Tag Archives: CLT

About me and the blog, Communicative teaching (CLT)

ABOUT ME AND MY AIMS

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My name is Raimo Junnikkala and my articles mostly deal with communicative language teaching (CLT). I want to help language teachers who wish to modernize their teaching and apply CLT principles more efficiently.

I am a recently retired teacher of English who also ran the IB Section of Turku Teacher Training School for nearly 30 years. I have worked as a teacher trainer for 42 years in Finland and recently in Oman as well.

Depending on the feedback I will get on my articles I am considering having them in Podcasts as well to elaborate the ideas. These articles are actually a story of how I gradually came to realize how one can learn all aspects of a foreign language if the teacher knows what to do. There are lots of acticles on CLT in the internet but my ideas are directly linked to the work in class. Teachers need practical advice more than theory.

When I started my career I hated the idea of my students spending more than 10 years without learning to master English, without learning to speak and communicate in English. As a result I decided I would not let it happen to my students. Still, it took me many years to learn the tricks of the trade.

I used to hate my lessons but I at first did not have a clue how to change them. Not until I learnt to apply CLT in full.

The aims of my articles are very practical:

Turku Teacher Training School
Lunch hall
2nd floor staircase

I was inspired by two things to write these articles:

  1. In my IB years I learnt that far too many students, especially in Central Europe and the Middle East, do not learn to speak and use English properly. With 42 years of experience I know how it can be done.
  2. Working in Oman as a language teaching expert a few years ago I realized it is practical tips on how to apply CLT principles that the teachers need. I will keep theory to minimum.

At present I am living in Sauvo, southern Finland, close to the sea with my wife. My four children and their five grand children are living on their own in Oulu and Turku. My favourite hobbies include going on singing gigs with a dance band, playing icehockey with my friends, renovating my house and picking up blueberries in July.

MOTTO: Learning starts when the teacher stops talking.

Don’t worry! This argument is a bit provocative but there is a lot of truth in it. It took me a couple of years before I really understood what Rogers meant by this argument. These articles are about the application of this and other CLT principles.

My second article under this heading is about my own history as a language learner and teacher. It will give you some perspective to how language teaching has changed over the last 50 years, and how and why I completely changed my ways of teaching English in 1986.

Rolling stones gather no moss!

Communicative teaching (CLT)

SPEAKING

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I never learnt to speak English at school. I swore to myself early in my teaching career I would never allow this to happen to my students.

Basically learning to speak a foreign language boils down to four things: There has to be a lot of INPUT, ORAL PRACTICE, REPETITION and TIME.

There is no excuse for teachers, if their students dare not speak English when they leave school.

If the use of the target language is not activated orally with quality materials and methods, if it is not done over and over again and if there is not enough time for it, learning is not possible or it is desperately slow. And still, it seems everybody wants to learn to speak English.

Three possible ways to learn to speak a foreign language

  1. It is taught and learnt in a systematic manner, like we do it in CLT lessons at school.
  2. It is learnt intuitively in an authentic environment over a long period of time, very much like we learn our mother tongue.
  3. It is partially learnt at school and activated in free time by talking to English-speaking people or playing interactive games headsets on, for example.

If we have a look at these three ways, we realize that Option 2 is not possible for many of us and the success of Option 3 is too random and dependent on the efforts of the individual.

The only option left is Option 1 and if the majority of students are not given a chance to learn to speak English, for example, at school, they will not learn it properly at all. Unfortunately this is exactly what happened to me and this is why I am writing these articles.

The only language I learnt to speak at school was German even if we never had any speaking tests and studied the language only for 2,5 years. We had six lessons a week, spent two lof them in a language laboratory working on a variety of exercises. And I can still speak German even if I have not studied it since 1973.

The vital lesson I learnt from my German teacher was simple: allow the students to talk between themselves with the language they master and have faith in them learning the spoken language.

Use it or lose it! How can the students learn to speak English if the teacher talks most of the time or makes them work silently on written tasks? NO WAY, spoken language is learnt by speaking a lot.

