1. An emphasis on learning to communicate through interactions in the
target language;
2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation;

10


3. The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language,
but also on the learning process itself;
4. An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as an important
contributing elements in classroom learning;
5. An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation
outside the classroom.

Group work is considered as a communicative activity since the focus is not
on the use of any particular grammatical form or speech function. The point is to
experience the relationship between language use and task fulfillment. Therefore, the
delivery-lecture, readings, explanations, tasks expected of the students and so on,
must be adjusted to the students. Motivation is generally high, provided the tasks are
challenging and promoting discussion. Students participate more actively, partly
because it is less threatening than participating in front of the whole class and partly
because it is more obvious that everyone’s contribution counts. And the discussion
helps students to see how to read thoughtfully. Group discussions are popular
“because the participants were expressing their own ideas rather than performing in a
hypothetical situation” Gao (2008, p.16). Through discussion, the students can learn
the processes of critical thinking that good readers use. Group work is ideal, because
in small groups (maximum five members), even the weaker students should be active
and learning.
In addition, groupwork is one way of work where brainstorming can be
applied successfully. A task which is too difficult for an individual todo, can be easy
to do successfully in a group. Cottrell (1999, p. 12) has said that groupwork is where
groups of students work in the same room or at the same event on a common
problem that necessitates agroup approach. If the group is managed in a totally
autocratic manner, there may be little opportunity for interaction relating to the work
however if there is functioning within the group, the process can be evolved so that
all members of the group learn together. Even if the problem can be decided by a
single person, there are two main benefits in involving more students to carry out the
decision. First, the motivational aspect of participating in the decision will clearly

11


enhance its implementation. Second, there may well be factors which implementers
understand better than the single person who supposedly can decide alone. In the

teaching-learning of reading, the study encompasses the following steps in groupwork activities; first, the teacher puts the students into pair groups. Second, the
teacher thenasks the student pairs to work together to answer the questions from
thereading texts shared out to them by the teacher. Third, therepresentative student
from each group gives the answers orally and also writes them down on the white
board.
Regarding advantages of groupwork in teaching reading, Harmer (2007, p.
166) has stated that there are some advantages ofgroup work as follows:
1)

Like

pair

work,

it

dramatically

increases

the

number

of

talking

opportunities for each individual student.

2) Unlike pair work, because there are more than two people in the group, personal
relationships are usually less problematic; there is also a greater chance of different
opinions and more varied contributions than in pair work.
3) It encourages broader skills of cooperation and negotiation than pair work, and yet
is more private than work in front of the whole class.
4) It promotes learner autonomy by allowing students to make their own decisions in
the group without being told what to do by the teacher.
5) Although we do not wish any individuals in groups to be completely passive,
nevertheless, some students can choose their level of participation more readily than
in whole of class or pair work situations.

Furthermore, Brown (2001, p. 177) has also stated that theadvantages of
group work include:
1) Group work generates interactive language.
2) Group work offers an embracing affective climate.
3) Group work promotes learners responsibility and autonomy.
4) Group work is a step toward individualizing instructions.

12


However, when using groupwork in teaching reading, we have also keep in
mind the disadvantages of groupwork which were also mentioned by Harmer (2007, p.
166):
1) It is likely to be noisy (though not necessarily as loud as pair work can be). Some
teachers’ feel that they lose control, and the wholeclass feeling which has been
instantly built up may dissipate when the class is split into smaller entities.
2) Not all students enjoy it since they would prefer to be the focus of the teacher’s
attention rather than working with their peers. Sometimes a student may find
themselves in an uncongenial group and wish they could be somewhere else.

3) Individuals may fall into group roles that become fossilized, so that some are
passive whereas others may dominate.
4) Groups can take longer to organize than pairs, beginning and ending group wok
activities, especially where people move around the class, can take time and be
chaotic.

2.5. Roles of Teachers and Students in Communicative Language Teaching
2.5.1. Roles of teachers
The teacher’s role in implementing a communicative learning exercise is
somewhat malleable in comparison with other, more instructor-oriented approaches
to language learning. in traditional language classrooms, the instructor is generally
the dominant igure; the focus of the class is on the teacher, and students may assume
a passive role as they receive direct instruction. in the communicative classroom, on
the other hand, the focus is on interaction between students. Richards and Rodgers
(2001) emphasize the teacher’s role in this setting as that of a “needs analyst” who is
responsible for “determining and responding to learner languageneeds” (p. 167)
within a speciic learning context. in this case, the teacher serves mainly as a
facilitator, designing activities that are geared toward communication and monitoring
students’ progress, as well as stepping in as necessary to resolve breakdowns in
communication.

13


According to Zaman (2008), in communicative language teaching a teacher has
two main roles:
-

The first is to facilitate the communication process between all participants in
the classroom and between these participants and the various activities and

text.

-

The second role is to act as an independent participant within the learning
teaching group.
The teacher may take on the role of a participant in a given exercise, or even

act as a co-learner herself, as students express themselves during the course of a
communicative task (Nunan, 1989, p. 89). When errors occur, the teacher may note
them without comment so as not to disrupt the low of the activity, instead addressing
the issues that appear to cause dificulties at a later time (Larsen-Freeman &
Anderson, 2011). As Richards and Rodgers (2001) suggest, teachers who lack
specialized training may ind classroom development to be challenging in such a
learning environment, as they strive to ind a balance between providing structure to
the learning process while still maintaining a natural low of communication.
2.5.2 Roles of students
When it comes to the role of students in a communicative approach to
language, it is important to bear in mind that, as teachers we can no longer be
considered only as teachers, just the same happens with students, since both teachers
and students are responsible for learning.
Within the framework of a communicative approach, students are the focal
pointof classroom activity, assuming primary responsibility for their own learning.
Asit is assumed that using a language is the most efective way to learn it
(Richards,2006), students are encouraged to work together to negotiate meaning in
order to accomplish a given communicative task; thus, learning activities are highly
interactive and may take place in smaller groups or with an entire class. In this
context, learners are responsible for choosing which forms of the language they use

14