Difficulties in english speaking skill encountered by 10th grade students at con cuong boarding high school and some suggested solutions

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

Lê thị hờng

Difficulties in English speaking skill Encountered
By 10TH GRADE Students at Con Cuong ethnic Boarding
High School and some suggested solutions

(Những khó khăn trong bài học kỹ năng nói của học sinh lớp 10
trờng THPT-DTNT Con Cuông và một số giải pháp đề xuất)

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching
Code: 60.14.10
Master thesis in Education
Supervisor: Ngô Hữu Hoàng,DR.

Vinh, 2011
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DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that it has not
been submitted anywhere for any award. Where other sources of information have
been used, they have been acknowledged.

Vinh, 10/2011
Lê Thị Hờng

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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I would like to acknowledge the assistance I received from a number of people
in the course of carrying out the research paper. I highly treasure the important role
they played in making the completion of this thesis a success.
First of all, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Ngô Hữu Hoàng, Dr, for
painstakingly reading through my work from the beginning to the end and for his
constant advice and invaluable comments and suggestions. Without his continuous
support I may not have come this far.
Secondly, I want to express our sincere gratitude to the Post-Graduate
lecturers who supplied me with basic and useful knowledge about how I could
structure a research project and what I should write in each chapter.
Thirdly, I wish to extend my special thanks to the students from grade 10
for their help and cooperation during my research at their class. I am also grateful
to my colleagues from Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding High school who helped and
encouraged me a lot when I was conducting our research, but whom I cannot all
mention here due to the inconvenience of space.
Finally, millions of thanks go to our beloved family whose financial support
and spiritual encouragement contribute a significant part to the completion of the
research.

Vinh, October 10th 2011

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ABSTRACT
In Vietnam, English is one of the foreign languages that are compulsory
from primary school to university. However, teaching English to ethnic minority

students has long been a controversial issue. This research investigates the
difficulties in English speaking skill encountered by 10 th grade students at Con
Cuong Ethnic Boarding High school in Nghe An province with the hope to find out
some suggested solutions to the problems.
The thesis is divided into 5 chapters: chapter 1 presents the rationale, aims,
methods, scope and organization of the paper. Chapter 2 presents the theoretical
background of speaking, teaching and learning, and communicative language
teaching approach; Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the thesis. Specifically,
the data for this research was collected in the forms of survey questionnaires and
interviews. The participants of the survey questionnaires were 10 English teachers
and 100 grade - 10 - students. After the results of the survey questionnaires had
been clarified, the interviews with 7 teachers and 20 students were conducted to
make the survey questionnaire results clearer; Chapter 4 analyses and discusses the
results from the survey questionnaires and interviews. A lot of difficulties when
teaching English speaking skill to ethnic minority students such as lack of time in
using the new textbook, the poor teaching and learning conditions, students'
limited triangular language environment, low level of background knowledge, low
level of English proficiency, etc.; Chapter 5 mentions conclusions of this paper,
some limitations, recommendations for further study and some pedagogical
recommendations for both subjective and objective problems. For example, the
teachers should plan the speaking lessons more carefully, improving the students’
Vietnamese competence, The teacher’s self-improvement of speaking skill,
educating ethnic minority teachers to teach English for their students in their
communities, Motivating students to learn, adapting the textbooks.... These
recommendations are expected to be beneficial to both teachers and ethnic
minority students in mountainous high schools.

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LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: The Nationality of students
Table 2: The time students spend learning speaking English everyday
Table 3: Students’ motivation in learning English
Table 4: students’ opinions towards the speaking tasks of the new textbook
Table 5: Students’ difficulties when learning English speaking skill
Table 6: Students’ difficulties when learning English speaking skill
Table 7: Students’ suggested solutions to improve their speaking skill in the text
book
Table 8: Teachers’ opinions to the speaking sections of the new textbook for grade
Table 9: Teachers’ difficulties when teaching speaking skill with the new textbook
Table 10: Teachers’ solutions to improve the speaking lessons
Table 11: Teachers’ opinions to overcome the difficulties
Chart 1: Students’ attitudes towards speaking skill