In this article i will answer the following three questions:

  • How does one learn to speak a foreign language?
  • What is the best method in teaching the students to speak a foreign language?
  • What modern techniques enhancing speaking skills are there to bring variation to foreign language lessons?

Many of the ideas related to teaching speaking have already been discussed under heading ‘The structure of a textbook-based lesson’, ‘Pronunciation’ and ‘Modern CLT group work methods’. Still, Latin ‘Repetition est mater studiorum’ = ‘Repetition is the mother of studies’.

The students start learning to speak English when the teacher stops talking – and gets them working in pairs or groups in English.

How does one learn to speak a foreign language?

  • by being exposed to the language not only at school but elsewhere too
  • by taking the trouble of learning words, phrases and expressions
  • by listening to others speak the language trying to understand the messages
  • by learning pronunciation by imitating native level speakers
  • by gradually internalizing grammar and social functions of the language

In short, by listening, practising and speaking a lot.

There is no one-way street in language learning. We are different and learn languages in different ways using our senses in our own style.

What all effective language learning methods share is the idea of doing a lot of things with the language. What really goes on in our brains in that process is still a bit of a mystery. Still, practice does it!

We learn to speak ...

  • by being brave and by enjoying speaking the target language with other students
  • by not being afraid that we are laughed at even if we do not always get our message through or if our pronunciation is not perfect
  • by not being afraid of making mistakes
  • by challenging ourselves and taking linguistic risks in new situations
  • by making utterances of our own and learning from others
The Tower of London, a must among London tourist attractions.

What is the best method in teaching the students to speak a foreign language?

The answer depends on the proficiency level of the students and the teacher is the best judge in choosing the method. Provided the teacher is aware of all the possibilities and can apply them well.

Any method that maximizes the time the students use the language and speak in class is good. The most popular approach these days is ‘Communicative Language Learning’ (= CLT) and most of the ideas presented in my articles are based on CLT principles. Speaking can be part of just about anything we do in class, even in learning vocabulary and cultural matters.

In CLT lessons we favour student-centred methods, principles and activities. In practice it means pair and group work in English and the teacher’s job is to organize and facilitate the tasks and assignments so that the teacher remains in the background and it is the students who talk.

If the students speak English 70 – 80 % of the time in lessons, things start happening. I have explained in detail how to do it in my articles under the horizontal main menu heading ‘THE STRUCTURE OF A TEXTBOOK-BASED LESSON’. The articles demonstrate how a teacher can easily turn teacher-oriented lessons to student-oriented ones.

What modern techniques enhancing speaking skills are there to bring variation to foreign language lessons?

First of all, it is vital in language lessons that the students do not always stay with the same people. In addition to regular changing of the composition or pairs and groups, there are methods such as station work, co-operative learning, task- based learning (TBL) and inquiry-based learning (IBL) which bring a lot of variation to the lessons.

All of the techniques have been explained in more detail with examples under heading ‘Modern CLT group methods’. In these lessons English often becomes a tool that is used to find information or solve problems. Learning to speak English becomes an enjoyable BYPRODUCT!

How can the students learn to speak English if the teacher talks most of the time or makes them work silently on written tasks? NO WAY, MOST TASKS HAVE TO BE ORAL!

My next articles in this unit deal with the following questions:

SpeakingSpeaking, teaching beginners
Testing speaking skills
How to use speaking criteria in evaluation
N.B. The topic is touched upon in most articles

Luckily the importance of speaking skills has been recognized in most countries and official speaking tests or exams with clear criteria are becoming part of the final examinations.

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar

TEACHING GRAMMAR THE OLD AND CLT STYLE, comparison

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They say 7 is a lucky, godly number. I am not supertitious but I have 7 reasons that speak in favour of the CLT approach to teaching grammar.

Benefits of teaching grammar in CLT style

  • The use of pre-tasks reduces anxiety around the new structure.
  • After the pre-task the structure feels familiar and easier to learn.
  • Using the inductive method activates the brains and enhances learning.
  • Practice is not limited to mechanical written exercises but taken further with versatile oral exercises.
  • Working and checking the tasks together in groups the students teach and help each other in a relaxed atmosphere.
  • The final aim is to have truly communicative activities such as role plays.
  • Grammar is seen as a tool, not as an aim of its own.

