Diane Larsen-Freeman

132 Communicative Language Teaching
8 What is the role of the students' native language?
Ju dicious use of the students' nati ve language is permitted in CLT.
Ho wever; whenever possible, the target langua ge should he used not
only during communicative activities, but also for explaining the
acti vities to the students or in ass igning homework. Th e stu dents
learn from these classroom management exchanges, too, and realize
that the target language is a vehicle for communication, not just an
object to be studied.
9 How is evaluation accomplished?
A teacher evalu ates no t on ly the students' accu racy, but also their fluency.
The student who has the most contro l of the structures and
voca bulary is not always the best communicator.
A teache r can informally evaluate his students' performance in his
role as an advise r or co -com municator. For more for mal evaluation, a
teac her is likely to usc an integrative test which has a real com municative
function. In order to assess students' writing skill, for
instan ce, a teacher might ask rhcm to wr ite a letter to a friend.
10 How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Errors of for m arc tolerated during fluency-based activities and are
seen as a na rural outcome of the development of communication
skills. Students can have limited linguistic knowledge and still he
successful communicators. Th e teacher Illay note the errors during
fluency act ivities and return to them later with an accuracy-based
activity.
REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES AND THE MATERIALS
T here ma y be aspects of CIT chat you find appealing. T his review has
been provided in the event yOll wish to try to use an y of the techniques or
ma terials associated with CIT,
Authentic materials
To overcom e the typical problem tha t students cannot transfer what
the}'learn in the classroom to the outsid e wo rld and to expose students to
natu ral language in a variety of situat ions, adherents of C I.T advocate
the usc o f lan guage materials a uthent ic to native speakers of the target
Communicative l.angnage Teaching 1.B
language.I In this lesson we sec rhar the teacher uses a real new spa per
article. He also assigns the students homework, requiring that they listen
to a live radio or television broad cast.
Ofcourse, the class that we observe d was ar the high intermediate level
of proficiency. For students with lower proficiency in the target language,
it ma y not be possible to use langua ge materials Stich as these. More
accessible materials (for example, the use of a weather forecast when
working on predictions), or at least ones that are rea listic, are most desirab
le. Wirh a lower level class it is possible to use realia thar do not con tain
a lor of language, bur a bout which a lot of discussion could be ge ne rated.
Menu s in rho rargcr language are an ex ample; timeta bles arc another.
Scramb led sentences
Th e students are given a pa ssage (a text ) in which the sentences are in a
scrambled order. T his may be a passage they have work ed with or ouc rhey
ha ve not seen before. T hey arc told to unscramble the sentences so that the
sentences arc restored to their origina l order. T his type of exercise teaches
stude nts about the cohesio n and coherence properties of language, T hey
learn how sentences arc bound together at the suprascnrcmiallevel through
formal linguistic dev ices such as pronouns, which mak e a text cohesive,
an d sema ntic propositions, which unify a text and make it co herent.
In addition ro written passages, students might also be asked to
unscramble the lines of a mixed-up dia log. Or they might he asked ro put
the pictures of a picture strip story in order and write lines ro accompany
the pictures.
language games
Gam es are used frequently in CLT. Th e students fi nd them enjoyable, and
if they are properl y designed, they give stu de nts valua ble communicative
pract ice. M or row's three featu res of communicative acriviries were manifested
in the card game we observed in the following way: An informacion
gap existed because the speaker did not know what her class r nnrc
was going to do the fo llowing weekend. Th e speaker had a choice as to
what she would predict (which sport) and how she wo uld predict it (which
form her prediction would take). The speaker received feedback fro m the
mcm bcrs of her group. Jf her predic tion was incom prchcnsi ble, then none
I Of C() \lr~c, what i. auth ent ic and IU fU rJl lO nat ive 'f"'akcr, uf the target I.1nguagc i, not '" to
learners in the classroom. WhJI i, iruportanri, tha t these lIlal ~r i a l ~ arc used in a way that i ~ rC;11
fur learners (Widdow, un 19911 l.