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
L1: the first language
L2: the second language
L3: the third language

Table of contents
DECLARATION………………………………………………………….………..I

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………….............ii
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………............iii
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS…………………………………………........iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………..v

Table of contents.................................................................................................6
Introduction.......................................................................................................10
1.1 Rationale of the study. .............................................................................10
1.2. Aims of the study....................................................................................11
1.3. The research questions........................................................................11
1.4. Scope of the study. ..................................................................................12
1.5. The method and procedure of the research.............................................13
1.6. Organization of the study...................................................................13
CHAPTER 2.....................................................................................................14
Literature review ............................................................................................14
2.1. Theoretical background of speaking in second language.......................14
2.1.1. Definition of speaking .........................................................................14
2.1.2. The nature of speaking.........................................................................15
2.1.3. Aspects of Speaking.............................................................................17
2.2. Theoretical background of learning and teaching speaking skill
........................................................................................................................20
2.2.1. Definition of teaching and learning .....................................................20
2.2.2. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Approach .......................22
2.2.2.1. Introduction.......................................................................................22
2.2.2.2. Characteristics of CLT:.....................................................................23
2.2.2.3. Advantages of Communicative Language Teaching.........................24
2.2.2.4. Disadvantages of Communicative Language Teaching....................25
2.2.3. Communicative Competence – The desired goal of CLT..................26
2.2.4. The necessity of Teaching and Learning Speaking Skill in a ......27

2.2.5. Problems in teaching and learning speaking skill................................28
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2.3. Proficiency in the native language and the second language and the
........................................................................................................................29
acquisition of a third language...................................29
...................................................................................................29
Chapter 3...........................................................................................................31
3.1. The Teaching and Learning Situation in Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding
.

High School..................................................32
3.1.1. An overview of Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding High School.............32
3.1.2. Introduction of the students at Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding High 32
school.................................................32
................................................................................32

3.1.3. Introduction of the teachers at Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding High . .33
school
........................................................................................................................33
3.2 Introduction of the English Textbook for Grade 10.................................34
3.2.1. The overall layout of English textbook 10 ..........................................34
......................................................................................................................34
3.2.2. The general features of the English textbook 10. ................................35
3.2.3. Description of the Speaking Section.....................................................36
.......................................................................................................................36
3.3. Description of the study..........................................................................38
3.3.1. Kind of the research.............................................................................38
3.3.2. Participants. ......................................................................................39

3.3.3. The research questions.........................................................................40
DATA ANALYSIS .........................................................................................40
4.1. Results of the survey questionnaires.......................................................41
4.1.1. Questionnaire for students ...................................................................41
.......................................................................................................................41

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4.1.2 Questionnaire for teachers.....................................................................47
.......................................................................................................................47
4.2. Results and discussion from the interview..............................................53
4.2.1. Students’ interview...............................................................................53
4.2.2. Teachers’ interview.........................................................................54
4.3. Findings and discussions.........................................................................56
4.3.1. Subjective difficulties...........................................................................56
4.3.1.1. Students’ difficulties..........................................................................56
4.3.1.2. Difficulties of teachers......................................................................59
4.3.2. Objective difficulties:...........................................................................60
4.3.2.1. Large class ........................................................................................60
4.3.2.2. Time pressure....................................................................................61
4.3.2.3. The constraints brought by the innovations on the curriculum and .61
teaching method. ................................................61
4.3.2.4. The testing system.............................................................................62
4.3.2.5. Lack of teaching and learning facilities............................................63
4.3.3. Teachers’ and students’ solutions........................................................63
4.3.3.1. Students’ solutions.............................................................................63
4.3.3.2. Teachers’ solutions............................................................................64
CHAPTER 5.....................................................................................................66
PEDAGOGICAL RECOMMENDATIONS and Conclusion...........................66

5.1. Pedagogical recommendation..................................................................66
5.1.1. A careful plan of the speaking lesson...................................................67
5.1.2. Various ways of testing speaking skill............................................68
5.1.3. Adapting the textbooks ........................................................................68
5.1.4. The change in students’ speaking habits .........................................69
* Motivating students to learn........................................................................70
5.1.5. Improving teaching conditions.............................................................71

