Communicative Approach and Traditional Approach

1. Introduction1.1 A brief introduction to a philosophy of teaching for students in senior high schools of ChinaAlthough Traditional Approach (TA) is suitable for the exam-oriented education and has been used in China for decades of years, it is less useful if students need to use English in daily life. This kind of issues, such as dump English and low efficiency appears and has gained increasing attention from various circles. It is doubted that how Chinese English teachers can teach English effectively in senior high schools, that is, how we can improve Chinese students’ communicative competence.Some English teachers in China have devoted to update their traditional English teaching by introducing Communicative Approach (CA) into the English classroom, but it does not produce expected results. Considering the English teaching situation in China, we have some obstacles in applying CA in the Chinese educational context. The first obstacle is the low quality of English teachers in china, especially those in rural areas, who lack teacher training and normal language learning. The second obstacle is that the college entrance examination does not test communicative skills. Large class sizes are another obstacle that is not suitable for CA.In this regard, English teachers in China should put forward an appropriate teaching method that is both can meet the students’communicative needs and maximize effective learning that can help students obtain high grades. In my view, the integration of CA and TA will be better for students in English classes.1.2 A brief description of senior high school students in China and their needsSenior high school students in China are faced with the great pressure of various examinations, especially college entrance examination. Therefore, they have to memorize ample language points to obtain high grades. According to Piaget’s theory, senior high school students aged 13 to 18 are in the formal operational stage, which is the most critical stage for a consideration of first and second language acquision. They profit from certain grammatical explanations and deductive thinking. But under the effect of TA, Chinese students mostly regard memorization and rote learning as their basic acquisition technique. Apart from this, most students’motivation of learning English is to pass the exam, which leads them to hold that learning grammar and new words are the most important thing for learning English. As a result, the students might have learned how to analyze sentence structures and how to translate and appreciate English literature, but they are poor at using English after another three years of learning English in high school.1.3 Reasons for my selection of senior high school students in ChinaEnglish learning in high schools of China is traditionally regarded as the accumulation of vocabularies, expressions, structure, and grammar points, instead of a practical process for using English to communicate. It is not totally wrong to ask students to learn grammars and sentence structures if teachers can deal with the relationship between learning language points and improving communicative competence. But the fact is that a teacher plays the dominant role in an EFL classroom and the most time is spent on the elaborate explanation of language points, while the students just listen and take notes. Except for the occasionalcommunications with the teacher, students hardly have the chance to practice their spoken language with other students. In sum, English teaching in China focus too much on the study of language points and pays very little attention to students’listening and speaking ability.But is it wise to do away with the traditional grammar-translation method completely to teach senior high school students English communicative skills? What measures should teachers take to develop students’communicative competence? To answer these questions, my paper will first describe the background information of both TA and CA. the principles of teaching that make up my philosophy are also presented. In the third chapter, it describes the five aspects of my classroom practices. The last chapter presents a brief summary and the development practices of my teaching philosophy.2. Approach and Methodology2.1 Traditional ApproachTA is made up of words (vocabulary) and that language changes according to rules (grammar). When students know the rules of grammar and enough words, they can then read and write well in English. This method is very useful for academic work and for passing written exams. Chinese students generally show great interest in language structures and linguistic details when they are learning a language. “We would like to know what happens, because if we understand the system, we can use English more effectively” (Harvey 1985). Therefore, it is essential to teach Chinese senior high school students appropriate grammar points and analyze them. However,Nunan (1998) pointed out that because grammar is very often presented out of context, in textbooks, it cannot provide opportunities for learners to use the language for communication. English teachers should balance the relationship between grammar exercises and communicative tasks. Although students taught by teachers using TA may learn a lot about the language points, they still cannot communicate with native speakers in English. TA’s weaknesses are obvious.2.2 Communicative ApproachThe communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communicative. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymes referred to as “communicative competence.”According to Jack C. Richards, et al (2000), the communicative approach is an approach to foreign or second language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative competence. CA has been understood as emphasizing meaning of the target language rather than form. Thus, the teaching of oral skill becomes increasingly important in CA. In CA, students are considered successful if they can communicate effectively in their English. Despite the wide use of CA all over the world, the outcome of teaching English by adopting it did not provide the expected results.2.3 PrinciplesIn the following part, four principles are presented to explain how to teach senior high school students English in an effective way.2.3.1 Meaningful LearningFrom a communicative point of view, an item only takes on meaning as a resultof the total context in which it is used and an item without context in this sense cannot properly be said to have meaning at all (Johnson & Morrow 1981: 74). Meaningful learning helps learners to learn English in a meaningful context rather than recite the isolated bits of information. Too much cognitive structures can diminish students’enthusiasm of learning English. The repeated exercises occupies much of students’spare time that is limited and precious, so they just cope with this kind of drills hastily and have little impression of what they have done. A meaningful context that is relevant and important in students’ daily quest for knowledge and survival not only can activate students’ interest, but also can help them create long-term retention.2.3.2 Communicative CompetenceSince language is the important tool for communicating with other people, the primary goal of language learning is communicative competence. But TA puts too much emphasis on the grammatical explanation or drills and neglect the importance of communicative competence. As a result, many English learners in China have learned English for years, but they still cannot communicate with others effectively. Teachers need not worry too much about students’errors. What the teacher should do is to show that correct forms of the target language as result of the activity. Various types of activities are fundamental for high school English teachers to develop students’communicative competence.2.3.3 Native Language EffectThe full use of the positive effect of the native language transfer and the utmost elimination of the negative effect of the native language transfer would bring about agreat advance in English quality improvement of the learners. There are some similarities between English and Chinese, such as, the pronunciation system and the attribute of words. What’s more, mother tongue is the existing language experience of students, which should be regarded as the basis of learning English. Since senior high school students have formed the systematic structure of various definitions and knowledge of mother tongue, which can be transferred to the learning of foreign languages. Therefore, it is unwise to reject the positive effect of mother tongue in learning English.2.3.4 Risk-TakingRisk-taking is necessary in activating students’ ability of self-study and ability of solving problems. In the course of teaching, teachers should adjust their ways, that is, not irrigate students all the knowledge, but give students the time for deductive and inclusive by themselves. Many students in senior high schools have psychological obstacles in English learning because of their physiological age-character. Generally speaking, students who have reached the age of adolescence often pay too much attention to their face-saving. They are afraid that they will make mistakes when speaking English in front of the class. Though this is a very common phenomenon for high school students, it seems that the more mistakes they make, the more frightened they will be in an English class. To those students who are obvious in lacking self-confidence, teachers should try their best to create an active atmosphere for them to speak English.2.4 A brief description of my teaching methodsBoth content and form should be stressed for senior high school students. On one hand, in my view, TA cannot be completely discarded in EFL classroom. Harvey (1985) stated that “understanding the grammatical framework of a language is extremely important for some learners, often especially so for speaker of different language.”In teaching senior high school students, appropriate grammar analysis is essential, especially for low-level students. Limited utilization of translation from or to the target language is an indispensable part of teaching. V ocabulary work and pattern drills are also ways of familiarizing students with sentence structures. This kind of information helps students to acquire linguistic competence. On the other hand, the ability of speaking is as important as reading and writing. The goal of learning English should meet the students’need for getting things done, so the authentic contexts or activities should be included in the class to practice the everyday English. Besides, students should be the center of classroom activities. Therefore, considering the Chinese educational context, teachers in senior high school should combine the proper elements of CA and TA.3. Techniques3.1 A brief description of my classroom practicesThe above information shows that it is necessary to integrate CA and TA in order to meet senior high school students’ demands. High school English teaching should be a form of social interaction in discourse as well as a kind of linguistic communication. The key to communication is that various activities with clear objectives and organization should be included in a class. The measures that can be used in