CLT In Chilean Classrooms

Communicative Language Teaching in Chilean Classrooms:

Communicative Language Teaching must be applied in our classrooms to increase our English level in education and consider it not as a foreign language but as a second language. CLT was first proposed in the 1970’s in Britain as a product of linguistics and educational actors who disapproved the Audio-lingual method and the Grammar- Translation method of foreign language instruction. ‘Its mayor aim is to use language to communicate. Fluency and Accuracy are both equally important. Communication should integrate the four language skills(Richards & Schmidt, 2002), authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities. In Chilean classrooms CLT is not considered as the main method used by teachers in English lessons. The English language is defined as a ‘foreign language’ because it is not contemplated as a second language where it is possible to appreciate communication between students. Learners do not have any access to an effective use of English language outside the classroom. Teaching a second language can present teachers with a huge load of work, in terms of selecting methodologies to apply and the development of learner’s motivation. (Brown, 2007). Some important aspects of our current methodologies should be changed and be focused on the development of the four skills, real-situational activities, among others. The purpose of this essay is to develop the latter aspects.

In Chile, teaching the language out of the context is one of the main weaknesses in our English lessons. CLT propounds to create interaction and negotiation of meaning through activities such as problem solving, information sharing, among others, where the focus should be on the social nature of learning, thus engaging learners in communication through a sociocultural context to transform the learning process into a meaningful experience (meaningful situation-based activities). The focus should not only be on speaking activities, but also in reading comprehension and writing, even listening. Hymes (1972) stated that the linguistic theory of CLT should be seen as part of a more general theory incorporating communication and culture. Communication that is meaningful to the learner provides a better opportunity for learning than through a grammar-based approach: letting students induce or discover grammar rules, making real communication the focus of language learning, providing opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency.

Thinking Skills are also contemplated in CLT. Language should serve the purpose of developing higher-order thinking skills (critical thinking). Learners do not learn a language on their own but in order to develop and apply their thinking skills in situations that go beyond the language classroom (Richards,2006). CLT promotes the learning by of expanding thinking skills rather than evaluating only what they produce: the emphasis is on the process rather than on the end-product. Critical thinking promotes varied ways of solving problems and gain sense of greater questioning of how things are done. Thinking skillsshould trespass the classroom scenario and gain use, from the side of students, in real life situations.

Previous approaches and methods like Grammar-translation, Audiolingualism or Total- physical response were not concerned about developing the four skills, and Chilean English curriculum is theoreticallyconcerned about them but in practice it is not. Some teachers of English are used to guiding the lesson using the textbook verbatim in which most of the activities are grammar-based, while functional-based activities would develop and improve student’s skills and strategies in a higher percentage.English should be considered from the very beginning in the process of learning (kindergarten) so as to teach them how to develop the four skills English (listening, reading, speaking and writing) through authentic and meaningful communicative tasks to help them obtain the necessary confidence to face for the first time the English language. CLT aims at developing procedures for the teaching of the four skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication. It aims at having students become communicatively competent and contributes to develop fluency and understanding (Yemen Times, 2008). Types of activities proposed in the Communicative Approach are unlimited, and Chilean teacher should adapt them to their classrooms so that students can accomplish the communicative objectives of the curriculum and involve learners in communication.Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between functional communication activities and social interactional activities such as improvisations, debates, simulations, role plays, solving problems from shared clues,

...