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5.2. Conclusion...............................................................................................72
5.3. Limitations of the study...........................................................................73
5.4. Suggestion for further study ...................................................................73
REFERENCES..................................................................................................74

Introduction
1.1 Rationale of the study.
In Con Cuong mountainous district, where the author has been working for 8
years, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is considered one of
the major subjects for the high school final examination. English is taught with the
purpose to give students some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate
and use it as a key to science and technology. However, there still exist many
difficulties facing teachers in teaching speaking skill to students, especially those
from ethnic minorities. It can be observed that ethnic minority students’ scores are
very low in English. As result in every year, it is only 5 per cent earn good marks,
even in the national graduation exams. Furthermore, according to one high school
teacher of English, the majority of ethnic minority students can understand forty
percent of teachers’ lectures in Vietnamese. In some remote areas, lower level
students understand less than 20 per cent of what teachers say in Vietnamese

(“Minority Students Need”, 2008) Ethnic minority students mainly use their mother
tongues – Muong, Thai, Hmong, Tay, Dan Lai, etc… and other languages - to
communicate inside their families and small communities. From first grade onward,
at school and in public places, ethnic minority students have to struggle with

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Vietnamese to study and communicate with other people. Although English is
taught in Vietnamese as a foreign language, for ethnic minority students, learning
English is similar to learning a third language (see page 20- 23 in chapter 2). This is
why not many can understand lectures, even at high school, because they do not
thoroughly comprehend Vietnamese - and very few teachers can explain things to
them in their native languages (“Ethnic Schools Lack”, 2007). Thus, speaking
English language in addition to Vietnamese language might be very challenging for
ethnic minority students.
This fact has given the author an impetus to do the research on Difficulties in
English speaking skill encountered by 10 th grate

students at Con Cuong

Ethnic Boarding High school in Nghe An province with the hope to find out
some suggested solutions to these problems and to make a small contribution to
improve the quality of teaching English speaking skill to ethnic minority students in
a mountainous district.
1.2. Aims of the study.
This research mainly aims at clarifying the difficulties in teaching and learning
speaking skill with the new textbook for grade 10 at Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding High

school in Nghe An province.

The author investigates the teachers’ and learners’ attitudes towards the
speaking skill and then put the focus on the current difficulties in the application of
the new textbook.
The difficulties are also examined so that the solutions to those problems can
be given.
1.3. The research questions

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To find out the challenges of teaching and learning speaking skill with the new
textbook for grade 10 and the best solutions to the situation, the questions that
guided the study mainly focused on the following issues:
Question 1: What are students’ difficulties when learning to speak with the new
textbook for grade 10 at Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding High school in Nghe An
province?
Question 2: What are the teachers’ difficulties when teaching speaking with the
new textbook at Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding High school in Nghe An province?
Question 3:

What should be done to overcome the difficulties and improve

students’ speaking skill?

1.4. Scope of the study.
The study only concentrates on problems and possible solutions in learning
and teaching English speaking skill from the textbook “ Tiếng Anh 10” by Hoang
Van Van, Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, Do Tuan Minh, Nguyen Thu Phuong and Nguyen
Quoc Tuan.
Through my own teaching experience, there are some problems exist such as:

large class, students’ lack of motivation, mother-tongue use, Lack of teaching and
learning facilities¸ Students’ reluctance to speak English, Students’ pronunciation…
etc. with the speaking skill that teachers and learners have in the process of using
daily English in the class and the new textbook for grade 10
These problems are discussed thoroughly in order to discover the causes and to
offer the best solutions.
The subjects of the study are limited to the teachers and students at Con Cuong
Ethnic Boarding High school in Nghe An province

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1.5. The method and procedure of the research.
The data of this study was collected through the survey questionnaires and
interviews.
First, the author carried out the survey questionnaires to find out the attitudes
towards the teaching and learning of the speaking skill with the textbook for grade
10 and the difficulties of the teachers and students in using the textbook for grade
10.
Then the interviews with teachers and students were conducted to clarify
aspects which were inadequate and vague in the survey questionnaires.