seniorhigh school English class include: using the PPP framework; using teacher talk properly and making the best use of pair and group work.3.2 Two techniques of my classroom practicesOne technique in my paper is PPPs which has been accepted by applied linguists and practiced by teachers for many decades. The other one is about the amount of teacher talk in the classroom which can differentiate communicative classroom from traditional classroom. One thing should be noted that group/pair work may be the most effective way and important part included in these two techniques, so I do not regard it as an individual technique in this paper.3.2.1 PPP frameworkThe PPP framework is based in both a grammatical and functional view of language (Baker & Westrup, 2000). English teachers in high school need to teach according to the syllabus and help students succeed in exams and communicate freely with others in English. The PPP framework is most appropriate to help teachers to achieve these goals. A PPP lesson is divided into three phases: Presentation, Practice and Production.3.2.1.1 The Presentation stageIn this phase, the new language points such as, vocabulary, grammar, or functional language, are introduced by the knowledge that students are familiar with. To make sure to cover all important information about a new language item, I think some steps should be gone through.First, the scene can be set in the following techniques. When a lesson talks aboutthe concrete things, I use real objects or put pictures on the PPT. If the lesson refers to abstract things, I will tell the students about a situation which demonstrates the meaning of the new language items. Sometimes, supplementary materials can warm up the class. For example, when I teach a text themed by Film, videos are most workable. Though video clips are the most popular supplementary materials among students, sometimes texts are more effective as students are less distracted and would concentrate more on the contents themselves rather than the imagery information. Moreover, the interaction among students can make them concentrate on what they are learning. Miming an action or emotion or acting out a role play help students show what the new language is and when it is used. In the process of teaching words, Second, I will list the new words on the blackboard or PPT and ask the students to guess the meaning. After that, the pronunciation of each word will be taught one by one.Third, I will ask the students to read the new words several times aloud, if time permits, first the whole class, then in groups or pairs.Fourth, I will ask questions to check whether they understand the meaning of the new words, structure or function.Fifth, it is necessary for me to explain the grammar of some words or structures. During this period, note-taking is usually done by the students.By the end of the presentation phase, the students can pronounce, understand the meaning and usage of new language items.3.2.1.2 The Practice stageAt the beginning of this stage, the students must have enough practice of the new language knowledge by listening, repeating, writing and reading, and using a wide variety of learning activities.The simplest way of practicing is drilling which is also frequently used in the classroom by teachers, for it occupies less class time. But drilling is rather mechanical and does not challenge the students to think. When using the drilling to practice, I will put the language points into a meaningful context that is connected with the real world or the students’ daily life. The other common way of practicing is group work or pair work. During this kind of activity, some details should be noticed. The students should be divided into groups of three or four and each has a fixed role, such as, leader, time recorder, recorder and presenter, in one group. In this way, everyone can be sure to contribute to the group work. When the students are discussing, I walk around to listen to their discussion, answer some groups’ questions and give guidance. Their common mistakes will be collected and corrected in the end of the practice stage. Therefore, the goal of this stage is insure that students are able to speak or write the new language knowledge with making fewer mistakes.3.2.1.3 The Production stageThis stage is very important for the students to use what they have learned. In this stage, the students are asked to do activities by using the words or structures in the new lesson, such as, writing a short composition, making a presentation, making a poster, and having an interview, etc. The procedures are the followings.Firstly, I will set realistic activities that are based on situations which the studentsexperience in their lives. If the class time is limited, the activities can be finished after class. In case that someone in the group does nothing without my monitor, I will ask them to write their own division of labor. Secondly, I encourage students to combine the knowledge in the previous lessons with the new language. On this account, the learned knowledge can be enhanced and reviewed in English learning. Thirdly, there is less interruption and correction appearing in the teacher’s monitoring process. The students may use their imagination to finish activities creatively, so negation or interruption may frustrate their enthusiasm when the activity is proceeding. Moreover, to get them to communicate more in the classroom in English, the students can only get the help of their partners in the same group.For example, as a production activity for the functional language of talking about something about a film from several aspects, like characters, scene, director. I ask one