Ahmad M. Altasan
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Ahmad M. Altasan
Current Language Teaching Approaches The spread of English in the era of globalization has led to a growing need for good communication skills in English. Hence, there is a strong demand for an appropriate teaching methodology. Language teaching has gone through many changes in terms of methodologies used. First, the traditional approaches, which focus on the mastery of grammar and then the communicative language teaching CLT, emerged. According to Richards (2005), there are different current approaches that can be viewed as falling within the general framework of communicative language teaching: 1. Process-based CLT approaches (content-based instruction & task-based instruction). 2. Product-based CLT approaches (text-based instruction &competency-based instruction). Therefore, the main principle of all communicative approaches is that the learner must not only know how to make a grammatically correct structure, but must also improve the ability to use language to carry out various real-world tasks (Nunan, 1988). In this essay, I am going to give a critical overview and comparison of these approaches with examples from English language teaching settings in Australia. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) does a lot to expand on the goal of creating communicative competence compared to earlier methods that professed the same objective. Teaching students how to use the language is considered to be at least as important as learning the language itself. Kumaravadivelu (2006) stated “The phrase “competence in terms of social interaction” sums up the primary emphasis of CLT” (p.60). Moreover, Harmer (1988) argued that when students are engaged in meaning-centered communicative tasks, then the language will take care of itself and that abundant exposure to language in use and plenty of chances to practice it are useful for a student's enhancement of knowledge and skill. The need for authenticity. Since real communication is a basic characteristic of CLT, classroom activities should be related to real life and provide opportunities for real communication. Authentic materials should be the basis for classroom learning and they are not necessary derived from authentic text as long as the learning processes were authentic (Richards, 2005). Since the advent of CLT, textbooks and other teaching resources are designed to similar standard of production as real world sources such as popular magazines. In CLT, classroom activities often take the form of pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, fluency-based activities that encourage 2
Ahmad M. Altasan
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Ahmad M. Altasan
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