1.6. Organization of the study
The study includes 5 chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction - Presents the rationale, aims, scope, method and
procedure of the research. (The instruments, the participants and the research
questions) and organization of the study
Chapter 2: Literature review -

Gives the theoretical background of speaking

skill.
Chapter 3: methodology. Includes the description of Con Cuong Ethnic Boarding
High school context, the English textbook for grade 10 and the study (the
instruments, the participants and the research questions) describes the data of the
questionnaires and interviews.
Chapter 4: - Data analysis, Finding and discussions - Describe the data of the
questionnaires and interviews, and then give some findings and discussions, suggest
some solutions to the current problems.

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Chapter5: Recommendations and Conclusion. – Pedagogical Recommendations,
Focus on the conclusions of the thesis, some limitations and recommendations for
further study

CHAPTER 2
Literature review
The theoretical background of the study will be fully developed later in the
thesis. This chapter attempts to present the theoretical background related to the
speaking skill. It consists of three main sections:

Theoretical background of

speaking in second language, Theoretical background of learning and teaching
speaking skill and Proficiency in the native language and the second language and
the acquisition of a third language.
2.1. Theoretical background of speaking in second language.
2.1.1. Definition of speaking

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Florez (1991:1) defines speaking as “an interactive process of constructing
meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (cited
in Bailey, 2005:2).
According to Mackey (1965) “ oral expression involves not only the use of
the right sounds in the right patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also a choice of
words and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning”, (cited in
Bygate, 1987:5)
Furthermore, speaking is known with two main types of conversation called
dialogue and monologue. Brown ad Yule (1983) indicates there is a difference
between them. In monologue, you give uninterrupted oral presentation while in
dialogue you interact with one or more other speakers for transactional and
international purposes.
From the above definitions, it can be concluded that speaking is the
productive skill used to convey meaning.

2.1.2. The nature of speaking.
It is obvious that speaking is the key to communication and seems to be the
vital skill in comparison with reading, listening and writing. Everywhere people
speak to each other to exchange attitudes, cultural values, etc. Without it
communication will become difficult to proceed and our world will become as silent
as a grave. Therefore, classroom activities aiming at developing learners’ ability to
express themselves through speech are considered an important component in a
language course. Thus oral English becomes an essential part of the senior –
secondary school curriculum.
There have been many scholars discussing the nature of speaking. To Brown
(1994), Burn and Joyce, (1997), Speaking is an interactive process of constructing

meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information; Its form

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and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the
participants themselves, their collective experience, the physical environment, and
the purposes for speaking; It is often spontaneous, open ended and evolving.
However, speaking is not always unpredictable. Language functions that tend to
recur in certain discourse situations (declining an invitation, requesting time) can be
identified and charted. For example, when a salesman asks, “May I help you?”, the
expected discourse sequence include a statement of need , response to the need,
offer of appreciation, acknowledgements of appreciation, and a leave – taking
exchange. Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific
points of language, such as grammar, pronunciation or vocabulary (linguistic
competence), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce
language (sociolinguistic competence).
According to Byrne (1976: 8), speaking is a two - way process between the
speakers and the hearers involving the productive skill of speaking and the receptive
skill of understanding. Both the listener and the speaker have a positive function to
perform. The speaker has to encode the message to be conveyed in appropriate
language, while the listener has to decode the message. The message itself in normal
speech usually contains a great deal of information that the listener needs.
It is perfectly true that speaking is active, or productive, and makes use of
aural medium. An act of speaking is commonly performed in face - to - face
interaction. The act of speaking involves not only the production of sounds but also
the use of gestures, the movements of the muscles and the face. Spoken language
consists of short, often fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciations. There
is often a great deal of repetition and overlap between one speaking and another.
Speakers frequently use non - specific references.

Some of the micro-skills involved in speaking. The speaker has to:
*Pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language clearly enough so that
people can distinguish them. This includes making tonal distinctions.

