Communicative Language Teaching in Practice

Due to the importance of English nowadays and the need to teach students better English, EFL teachers in many Asian countries have realized the advantages of CLT and have been eager to study about this new method (Pham 2005). Most of the recent English language curricula developed in Asian specifies CLT as the expected methodology.

Vietnam was one the countries that implemented CLT in the 1990s and had unexpected results (Ellis 1994). When Vietnam adopted CLT, it marked the start of a paradigm shift that led to a number of reforms in how to teach a second language and it has quickly garnered attention in Vietnam. (Gebhard 2006). However, this method that has been transferred from the Western English-speaking countries to the contexts of developing nations is seen as problematic due to the conflicts with the social, cultural and physical conditions of the recipient countries (Holliday 1994, Pennycook 1989). For example, in Vietnam, if students learning English have no immediate need to use English in the classroom or outside the classroom, then they all tend to use their mother tongue, Vietnamese.

The principle of doing CLT tasks in the classroom that are applicable to the world outside the classroom is not valid in Vietnam. The main reasons are that it is not an English-speaking country, and Vietnamese students rarely have a real need to communicate in English outside the classroom. Additionally, the use of authentic materials, meaning authentic to native speakers of English, can also be problematic in the Vietnamese setting.

Kramsch and Sullivan (1996) argued that what is authentic in London might not be authentic in Hanoi. The authors showed that Western values are reflected not only in the principles of CLT but also in common CLT classroom activities and practices, such as in pairs and grouping works and in information gap activities. Working in pairs or in groups assumes that the students have the freedom of choice and equality to choose whom to talk with, and what to talk about and that they have equal power relationships with others in the class or in their pairs or groups. Similarly,

Chapter 7: The Implementation of Drama in the

Communicative Approach

information gap activities also imply that people are equal in the classroom, since at some point during the activities each student knows something that others (or even the teacher) may not know. The underlying message of these activities, Sullivan (2000) concluded, was that unequal, hierarchical relationships are not conducive to communicative teaching and learning.

The lack of teaching facilities, the large class sizes, the influence of Confucianism and the traditional examination system also impede the Vietnamese teachers’ abilities to do communicative tasks in their classrooms. Therefore, despite the apparent popularity of CLT, numerous English teachers and students have not changed their concept of effective language instruction, nor their practices in the classroom. As a result, English is not commonly used in Vietnam in communication.

CLT has not received widespread support in China, and the traditional approach is still dominant in many classrooms today (Hu 2001). There are a number of reasons mentioned in the studies by Badger and Yan (2008) and Pham (2005) for these failures in some Asian countries, and in Vietnam and China in particular. It will further discuss in this chapter in order to find the possible solutions.

Pham (2005) pointed out six reasons why CLT had failed to be applied successfully in Vietnam:

1. Vietnamese people rarely use English outside the classroom. Many Vietnamese people choose to use Vietnamese when given a choice. They see their native language as an intermediate and prefer to use it rather than English when interacting with others outside the classroom. Hence, the people lack the motivation to speak English when they are outside of the classroom.

2. Influence of Confucianism on the Vietnamese culture of teaching and learning.

The teachings of Confucianism have a great impact on Vietnamese culture. Hence, the teachers and textbooks are the major forms of English input. Again, there is the lack of exposure of the students to the English language.

3. The teaching method needs to be relevant and suitable for the Vietnamese culture. The teaching materials come from mostly English-speaking countries, which may not be ideal for teaching English in Vietnam. CLT activities like role-plays, simulations and storytelling are new to the Vietnamese culture and completely

opposite to the passive learning styles of the students and the conservative beliefs of Vietnamese teachers.

4. The resources are simple. The resources in the classroom usually consist of only a blackboard and textbooks.

5. There are too many students per class. Vietnamese classrooms can be up to 50 to 70 students, which make any methodological innovation difficult to implement (Kam 2004). The shortage of English teachers has also increased, which may have contributed to the large class sizes (Nguyen 2004). According to her, more time is needed for the non-academic activities related to administrative and organizational procedures and to the management and control of discipline in large classes. The relationship between class sizes and learning outcomes is clear: “Reductions in the quantity of learning opportunities constrain teachers from achieving the necessary pace, depth and breadth of curriculum coverage as class size increases” (Al-Jarf 2006:

24).

6. The traditional, grammar-based examination system. In most circumstances, the examinations test linguistic competence and not communicative competence. This is due to there being are no listening and speaking components in the exams, from the primary to the university level. Examinations demoralize the learners; and when the exams are at stake, the English classrooms are consistently grammar-oriented and not communicative-oriented (Roth and Aberson 2010).

