Content

1.  What is communicative language teaching how do I recognize it when I bumb into it?  3

2.  Communicative language teaching on the bases of Storytelling.  5

3.  Pre-listening activities  6

4.  Telling the story and While-listening activities  7

5.  Post-listening activities  8

6.  Conclusion.  9

Bibliography  :  10

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1. What is communicative language teaching how do I recognize it when I bumb into it? Nowadays it is necessary to be able to speak english, because this language is getting more and more important and it is the basis of international communication. So pupils have to learn as early as possible to have a strong command of this language and to use it effectively. Communicative language teaching (CLT) emphasizes communicative skills and wants communicative practise at the centre of classroom learning. According to Savignon, communicative competence is the central theoretical concept of CLT (2004). She defines this competence with the terms of expressions, interpretation and negociation of meaning. Hedge says that it is important for CLT to encourage pupils to communicate their needs, ideas and opinions and also that they are able to operate effectively in the real world (2000:44-45). She writes that in the communicative language classroom pupils have to learn to use that language in certain settings and authentic situations. According to both authors, CLT helps to develop certain communicative skills and to come to terms with the language without any grave problems of expressing thoughts, wishes, opinions,etc.

The language learner has to indentify him with that language so that he can apply his knowledge without any fear and uncertainity. And it is important that the teacher applies grammar based exercises as an integral part of real live tasks. Otherwise the learners could get bored, detered or even overtaxed with grammatical units. Hedge claims too, that a teacher`s intervention to correct should be as minimal as possible (2000:58). We can integrate grammatical units in activities where learners are supposed to talk about their next holiday plans and therefore they need to use several future forms or even if-clauses to express themselves in a correct and cohorent way (Hedges, 2000:61). Such activities are both characteristic and essential for a typical CLT-lesson.

CLT tries to engage the learners to speak fluenty so that they don`t get afraid of beeing juged for grammar mistakes. Pupils should have the ability to speak with a good but not necessary perfect command of grammar, intonation or vocabulary. They should attend to produce continous speech without causing comprehension difficulties. It`s the task of the teacher to motivate his pupils for this and to integrate them in the shaping of the lessons. Hedge claims that a lesson, based on communicative learning, involves the teacher in a wider range of roles beyond that of providing and presenting new language (2000:63). This means, that the role of a teacher is different than in traditional classes or other school subjects. We learned in our seminar that the role of a foreign language teacher is more a moderator or an organizer than a leader. His new task is managing learning, setting up activities, organizing material recourses,

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guiding learners in groupwork, encouraging contributions, monotoring activities and also diagnosing the further needs of the students

( Hedge,2000:63). He has the task to create a learning process that is mostly based on the participation of the learners. It is a characteristic for communicative language teaching classrooms that the lessons are based on learner-centered activities. Therefore it is important to create and emphasize real live tasks and authentic situations like talking about wishes and needs or social interactions and role plays like acting a shopping scene or a dialogue between two friends, etc. The learners should not be dependent exclusively on the teacher or on given materials to provide the language (Hedge,2000:57). In a typical CLT-classroom, pupils should learn to be indepentend and to complete a task on their own. Therefore it is necessary to have group works or projects where pupils have the opportunity to develop responsebility. There are many group works which are appropriate, e.g. the teacher divides the class in groups of four pupils and gives every group another different question about a book which they have just read and want now to start a final dicussion. The pupils have to arrange themselves and they have to dicuss about their assignment and collect different ideas and opinions. After discussing, they sum up their conclusions and present it to the other members of the class. It`s important not to ask complex questions or questions which can be answered with only yes or no. They should have about 10-15 minutes to discuss the questions. Possible questions could be: which character was the most interesting for you and why?, With which adjectives would you describe the book?, Which scene did you like most?, Which themes occur in the book?, How would the story end if you where the author?… After every presentation, the pupils should have some time to add something or to ask questions. This lesson involves the gaps of opinion, reasoning, information and imagination and hence creates an authentic situation. Pupils have the opportunity give a response to a given situation and to express their opinions, they have to reflect about something and make conclusions and as well as they transfer information to an uninformed group and they also have room for giving free rein to their creativity and to bring in their own ideas. Here the pupils are supposed to learn how to present something to a certain group and to speak freely and convincing. When you recognize all the points and examples which are mentioned above and if you feel that you know more at the end of the lesson than before, you can be pretty sure that you are right in a CLT-classroom.

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