student to describe his favorite film to other students and let others to guess which film it is. It is a stage that can be regarded as the final rehearsal for using language in the real world.3.2.2 Reducing the amount of English teacher talk in EFL classroom3.2.2.1 Teacher talkTeacher talk is a variety of language sometimes used by teachers when they are in the process of teaching. In trying to communicate with learners, teachers often simplify their speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk and other simplified styles of speech addressed to language learners (Richards. et al. 2000). Recent research shows that in English classrooms teachers spend 70 to 80 percent ofclass time talking. Of two teachers recorded, one adopted the communicative approach using about half the class time to talk and the other took a traditional way, occupying 70 percent of class time to talk (Nunan, 1990). If the teacher presents all materials by talking, the students will not learn to communicate well. Therefore, in order to change the traditional teacher-centered method into the student-centered method, I will take some effective measures to reduce the amount of teacher talk and give the students enough time to practice speaking ability.3.2.2.2 Balance teacher-talking time and student-talking timeTeachers must learn to talk less in class and to plan how and when students can have more speaking practice. At the warm-up stage, I will ask several questions that the students are familiar with or just mention some knowledge of last lesson. Unless teachers must give clear instructions before activities or explain key points in details, they must always keep in mind that most students’ responses decide the length of their talking time.3.2.2.3 Using consistent languageFor senior high school students, the ability of speaking and listening is not good as the ability of reading and writing. Therefore, during the course of my lesson, I will use short and simple English phrase. I will write some phrases on a wall chart and teach the students, so that they can understand and use these phrases themselves. There are some possible phrases to regularly use in the class. Except for greeting before the class begins, when I am telling the class what they are going to do, I will say “Today we are going to learn how to …” Sometimes, I will ask the students to dosomething by using “Could you …?”or “Would you please …?”The instructing language is dispensable in the class, for example, “Look at the blackboard”, “Turn to page 103”. Some other situations like encouraging, praising and keeping discipline also have relevant expressions.3.2.2.4 Asking proper questions and giving suitable feedbackTheories on Second Language Acquisition indicate question-answer is a positive communication. Good questions help the students understand confusion and know what is important, and help the teacher to know the extent of the students’comprehension. The questions include open-ended questions, closed-ended questions in the form of “Yes/No”questions, “Or questions”, “Wh-”questions and eliciting questions. The questions should encourage the students to reflect on their knowledge. To those students with low English level, some factual questions can be asked to motivate them. When the students are answering, the teacher should not interrupt and correct them immediately, because they may correct themselves in the process. The teacher must make a proper comment after the students answer the question. Even if the students’answer is not complete or satisfactory, the teacher should correct the answer after an appreciation. For instance, “T hat’s all right, can anyone expand on that?” or “I appreciate your first part of the answer, but…”, because negative criticism and punishment for wrong answers make students lose confidence; dull teachers who do not encourage creativity or who are inactive/cannot be heard clearly (Nunan, 1991). Meanwhile, positive feedback encourages and stimulates students.4. Conclusion4.1 A brief summary of my teaching philosophyWith the development of China and opening to the outside world, the way to learn English should also be changed. TA has been out of date and cannot meet the needs of students, and the advanced teaching method might not be suitable for the Chinese educational context. Not a single language-teaching method can solve the contradictions between language learning and education. Therefore, this thesis suggests that a most appropriate method to be CA which aims at developing students’communicative competence with TA that is still popularly used in china. It has reaffirmed integrating CA with TA is most appropriate to the Chinese educational context. The measures that I decide to apply in my classroom are: using the PPP framework to teach new language items and reducing teacher talk to give students more opportunities to speak English.4.2 Development practices and further studies of my teaching philosophyThe techniques listed in this paper are useful for teachers in senior high schools. CA does work well with TA if teachers are well organized and skillful in integrating the communicative components with the traditional components. First, teachers should try to improve their proficiency in using English. Second, instead of being the dominating authority in the classroom, teachers are supposed to facilitate the communicative process among all the students. Last, teachers should be good examples in using English in the classroom, for example, using simple, short and clear English phrases as often as possible.ReferencesBrown, H. D. (2002). Principles of language learning and teaching. 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