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*Use stress and rhythmic patterns and intonation patterns of the language
clearly enough so that people can understand what is said.
*Use the correct forms of words. This may mean, for example, changes in
the tense, case or gender.
*Put words together in correct word order.
*Use vocabulary appropriately.
*Use the register or language variety that is appropriate to the situation and
the relationship to the conversation partner.
*Make clear to the listener the main sentence constituents, such as subject,
verb, object, by whatever means the language uses.
*Make the main ideas stand out from supporting ideas or information.
*Make the discourse hang together so that people can follow what you are
saying.

2.1.3. Aspects of Speaking
According to Bygate (1987: 3), in order to achieve a communicative
goal through speaking, there are two aspects to be considered – knowledge of
the language, and skill in using this knowledge. It is not enough to possess a
certain amount of knowledge, but a speaker of the language should be able to use
this knowledge in different situations: “We do not merely know how to assemble
sentences in the abstract: we have to produce them and adopt to the circumstances.
This means making decisions rapidly, implementing them smoothly, and adjusting
our conversation as unexpected problems appear in our path.” (Bygate, 1987: 3)

Being able to decide what to say on the spot, saying it clearly and being
flexible during a conversation as different situations come out is the ability to use
the knowledge ‘in action’, which creates the second aspect of speaking - the skill.
Bygate views the skill as comprising two components: production skills and

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interaction skills, both of which can be affected by two conditions: firstly,
processing conditions, taking into consideration the fact that ‘a speech takes
place under the pressure of time’; secondly, reciprocity conditions connected with
a mutual relationship between the interlocutors.
Production skills:
The processing conditions (time pressure) in certain ways limit or modify
the oral production; it means the use of production skills. For that reason, speakers
are forced to use devices which help them make the oral production possible or
easier through ‘facilitation’, or enable them to change words they use in order to
avoid or replace the difficult ones by means of ‘compensation’ (Bygate, 1987:14)
There are four elementary ways of facilitating that Bygate distinguishes:
simplifying structures, ellipsis, formulaic expressions, and using fillers and
hesitation devices.
On the other hand, when a speaker needs to alter, correct or change what he
or she has said, they will need to make use of compensation devices. These
include tools such as substitution, rephrasing, reformulating, self-correction,
false starts, and repetition and hesitation.
Bygate concludes that incorporation of these features, facilitation and
compensation, in the teaching-learning process is of a considerate importance, in
order to help students’ oral production and compensate for the problems they may
face: “All these features may in fact help learners to speak, and hence help them to
learn to speak . . . In addition to helping learners to learn to speak, these features

may also help learners to sound normal in their use of the foreign language.”
(Bygate 1987: 20-21)
Interaction skills
According to Bygate (1987:22), both speakers and listeners, besides being
good at processing spoken words should be ‘good communicators’, which
means ‘good at saying what they want to say in a way which the listener finds

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understandable’.

This

means

being

able

to

possess

interaction

skills.

Communication of meaning then depends on two kinds of skill: routines, and
negotiation skills.

Routines are the typical patterns in which speakers organize what they have to
communicate. There are two kinds of routines: information routines, and interaction
routines. The information routines include frequently recurring types of information
structures involved in, for example, stories, descriptions, comparisons, or
instructions. Bygate further divides information routines according to their function
into evaluative routines (explanations, predictions, justifications, preferences,
decisions), and expository routines (narration, descriptions, instructions). The
interaction routines, on the other hand, present the characteristic ways, in
which interactions are organized dealing with the logical organization and
order of the parts of conversation. Interaction routines can typically be observed
in, for example, telephone conversations, interviews, or conversations at the party.
While routines present the typical patterns of conversation, negotiation
skills, on the other hand, solve communication problems and enable the
speaker and listener to make themselves clearly understood. In fact, according
to Bygate, negotiation skills get routines through by the management of interaction
and negotiation of meaning. The first aspect of negotiation skills ‘management of
interaction’ refers to ‘the business of agreeing who is going to speak next, and
what he or she is going to talk about’. These are two aspects of management of
interaction: agenda of management and turn-taking. On one hand, participants’
choice of the topic, how it is developed, its length, the beginning or the end is
controlled by the agenda of management. On the other hand, effective turn-taking
requires five abilities: how to signal that one wants to speak, recognizing the right
moment to get a turn, how to use appropriate turn structure in order to take
one’s turn properly and not to lose it before finishing what one has to say,
recognizing other people’s signals of their desire to speak, and, finally, knowing
how to let someone else have a turn. The second aspect of negotiation skills - ‘the

