songs, manuals, recipes, videos, maps, pictures, together with realia, make learning English more
interesting and motivating because it is dictated by pupils’ needs and interests, thus, it is much
more pupil-oriented than other approaches.
Communicative Approach versus Grammar-translation method
The Grammar-Translation methodology is still used in quite a lot of institutions
worldwide and the Communicative Language Teaching approach is possibly today’s most
popular instructional method worldwide. Grammar Translation is a term used by specialized
authors in their reviews of the history of Applied Linguistics (e.g Brown, 1994) to describe the
oldest documented form of L2 teaching in man’s history. Grammar Translation is based on
the Classical Humanistic educational philosophy which views teaching as the passing-on of a
body of knowledge from one generation to the next; not as the passing of skills necessary to
function effectively and independently in the real world in a way which is beneficial for society.
In this educational paradigm, language is therefore taught as something to know, as a set of rules
and words to memorize rather than an instrument to use in a real-life communicative context.
Communicative Language Teaching has altogether different objectives to
GrammarTranslation as it rests on diametrically opposite educational philosophy and
epistemological assumptions. In fact, it prioritizes teaching skills rather than knowledge
(Littlewood, 1994). Moreover, this approach is based on Social Constructivism, a pedagogical
philosophy which aims at empowering the learners with the tools which allow one to function
effectively in society (White, 1998). Consequently, grammar knowledge becomes a secondary
concern; language use across the four core skills of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing
takes priority because conveying and understanding messages is what makes one get by in the
real world. Also, since the learners will one day have to cope with the challenges that the real
world will pose to them, the target functions, notions and language items are usually
contextualized in situations and tasks which replicate real-life.
The oral/written activities adopted by Communicative Language Teaching usually
include all of the following features:
- They involve an information gap that the learners have to fill through interaction in
the L2. For example, two learners need each other’s information to complete a table. Their task
is to elicit the needed information by means of asking each other questions in the L2; - They have a communicative purpose. Language is an instrument to complete them
not the main outcome ( as in a grammar exercise or translation task) - They are inspired by real-life tasks (e.g. asking for directions., describing a criminal
to a policeman, ordering food, etc.)