Brisitsh language teaching tradition in the 1960s Back then the situational language teaching was the norm SLT consisted internalizing the structures of language Mostly learning grammar rules without vocabulary The SLT did not fill the need to developlanguage competence in language teaching
A group of experts saw the need to
focus in communicative proficiency rather than mastery of strustures The objective of language learning is to learn and express communication functions and categories of meaning Ultimate aim is communicative competence in target language A person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language use Richards and Rodgers (1986) described CLT as an approach rather than a method, since it represents a philosophy of teaching that is based on communicative language use. Advocated by many applied linguists, CLT in their views emphasizes notional- functional concepts and communicative competence, rather than grammatical structures, as central to teaching. Canale and Swain (1998) identify four dimensions of communicative competence:
Grammatical competence- similar to
linguistic competence by Chomsky by what is formally possible Sociolinguistic competence- understanding of the social context in which communication takes place, including role relationships, the shared information of the participants, and the purpose for their interaction Discourse competence- the interpretation of individual message elements in terms of cohesion and coherence Strategic competence- the coping strategies to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and redirect communication Dell Hymes His theory of communicative competence was a definition of what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community. Held the view that linguistic theory needed to be seen as part of a more general theory incorporating communication and culture. Michael Halliday Theory: the functional account of language use Linguistic is concerned with the description of speech acts or texts, since only though the study of language in use are all the functions of language , and therefore all components of meaning brought into focus. He has elaborated a powerful theory of the functions of language, which complements Hymess view of communicative competence for many writers on CLT. Seven basic functions: instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative, representational.