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skill of communicating

ideas clearly and signaling

understanding

or

misunderstanding during a conversation’ - is referred to as negotiation of
meaning.
According to Bygate (1987:29), there are two factors that ensure
understanding during oral communications; they are: the level of explicitness and
procedures of negotiation. The level of explicitness refers to the choice of
expressions with regard to interlocutors’ knowledge. As regards the procedures of
negotiation, i.e. how specific speakers are in what they say, this aspect of
negotiation of meaning involves the use of paraphrases, metaphors, on the use of
vocabulary varying the degree of precisions with which we communicate.
To sum up, there are two basic aspects that Bygate distinguishes when
considering the skill of speaking. These include the knowledge of the language
and the skill in using this knowledge. The knowledge of producing the
language has to be used in different circumstances as they appear during a
conversation by means of the skill. The ability to use the knowledge requires two
kinds of skills, according to Bygate – production skills, and interaction skills.
Production skills involve two aspects – facilitation and compensation, brought
about by processing conditions. Both devices help students, besides making the oral
production easier or possible, sound more naturally. Interaction skills, on the other
hand, involve routines and negotiation skills. Routines present the typical patterns of
conversation including interaction and information routines. Negotiation skills serve
as a means for enabling the speaker and listener to make themselves clearly
understood. This is achieved by two aspects: management of interaction and turntaking.

2.2. Theoretical background of learning and teaching speaking skill
2.2.1. Definition of teaching and learning

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In contemporary dictionaries, learning is defined as acquiring or getting of knowledge
of a subject or a skill by study, experience or instruction. A more specialized definition
states that learning is a relatively permanent change in the behavioral tendency and is the
result of reinforced practice (Kimble and Garmezy, 1963:133). Language learning is a long
and complex undertaking: “Your whole person is affected as you struggle to reach beyond
the confines of your first language and into a new language, a new culture, a new way of
thinking, feeling and acting. Total commitment, total involvement, a total physical,
intellectual and emotional response are necessary to successfully send and receive
messages in a second language. Many variables are involved in the acquisition process.”
(Brown, H D. 2010: 1)
Similarly, teaching, which is implied in the first definition of learning, may be
defined as “showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions,
guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or
understand.” Teaching is also defined as one of the means by which education is achieved
(if it is) and education is a common purpose of teaching. Teaching is the process of
carrying out those activities that experience has shown to be effective in getting students to
learn. A teacher is defined as a person whose professional activities involve the
transmission of knowledge, attitudes and skills that are stimulated in a formal curriculum to
students enrolled in an educational programme.
Teaching and learning have a close relationship. We cannot define teaching apart
from learning. Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learners to learn,
setting the conditions for learning. Your understanding of how the learners learn will
determine your philosophy of education, your teaching style, your approach, methods and

classroom techniques. If you look at learning as a process of operant conditioning, through
a carefully paced program of reinforcement, you will teach accordingly. If you view second
language learning as a deductive rather than an inductive process, you will probably choose
to present copious rules and paradigms to your students rather than let them “discover”
those rules inductively.

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2.2.2. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Approach
2.2.2.1. Introduction
The origins of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) are to be found in
the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s
(Richards & Rodgers, 1996).

It is an outcome of more attention to learners’

effective and appropriate use of language learnt. It is pointed out by Brindley (1986)
that “the 1970’s and 1980’s could be regarded as the era of Communicative
Language Teaching” (p.11). Communicative Language Teaching also marks the
beginning of a major innovation within language teaching because of its superior
principles which are widely accepted nowadays.
There is a variety of definitions about CLT; each of them developed her/his
own ideas regarding CLT. Communicative Language Teaching, to some people,
means the combination of structural teaching and functional teaching into a
communicative competence oriented form of teaching. Littlewood (1981) states
“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” (p.1). To others, Communicative Language Teaching may mean the use
of procedures that develop the four language skills through working in pairs or

groups in problem-solving tasks. According to Brindley (1986), Language is not a
static system. It is created through interaction; language learning does not consist
merely of internalizing a list of structural items. It is a process of learning how to
negotiate meaning in a particular socio-cultural context. Consideration of meaning
rather than form will therefore determine program content; language learning will
more effective if they centered around the needs and interests of the learners;
language learning materials should, similarly, be related to learners’ needs and
interests and present learners with the opportunity for genuine communication;
effective communication is more than structures accuracy particularly at the