Grammar in the old daysCLT ideas on Grammar

PRE-TASK, very rarely used

PRE-TASK, commonly used

Frequent oral tasks before the rules of a new structure are introduced,
Students use the structure 15 -30 times in a few minutes.
They get a feeling they already know the structure.
No great possibility to make mistakes thanks to models or ready-made sentences.

INTRODUCING THE RULES Deductive method
Rules voiced by the teacher
Little student involvement
Comparison with mother tongue
Lexical approach with beginners

INTRODUCING THE RULES Inductive method
Teacher-guided process
A lot of student involvement
Comparison with mother tongue
Lexical approach with beginners

PRACTICE OF THE STRUCTURE
Mostly written exercises which get systematically more and more demanding.
Mechanical exercises, very seldom even semi-communicative
Everybody is doing the same exercises, no differentiation.
Oral exercises are limited to mechanical drills in class or language labs.
Exercises are mostly done alone or supervised by teacher, checked with the teacher too.

PRACTICE OF THE STRUCTURE
Both written and oral exercises which get systematically more and more demanding.
Written exercises which start from mechanical ones, turn semi-communicative and finally fully communicative.
Students can often decide which difficulty level they prefer.
Oral exercises follow the same logic, differentiation is used
Exercises are mostly done and checked in pairs or groups.

One has to be realistic and admit that in many classes this would be as far as many students are able to go. If they understand the rule and can apply it both in written and oral exercises of various kind, you as their teacher can be proud of them. Most importantly the students recognize the structurein all situations and can use it in speech as well.

Let’s think about the previous article and the way I used to teach the present tense passive voice once again. I will show you now how to turn the mechanical exercise to a communicative one. The example below combines written and oral communication and would be one way to end the teaching of the structure.

How can we turn the practice of the present tense passive voice more communicative?

  • First of all, the inductive formulation of the rule is best done slowly with the teacher in charge to give everyone time to think about the matters.
  • Secondly, exercises such as 1 – 4 in the previous article can be done in groups with a star student as the leader of the group and the others give the answers.
  • Thirdly, the teacher has to think in advance of a situation where natives would use the present tense passive voice structure. The most obvious situation is describing a process or a series of events where things happen but we do not need to know who does it.
  • Fourthly, the groups do an oral practice by taking turns in explaining a process: What happens to cars in their life time? How to make fashion clothes? How to make your greenhouse plants grow well? How to drive a car or plan a journey?
  • Fifth, the group decides on the process to be described in writing:

A couples of examples of the kind of sentences required are needed as models.

  • What is done in a local McDonald’s during an ordinary day to serve the customers well?



  • What is done before my day in the riding stable is done?

    • What is done?
  • Other topics: playing football or icehockey / at home or school
    • …    		The place is cleaned between 5 and 7 a.m.
    Kitchen preparations for the meals are done before opening.
    The doors are opened at 9.00.

    I am taken to the stables by my dad round four p.m and the horses are groomed before the lesson. We are given other chores too to do before we are allowed to saddle the horses. etc.

    • Models like above are needed to stir the students’ imagination and to give them an idea of what they are supposed to do.
    • Sixth, the descriptions are checked by the teacher while the writing process is going on. Finally the descriptions are read aloud in front of the class, each student reading at least one sentence. The ideas can be challenged by the other groups if they think something essential was ignored.

    Make coming in front of the class a habit. Yes, it is scary at first but not so much any more after twenty trials. After two and a half years a very shy IB-student of mine took all of us by surprise when she wanted to give a presentation on ballet. No-one knew she was a ballet dancer but when she got in the front and made us copy her movements explaining what is done in a ballet practice and why, she became a shining star in the very last lesson we had together. She finally found her confidence in doing what none of us was able to do. I will never forget the smile on her face and the courageous memory she left on all of us. And the brilliant example of using the present tense in the passive voice. Yes, I feel like a wet blanket now. Mixing grammar with brilliance. But grammar is important, right?