Communicative Language Teaching

By Trinh Thi Thu Hien - EFL 523 Listening and Speaking Techniques Course email: [email protected] - Home phone: 084 383 33 220 - Mobile: 098 919 6885

Some ideas about Communicative Language Teaching by Mr Pham Communicative language teaching is a sentence which has talked recently in some seminars or meeting and in university. In my opinion Mr Pham talked about real situation in teaching English in Vietnam. He gave some useful suggestion in order to push up the teaching methods following communicative language teaching. In Vietnam in general and in my school particular, communicative language teaching is taking. I myself have taken part in some workshops about communicative language teaching and had been taught when I was a student. I know that language is spoken out is meaningful and convert. I have tried my best to teach my students do not become deaf and dump after seven years learning English. At first my students were interested in because they were getting new ways in learning English, they had chance to speak out and show their feeling. Day by day I realize that they didn’t. My students are in high school. So their aims are to pass the examinations in schools. If they intend to study abroad they will enroll an instant course in listening and speaking for about six months and then they continue to study when they are oversea. Why most of them are likely to learn in that way. The answer is not new. I myself try to use new method in teaching English by using communicative one. But my students do not find interesting because all examinations are only about grammar structures, vocabularies, and some writing by multichoice questions. My students do not like us who are learning to receive a degree of high education. We have clear purposes, teaching English is our jobs. Meanwhile, English is not a subject that students want to learn at a university. Besides, the theme which is taught is also important. If the theme is close to the real life, my students are interested in. If the theme is not like that students do not pay attention. For example, when I teach about party, students discuss very excitingly. But when I guide them to

By Trinh Thi Thu Hien - EFL 523 Listening and Speaking Techniques Course email: [email protected] - Home phone: 084 383 33 220 - Mobile: 098 919 6885 learn about other topic such as .........they argue that it is far from their knowledge. Time of teaching lesson is one of main reason for not teaching communicative language well. I can make a calculation simply that in a academic year students have about 130 lessons including tests revision...etc. Meanwhile there are about 40-45 students in a class. In average, each student only has about one hundred minutes per academic year. Moreover, activities outside class is not often even is not. We can not deny the realistic I mean we lack English evironment in the real life. English is something that is only to study at school as one subject like literature, biography, geography and so on whereares English is a language, it is needed speaking out, writing and listening constantly. In some seminars or workshop, people focus on communicative language teaching with some useful suggestions for teaching method. I agree with them that we are teaching students to become perfect English learners: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus. That is a big aim we need to reach. In conclusion, in an era intergation and globalization, the requirements of communicative competence is big. I and my collegues hope that communicative language teaching will fulfil in near future to meet the demand of the world communication. Over the difficulties, students will understand what language is learnt for.