TESOL Essay ONE

Essay One

The Communicative Approach

By Syrbastyian Vzampfyier

The “Communicative Approach” method is a very effective tool in an EFL/ESL instructor’s repertoire. Due to its simplicity, versatility and adaptability the method allows an instructor to apply the Communicative Approach method at any stage of a lesson, and with all levels and abilities of the students.

Language, be it verbal and, or nonverbal, is the tool we use to communicate and interact with one another. For this very reason the Communicative Approach method is an excellent way for students to start communicating with each other from the very beginning of their foreign or second language experience.

In the following I shall present one way in which the Communicative Approach may be applied with three adaptations.

In general the way presented and the three adaptations could be applied to all levels and abilities, but for the purpose of this essay I shall focus mainly on the beginner EFL/ESL student.

THE SET UP & PREPARATION:

Create a list of biographic questions using simple present, past or future tenses.

If using the simple past, I recommend using the regular verb than using the irregular verb or a combination of the two. It is easier to administer the task and much less confusing for the students. With the simple future select either ‘Going to’ or ‘Will’ for same reason as previously mentioned.

Once the list of questions has been created, make copies for the students to receive at the end of the class or task. Keep one copy and cut the list of questions into strips so that one question is on each strip of paper. These will be use in the class activity.

Ensure that you also have one sheet of blank paper for the students to write the names of the other students they will interview and the answers their questions. Conversely you could pre-design a sheet for the activity and give a copy of this sheet to the students.

In the class have the students randomly select 1 to 5 questions, depending on the number students and, or the time you wish to allocate to the activity. Check the students’ comprehension of the question(s), the students have selected. At this point the use of dictionaries and the students’ first language(s) are fine.

In language appropriate for the students’ abilities; explain and demonstrate (using one of the stronger members of the class) to the students, what they are going to in the activity. Check to ensure that the students have clearly understood the activity and the tasks require of them.

THE ACVITIVITY (Based on a class of six students):

1.        Students “A” and “B” will greet each other and shake hands (note: in some cultures, physical contact during a greeting may not be appropriate.), write down each other’s name.

2.        Student “A” will ask the question from the strip of paper. Student “B” will answer and the question and ask the same question to student “A”.

3.        Using the same above process student “B” will ask their question.

4.        Students “A” and “B” write down the answer to each other’s question.

5.        Students “A” and “B” thank each other, shake hands again, and use a parting expression, for example: Nice talking with you / See you later / Have a nice day / etc.

Next the students find a new person to interview, and repeat steps one to five. This continues until all the students have interviewed each other.

The instructor will write on the white (black) board and call out one of the students’ name and ask the class, “What did we learn about NAME?” The other students call out what they have discovered about the mentioned student, and the instructor and the students all write down the information gathered about each of the other students.

Finally the instructor tells the class to keep the information gathered in the activity because this information will be used again in the lesson or latter lessons.

Additional Points:

It is best and most natural to have the students out of their seats and moving around to meet, greet and interview each other. To loosely quote Cotton (August 2010), when we meet people for the first time, we are almost standing. Even if we are sitting when we first make visual contact, we always stand up to greet the person we are meeting. Sitting around a table and greeting each other is not only passive learning, it is also for the most part usually unnatural. Though a classroom may be small it is still possible to have the students use their bodies in conjunction with the speaking activity. For example, have the students stand up and put their chairs under their respective tables. The students can turn to each other and greet plus move around the table(s), this will also encourage the use of polite expression such as: excuse me, may I get by, thank you, your welcome, etc.

During the activity the instructor makes themselves available for the students, to assist if needed and answer any questions or quires that the students any have. In addition the instructor should make note of any unnatural language usages and grammatical misuses, but not correct these during the activity. The activity is to be purely student-centred with little or no involvement from the instructor.

At the very end of the Communicative Approach stage the instructor may provide correction to the students or assign the misused language and, or grammar as a homework task. The correction should be done using the global-correction method, as to avoid embarrassing any individual student. Read out the misused language from your notes, sentence by sentence, and have the students correct each sentence in turn. If they are unable then the instructor provides the correction in a sentence form with explanation if needed. Note, always provide errors and correction in a sentence form. The grammar is only a part of the whole, the students need the whole. Think of correction as cooking; all the ingredients (parts) working in conjunction together to create a whole dish (sentence).

ADAPTATIONS:

1.)    Provide the students with a list of the WH-question words only and one card with a prompt word such as: Office, Job, Hobby, Colour, etc. Using the Wh-question word and the prompt word, the students create a question for example: ‘Where is your office?’ The procedure is as previously described in THE ACTIVITY section.

2.)    The students given one to three prompt words (depending on class size and, or time allocation), and with the prompt word(s) create a question for the other student to answer.

3.)    The instructor assigns each student a theme for example: Weekends, At work, In school, New Year’s, etc. The students create questions using the theme, similar to adaptation (2) Where (3) differs is that the students can only the question they create once. With each successive person the student must create a new question.

Though we may designate a particular grammatical point and, or structure for the activity, the purpose of the Communicative Approach is just to do that Communicate.

Students may start using different structures or go off topic, but as long as they are trying to use the 2^nd language to communicate with each other then the goal of the activity is in a large way achieved.