Communicative language teaching (CLT)—This is a term familiar to every ELT instructor. Some embrace it, some fear it, but in reality do we really understand the essence of CLT? For example, what exactly is meant by “communicative”? As Brown (2007) states, “It is difficult to offer a definition of CLT. It is a unified but broadly based, theoretically well-informed set of tenets about the nature of language and of language learning and teaching” (p. 46). It is true that as a reaction to the grammar-translation and audiolingual methods, the early conceptualization of CLT was a method in which fluency was the only focus and grammar instruction was scorned. However, the current reality of CLT espouses both fluency and accuracy in language learners’ oral and written production. In this commentary, I focus on three main issues with CLT: grammar instruction, learner autonomy, and tolerance of ambiguity. I start by sharing one of my favorite discussions regarding CLT from Savignon (2001) in a section titled “What CLT Is Not.” Here is a summary of the ideas from this section:

• CLT is not exclusively concerned with face-to-face oral communication.
• CLT does not require small-group or pair work.
• CLT does not exclude a focus on metalinguistic awareness or knowledge or rules of syntax, discourse, and social appropriateness.
• CLT cannot be found in any one textbook or set of curricular materials.

“But wait!” you might be thinking. “In my TESOL methods classes, we talked quite a bit about group work for language teaching. Does CLT really not need to include such activities?” I have heard comments such as this from many former students as well as from other ELT instructors who are currently practicing in an IEP milieu. Although group activities are indeed useful for a variety of settings, they may, in fact, be inappropriate for some contexts. Does this mean that CLT cannot be used in these situations? The answer is a resounding “No.”

In my opinion, the essence of CLT lies in the lens through which grammar or metalinguistic awareness is viewed, a concept that is relevant across all language learning and teaching contexts. Undeniably, in order to become proficient in a language, both communicative and grammatical competence should be achieved. If only grammatical competence is achieved, then you get sentences like the Chomskyian “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” (Chomsky, 1957), which is perfectly grammatical although semantically unprocessable. If only communicative competence is achieved, you get sentences like “Me, tea, please?” which is communicative but not grammatical. As Heip (2007) states,

While communicative activities are considered to be the means to develop learners’ communicative competence in the second/foreign language, these activities cannot take place without the control of grammar, but situate grammatical competence within a more broadly defined commutative competence. (pp. 194–195)

In other words, grammatical competence is a part of communicative competence and, thus, should not be ignored. How should grammar be incorporated into CLT lessons? If we believe the tenets of CLT, then we believe that adult language learners with advanced cognitive skills acquire metalinguistic awareness more efficiently through awareness-raising activities that induce self-discovery; thus, grammar should be taught implicitly. The learners will recognize the gaps in their knowledge, notice patterns in the language (through carefully supplied input from the instructor), and ultimately learn the grammar of the language that they are studying more effectively than if they were to memorize verb conjugation charts.

Another issue in the CLT literature is the idea of learner autonomy, and in Western society, this concept is widely accepted. However, the reality is that in many cultures, the teacher is expected to be the “expert,” and encouraging a great amount of learner autonomy is not advised. As Hiep (2007) states:

It can be problematic to take a set of teaching methods developed in one part of the world and use it in another part. . . . [E]ducation is situated in a particular cultural environment, and within this environment, the definition of “good teaching” is socially constructed. In this way, assuming that what is appropriate in one particular educational setting will naturally be appropriate in another is to ignore the fact that ELT methodology is grounded in an Anglo-Saxon view of education. (p. 196)

Does this mean that in these contexts CLT should not be employed? Again, the answer is “No.” Hiep also states in the same article, “Communicative Language Teaching: Unity Within Diversity,” that “undoubtedly, CLT originates in the West, but to decide a priori that this teaching approach is inappropriate to a certain context is to ignore developments in language teaching, and this might lead to the de-skilling of teachers” (p. 196). In other words, all instructors in all contexts need to be open to teaching ideas that come from a context different from their own and should be open to try methods that are slightly out of their comfort zones.

I started off this article by stating that some people fear CLT—students and ELT instructors alike. One possible reason for this apprehension about CLT is that target language use is generally associated with this teaching method.

Some of the characteristics of CLT make it difficult for a nonnative-speaking teacher who might not be very proficient in the second language to teach effectively. Dialogues, drills, rehearsed exercises, and discussions (in the first language) of grammatical rules are much simpler for some nonnative-speaking teachers to contend with. (Brown, 2007, p. 47)

This apprehension is certainly understandable, given that CLT does require a certain amount of thinking-on-your-feet types of activities that take place in the target language. However, “the best teachers always take a few calculated risks in the classroom, trying new activities here and there” (Brown, 2007, p. 43). As for the students, the apprehension about a CLT-based language class partially stems from a recently emergent theme in the SLA literature: tolerance of ambiguity (see, e.g., Thompson & Lee, 2012). Adult language learners, in general, do not have a very high tolerance of ambiguity, and the lack thereof leads to characteristics such as higher levels of language learning anxiety. In a graduate-level SLA class that I generally teach in the spring, I have started to incorporate a series of Turkish language lessons using CLT so that the students can all have a common language learning experience by which they can analyze the SLA theories presented. The mini-lessons are taught in the target language, and the students in the class have generally had little to no exposure to Turkish previously. Inevitably, the students do not understand every word of the Turkish lesson, and their weekly journals indicate apprehension at not being able to comprehend everything that the teacher says. With constant reminders to lower the affective filter and with the encouragement of the Turkish instructor, most of the students come to the conclusion that the target-language, implicit style of the language classes is indeed very effective. One of the students even stated, “I consider them [the Turkish lessons] one of the highlights of being in the MA program for applied linguistics.” The idea of tolerance of ambiguity also applies to other language teaching settings, especially those in which CLT is used as a teaching method. In the IEP context, I have had many discussions with ELT instructors about the fact that some students are hesitant to participate in class, especially if it is the first class that they have taken in a Western context. Savignon (2001) has an explanation for this phenomenon:

Learners who are accustomed to being taught exclusively in their mother tongue may at first be uncomfortable if the teacher speaks to them in English, expecting them not only to understand but, perhaps, respond. When this happens, teachers need to take special care to help learners realize that they are not expected to understand every word, any more than they are expected to express themselves in native-like English. (p. 20)

With the encouragement of the instructor, and constant reminders that the students are not expected to understand everything nor to be native-like in their production, CLT has a greater chance of being accepted.

I borrowed the second part of the title of this article from a book by Barry Stevens (1970) titled Don’t Push the River (It Flows by Itself), a first-person, journal-like account of the author’s analysis of Gestalt Therapy. The essence of the book’s title is a philosophy that I like to apply to CLT. CLT does not exist in a vacuum, and the implementation of CLT does not look the same in every context. Even if we have extensive teaching experience in a specific context, we shouldn’t be overconfident that our way is the best way, as we are still continuing to learn about how people can best learn languages. If we try to “push the river” so to speak, then we will drown. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn how to swim.

References

Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed.. New York, NY: Pearson.

Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hiep, P. H. (2007). Communicative language teaching: Unity within diversity. ELT Journal, 61(3), 193–201.

Savignon, S. J. (2001). Communicative language teaching for the twenty-first century. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 13–28). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Stevens, B. (1970). Don’t push the river (it flows by itself). Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts.

Thompson, A., & Lee, J. (2012). Anxiety and EFL: Does multilingualism matter? International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/13670050.2012.713322

Amy S. Thompson is an assistant professor of applied linguistics in the Department of World Languages at the University of South Florida. Her primary research interests involve individual differences in SLA, and she teaches a range of graduate-level theoretical and methodological courses in applied linguistics.