7. Another reason why CLT is not widely used in some Asian countries is that of the beliefs of the teachers. Studies have shown that the ultimate failure of CLT innovation in English language teaching is often due to teachers’ perceptions about the usefulness and feasibility of CLT practices (e.g.Li 1998). Many teachers, for instance, teachers in China claim that it takes longer to prepare and to guide the students on how to do and how to study for the activities (Hu 2002). Vietnamese teachers shared the same views, some have said that it took a lot of effort to include CLT in their lessons. Another said that it was not necessary because it only emphasized: “open-ended discussion activities”, while others have said it was impossible because there would be an

“absence of grammar” (Richards 2006: 16). For these reasons, changing the teachers' beliefs and choosing suitable techniques that would help to effectively improve speaking competence is of the most importance.

Overcoming the shortcomings of CLT

To address some of the difficulties in implementing CLT in Vietnamese classrooms, changes must be made in the syllabus and textbooks, and in the roles of the teachers and students. More importantly, adaptions to the version of CLT should be made to adjust to the day-to-day realities in a developing non-English-speaking country like Vietnam, who has a particular traditional culture as a result of its long Confucian heritage.

The syllabus should be designed with a special focus on communication (Karim 2004).

Chowdhury and Farooqui (2008) suggested that instead of a syllabus based on structural complexity (e.g., easy to complex, known to unknown), the CLT syllabus should be determined by functions, themes, meanings or tasks. It emphasizes exposure to the target language through large input and output from the students. Changing the syllabus to focus more on communication can maximize the opportunities to interact and to negotiate between teachers and learners, and among the learners themselves (Lomicka and Lord 2011). Drama is suggested to be used as a method in this case.

To overcome the shortcomings in Vietnam, it is necessary to realize a change in the teacher’s role, since the teachers and their choice of methods of teaching play a significant role in student learning (Darling-Hammond 1998, Evans 2006, Joyce et al. 2000). Teachers should bear in mind that “their attitudes and behaviours can make an astonishing difference in student learning” (Sonia 2001, 21); and that teaching to the test often leaves little room for creativity, originality, and reflection on the part of the teachers as well as the students (Anderson and Grinsenberg 1998, Pennington 2004).However, to change the beliefs and behaviors of teachers and students take time, particularly in education, thus “new ideas need a great deal of work by practicing teacher for these ideas to be translated into everyday teaching routines” (Farrell and Jacobs 2010: 13)

In their study, Tomlinson and Bao (2004) found some discrepancies between the teachers’

and students’ views of the role of the teacher-student interaction in the English classroom in Vietnam. The teachers used a lecturing style in the classes, believing that their students should be passive and not be involved in classroom activities; while the students complained that their teachers talked too much, and were always the centre of attention in the class. Consequently, the students did not have time to speak or practice. The results also showed that the students wanted to be organized into groups to practice speaking. By

highlighting the discrepancies between the teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of their relationship, the authors aimed to help Vietnamese legislators, researchers, and teachers to gain a better understanding of English language teaching.

For an overview of the traditional and communicative language teaching methods, see Table 4. There are many positive and negative aspects of the traditional language teaching methods and CLT in Vietnam. The challenges of implementing CLT in Vietnam include the education system, a lack of infrastructural facilities, and the teachers’ misconceptions about the CLT method, the traditional examination system, socio-cultural factors and the large class sizes (Ferraris, Martel, and Vignollet 2011).

To address these challenges, the teachers should adopt a secure learning environment in which their participation in the learning process is minimal. That is, they should be facilitators and not mere providers of knowledge to the learners. CLT focuses on a collaborative form of learning in which the learners work in groups or pairs. The learners remain active participants during the entire learning process. In addition, error correction is considered obstructive and not supportive of the language learning process.

Furthermore, according to McDonald (2011:41), it has been found that the communicative approach has a better adaption to the teaching of spoken language, “particularly those instances of spoken language which take place in a clearly defined situation and with clear goals”. The use of drama in CLT was studied by Davies (1980). He found that drama can fill the gap between the classroom and actual life. Therefore, it leads to fluency, motivation, and confidence of the learners through multiple activities (e.g., good listening practice, learning of vocabulary, physical involvement like acting). In the same storyline, Barbee (2014) reviewed enrich literature on the second language (L2) learning and concluded that drama gives an advantage to both students and language teachers. For instance, students can gain virtual experience and appropriate language skills meanwhile teachers can also improve their teaching capacities. Students play an important role in process of learning through drama. The roles of teachers are to facilitate the communication process and to participate in the teamwork or to act a participant in drama activities. Recently, through an experiment in Brasil, Galante and Thomson (2016) examined that drama based instruction is better than the traditional communicative method in improving learners’ fluency.

Overall, there is a close relationship between drama and CLT. Moreover, the CLT approach is a possible way to develop the learner’s speaking competence in an EFL classroom, and drama is a CLT method. Drama has been used for educational purposes for many decades.

The question remains whether the drama technique actually develops the learner’s speaking competence? Thus, the next section will explore whether or not drama techniques are suitable for developing the speaking competence of primary school students and how to implement and apply drama techniques in English lessons.