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beginning stages of language learning. Errors are a manifestation of the fact that
learning is taking place. (p.12).
In a similar manner, Nunan (1989) acknowledges that
Communicative Language Teaching views language as a system for the expression
of meaning. Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and
using language, which is meaningful to the learners. Objectives reflect the needs of
the learners; they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives. The
learner’s role is as a negotiator and integrator. The teacher’s role is as a facilitator of
the communication process. Materials promote communicative language use; they
are task-based and authentic. (p.194).
It is thought that the definition contains aspects that are common to many
other definitions. The definitions above, as with any definitions of the language
teaching method ( Cook, 1989), represents a particular view of understanding and
explaining language acquisition. It is socially constructed and must be seen as a
product of social, cultural, economic, and political forces.
2.2.2.2. Characteristics of CLT:
CLT has six features for most modern approaches and methods, which are

learner – centered teaching, cooperative learning, interactive learning, whole –
language education, content – centered education and task – based learning.
Besides, Littlewood (1981:1) states: “one of the most characteristic features of
communicative language teaching is that it pays a systematic attention to functional
as well as structural aspects of language”. For other theorists, communicative
language teaching means using procedures where learners work in pairs or groups
employing available language resources in problem solving tasks.
Nunan (1991:279) offers five characteristic features of CLT:
- An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target
language.

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- The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.
- The provision of opportunities for learners to focus not only on language but also
on the learning process itself.
- An enhancement of the learners’ own experience as important contributing
elements to classroom learning.
- An attempt to link classroom language with language activation outside the
classroom.
These five features are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are
very interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection
between the language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the
classroom. Under this broad umbrella definition, any teaching practice that helps
students develop their communicative competence in an authentic context is deemed
an acceptable and beneficial form of instruction. Thus, in the classroom CLT often
takes the form of pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation
between learners, fluency-based activities that encourage learners to develop their
confidence, role-plays in which students practice and develop language functions, as

well as judicious use of grammar and pronunciation focused activities.

2.2.2.3. Advantages of Communicative Language Teaching
The advantages of Communicative Language Teaching may be summarized
as follows:
1. CLT is more likely to produce the four skills of competence;
Learners of CLT are offered the opportunities to use the language for their own
purpose, to take part in communication;
2. CLT is more motivating; therefore, students are likely to put more effort into
learning. (Stevick (1980), Blaire (1982), Hutchinson (1987), and others);

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3. As CLT intends to teach what is relevant and necessary only, it is less wasteful of
time and effort than approaches which attempt to teach the whole language.
(Allright (1979), Breen and Candlin (1987) and others)
4. In the long term, it should equip the learners with appropriate skills for tackling
the language in a real world, since CLT is based on a close approximation to such
used ( Maley (1986). Murphy (1991) and others)
Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that
necessitate communication. In other words, the goal of communicative language
approaches is to create a realistic context of language acquisition in the classroom.
The teachers prepare a situation that learners are likely to encounter in real life. The
focus of this method is on functional language usage and the ability to learners to
express their own ideas, feelings, attitudes, desires and needs. Students usually
work in small groups on communication activities, during which they receive
practice in negotiating meaning. Pair and group work creates enough confidence for
even weak students to join in class discussions. Working in groups to achieve their
goals gives learners a supportive relationship while striving for the target language

competence.

2.2.2.4. Disadvantages of Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative Language Teaching, however, also has a number of potential
disadvantages:
1. It makes greater demands upon the professional training and linguistic and
professional competence of teachers. (Andrews (1983), Richard and Nunan (1991),
and others)
2. It may perplex students used to other approaches at least in the initial stages.
(James (1983), Berns (1990) and others)

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