Historical Background

Ika Kurniawati Khasanah / 2201409032

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Historical Background of Language Teaching

           

Language teaching has been changing each time. From the early approaches appeared, they experienced a shift as the development of  era. In language teaching, the role of syllabus is very cruial. It also shifted as the approaches used in teaching process. Regarding that, language teaching can be viewed in three phases up to the present:

1.      Traditional approaches (up to the late 1960s)

Traditional approches came to the first in language teaching. The purpose as the priority was grammatical competence as the basis of language proficiency was achieved. The traditional approaches introduced grammar explicitly. They directly gave the rule of grammar when introducing the grammar to students. Then, the students practice using it in some exercises. It is different with the inductive one which gives the students examples of sentences containing some grammar rules and find the rules by themselves. The methodology in conducting the teaching was through repetition and drills. By applying the approach, th students appropriately learn how produce grammatical sentences in any situation. The language skills introduced to the students in such ordes as speaking, listening, reading and writing. Some techniques used were memorization, question-and-answer practice, substitutional drills, and some others that were capable of speaking and writing practice. Through the traditional approaches the students would be asked to master such as grammar and pronunciation at the beginning of lesson.

     The Grmmar-Translation method, Direct method and Audiolingual method are the examples of traditional approaches. Or some sources mention Audiolingualism (in North America) and Structural-Situational approach (in the United Kingdom).

2.      Classical communicative language teaching (1970s – 1990s)

In the 1970s, people began to leave traditional approaches since they considered the approaches were already old. The mastery of grammar as language ability was questioned and considered not enough. Regarding that language ability was not just included grammatical competence. The shift took place, in which grammatical competence are needed to produce sentences grammatically correct, now there was attention to use the grammar appropriately for communicative purposes such as giving advice, making requests, etc. In communicative purposes the students are sued to know what to say and how to say it based on the situation, the participants and the roles and intentions. Therefore, they need what is called communicative competence. Whereas it is ususally not provided in teaching syllabus and method in the traditional approaches.

The term of communicative competence itself was not so simple as grammatical competence to achieve. Furthermore, communicative competence became the goal of language teaching beside grammatical competence. The question emerged how communicative competence develop in language teaching, that is through communicative language teaching. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) created a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement when it first appeared as a new approach to language teaching in the 1970s and 1980s, and language teachers and teaching institutions all aroun the world began to rethink their teaching, syllabuses, and classroom materials. Then, the mastery of grammar was not the major point in planning the course using CLT.

In CLT, it was argued that syllabus should identify the following aspects of language use in order to be able to develop the learners’ communicative competence:

1.      As detailed a consideration as possible of the purposes for which the learner wishes to acquire the target language.

2.      Some idea of the setting in which the will want to use the target language.

3.      The socially defined role the learners will assume in the target language, as well as the role of their interlocutors.

4.      The communicative events in which the learners will participate everyday situations, vocational or professional situations, and etc.

5.      The language function involved in those events, or the learner will be able to do with or through the language.

6.      The notion or concept involved, or what the learner will need to be able to talk about.

7.      The skills involved in the ‘knitting together’ of discourse: discourse and rhetorical skills.

8.      The varieties of the target language that will be needed, such as American, Australian, or British English, and in the levels in the spoken and written language which the learnes will need to reach.

9.      The grammatical content that will be needed.

10.  The lexican content, or vocabulary, that will be needed.

3.      Current communicative language teaching (the late 1990 to the present)

Since 1990s, communicative language teaching, with the term of communicative competence as the goal of second or foreign language teaching, was popular. Along with the development, it continued to evolve. Then, current communicative language teaching appeared. This approach has brought the new paradigms and traditions. CLT today refers to a set of generally agreed upon principles that can be applied in diferent ways, depending on the teaching context, the age of the learners, their level, their learning goals, etc. The following are ten core assumptions of current communicative language teaching:

-          Second language learning is facilitated when learners are engaged in interaction and meaningful communication.

-          Effective classroom learning tasks and exercises provide opportunities to students to negotiate meaning, expand their language resources, notice how language is used, and take part in meaningful interpersonal exchange.

-          Meaningful communication results from students processing content that is relevant, purposeful, interesting, and engaging.

-          Communication is a holistic process that often calls upon the use of several language skills and modalities.

-          Language learning is facilitated both by activities that involve inductive or discovery learning of underlying rules of language use and organization, as well as by those involving analysis and reflection.

-          Language learning is a gradual process that involves creative use of language, and trial and error.

-          Learners developtheir own routes to language learning, progress at different rates and have different needs and motivation for language learning.

-          Successful language learning involves the use of effective learning, and communication strategies.

-          The role of the teacher in the language classroom is that of a facilitator, who creates a classroom climate conducive to language learning, and provides opportunities for the students to use and practice the language and to reflect on language use and language learning.

References

http://ptrirat.wordpress.com on April 3, 2012

Richards, J. C. 2006. Communicative Language Teaching Today. Printed in The United States of America: Cambridge University Press