A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

Languages
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and put them to use for themselves, so form-focused instruction has also become accepted
as an essential part of a communicative approach.
The focus of classroom interaction within a broad communicative approach must
be the expression of meaning, for where nothing new or meaningful is being said,
communication ceases. Consequently, whatever the learners’ language level, the
meanings which they themselves wish to express should form the core of the learning
process. Content, materials and the sequence in which grammatical patterns are
introduced therefore need to reflect students’ interests, so that they can be encouraged to
engage with them and to assimilate language through use. This necessarily also implies
that, as far as possible, the language taught and learnt should be personalised so that it
becomes the learner’s own.
Essential to the development of a communicative course is the use of real or ‘authentic’
materials which reflect the social and cultural context of the language, although at
early stages of the learning process texts may need to be adapted to make them accessible.
A genuinely communicative classroom would encourage learners to find and bring
to class materials which reflect their personal interests and to share and explore these
with peers.
Finally, communicative language teaching involves the integration of the four language
skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Real-life language incorporates a
mixture of skills: we engage in conversations which require both listening and speaking;
we respond to written stimuli by filling in forms, writing letters, making notes or
discussing the content of our reading with others. Modern methods of teaching and
assessment recognise this interdependence of skills and incorporate it into tasks for
learners rather than creating artificial distinctions.
AUTONOMOUS LEARNING AND LEARNER DIFFERENCES
If the learner is to take increasing responsibility for progress and the teacher aims to
facilitate, not control, the language-learning process, then autonomous learning becomes
crucial. Autonomous learning does not mean self-instruction or learning without a
teacher. Rather it is a way of complementing face-to-face tuition which makes learning
more productive and develops independence. Educational research has long recognised
that learning is less effective the more learners depend on the teacher and the less they
take responsibility for their own learning. Therefore the emphasis currently being placed
on the role of the learner in the pedagogical process is to be welcomed (see Chapter 2).
In a world which is changing so rapidly students need not so much to accumulate a
set body of knowledge as to learn how to acquire knowledge both now and in the
future. Language teaching thus implies the development of transferable languagelearning
skills based on an understanding of what makes an effective language
learner. There are four essential elements here.