As far back as the history of language instruction goes, conscientious teachers have sought new and better ways to facilitate and accelerate language learning. Challenging questions have always confronted them: What else can we do in our language instruction programs, beyond or beside what we are already doing, to promote more efficient learning for students? What principles, beyond or beside those we now base our teaching on, could better guide our instructional approaches? Which of the present assumptions that underlie what we teach and how we teach might be faulty? What new techniques, new insights, new ideas, new emphases or new aims could increase the rate and quality of learning of our students. Innovations in methodology used in the educational process of higher institutions are connected with the use of new technologies. Interactive training as a new methodological approach to the foreign language teaching gives a chance to solve communicative-cognitive tasks through foreign language communication.
Where does communicative language teaching come from? Its origins are many, insofar as one teaching methodology tends to influence the next. The communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators and linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audiolingual and grammar-translation methods of foreign language instruction.As far back as the history of language instruction goes, conscientious teachers have sought new and better ways to facilitate and accelerate language learning. Challenging questions have always confronted them: What else can we do in our language instruction programs, beyond or beside what we are already doing, to promote more efficient learning for students? What principles, beyond or beside those we now base our teaching on, could better guide our instructional approaches? Which of the present assumptions that underlie what we teach and how we teach might be faulty? What new techniques, new insights, new ideas, new emphases or new aims could increase the rate and quality of learning of our students. Innovations in methodology used in the educational process of higher institutions are connected with the use of new technologies. Interactive training as a new methodological approach to the foreign language teaching gives a chance to solve communicative-cognitive tasks through foreign language communication.
Where does communicative language teaching come from? Its origins are many, insofar as one teaching methodology tends to influence the next. The communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators and linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audiolingual and grammar-translation methods of foreign language instruction.
COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING FOREIGN
LANGUAGES
As far back as the history of language instruction goes, conscientious
teachers have sought new and better ways to facilitate and accelerate language
learning. Challenging questions have always confronted them: What else can we
do in our language instruction programs, beyond or beside what we are already
doing, to promote more efficient learning for students? What principles, beyond or
beside those we now base our teaching on, could better guide our instructional
approaches? Which of the present assumptions that underlie what we teach and
how we teach might be faulty? What new techniques, new insights, new ideas, new
emphases or new aims could increase the rate and quality of learning of our
students. Innovations in methodology used in the educational process of higher
institutions are connected with the use of new technologies. Interactive training as
a new methodological approach to the foreign language teaching gives a chance to
solve communicativecognitive tasks through foreign language communication.
Where does communicative language teaching come from? Its origins are many,
insofar as one teaching methodology tends to influence the next. The
communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators and linguists
who had grown dissatisfied with the audiolingual and grammartranslation
methods of foreign language instruction.
They felt that students were not learning enough realistic, whole language. They
did not know how to communicate using appropriate social language, gestures, or
expressions; in brief, they were at a loss to communicate in the culture of the
language studied. Interest in and development of communicativestyle teaching
mushroomed in the 1970s; authentic language use and classroom exchanges where
students engaged in real communication with one another became quite popular.
In the intervening years, the communicative approach has been adapted to the
elementary, middle, secondary, and postsecondary levels, and the underlyingphilosophy has spawned different teaching methods known under a variety of
names, including notionalfunctional, teaching for proficiency, proficiencybased
instruction, and communicative language teaching.
So, in terms of methodology, the meaning of a category of communicative
language teaching will be considered as: a) a dialogue training in the course of
which interaction between a teacher and a student occurs; b) training the purpose
of which tackles linguistic, communicative and action tasks. Communicative
activity involves the organization and development of dialogue speech aimed at
mutual understanding, interaction, solving of modern and general but significant
tasks for every participant of the educational process.
How do the roles of the teacher and student change in Communicative language
teaching? Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less
and listening morebecoming active facilitators of their students' learning (Larsen
Freeman, 1986). The teacher sets up the exercise, but because the students'
performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and observe, sometimes acting
as referee or monitor. A classroom during a communicative activity is far from
quiet, however. The students do most of the speaking, and frequently the scene of a
classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with students leaving their
seats to complete a task.
Due to the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain
confidence in using the target language in general. Students are more responsible
managers of their own learning (LarsenFreeman, 1986).
In the process of dialogue training the students learn: to solve complex problems
on the basis of analysing the circumstances and corresponding information, to
consider alternative opinions, to take wellconsidered decisions, to take part in
discussions, to associate with different people.The starting point for task design should be the goals and objectives which are set
out in the syllabus or curriculum guidelines which underpin the teaching
programme. The next step is selecting or creating input for Ss to work with. The
use of authentic input is a central characteristic of communicative tasks. Where
possible, it is desirable to build up a "bank" of data. Texts, audio or video
recordings can be classified and filed under topics or themes (e.g. Work/Jobs;
Holidays; Future Plans; The Media), and provide a readymade resource to be
drawn on when designing tasks.It’s necessary to organize different forms of
activity at the foreign language classes that is individual, pair, group and team.
Among the most well known form of pair and group work the following kinds
should be mentioned: inside (outside) circles, brain storm, lineups, jigsaw reading,
thinkpairshare, debate, pairinterviews etc. E. g., jigsaw reading is an activity
which involves the splitting of a text into different parts or the use of different texts
on the same topic. The parts are given to different learners to read. They must
communicate with each other in order to find out the whole message or different
views on the topic.
To summarize the interactive methods of teaching give the foreign language
teachers the possibility to master some new techniques of communicative methods
of foreign language training. Risk taking and conversational interaction play a
major part in language acquisition. It is hoped that this brief survey will encourage
many language teachers to learn more about the interactive methods of training.
Such knowledge will give some healthy perspective in evaluating the innovations
or new approaches to methodology that will continue to emerge over time.
Literature
BangertDowns, R.L. Effectiveness of computerbased education in
1.
secondary schools. N.Y. 1985. pp.5968.
2.
Negroponte, N. Being digital. New York. 1995.Pelgrum, W.J. The educational potential of new information technologies.
3.
Helsinki: SITRA 180. 1998.
4.
Sinko M., Lehtinen E. The challenges of ICT. Finland. 1999. pp.195199.
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