The Application of Communicative Language Teaching to Listening Activities

AbstractWith more and more focus on the development of college students' communicative abilities， listening teaching is holding a great proportion in college teaching activities. This paper shows how to apply the Communicative Language Teaching Approach to listening activities. And by applying this approach， the author will make some try in how to make the listening teaching course interesting and attractive as well as cultivate and develop the college students' listening abilities and communicative abilities.

Key wordscommunicative competence; communicative language teaching approach; listening activities

中圖分類號：G424 文獻標(biāo)識碼：A

1 Introduction

Language is an instrument for human communication， the ultimate goal of language teaching is to help the students to develop their communicative competence. To cater for such communicative needs， the universities and colleges are now focusing on the cultivation of college students’ communicative competence or abilities. As the most basic and primary language application skill， listening plays an important role in communication. listening class should be the important place for Chinese students to acquire authentic English. How to teach listening successfully and efficiently has become a hot topic among many college teachers of English. In this paper， first I will give brief introduction to the Communicative Language Teaching Approach， a quite good approach to teach listening， and then discuss how to apply it to listening activities.

2 The Communicative Language Teaching Approach

Theoretically， the Communicative Language Teaching Approach is based on three main theories: Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar; Hymes’ (1972) Communicative Competence; Austin’s(1962) Speech Act Theory.(Melrose，1991)

The Communicative Approach has six main characteristics:

1) Language drills， recitation and isolation grammar exercises are not the ways to acquire any language. Analysis of language is done in specific contexts. Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence.

2)Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic， authentic， functional use of language (e.g. seeking information/apologizing/ expressing likes and dislikes， etc.) for meaningful purposes. Organizational forms are not the central focus but rather aspects of language that enable the learners to accomplish those purposes.

3) Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying communicative techniques.

4) In the communicative classroom， students ultimately have to use the language， productively and receptively， in unrehearsed contexts.

5) In the classroom， it is the learners themselves who direct the activity. The teacher just offers guidance and help.

6) Errors are a natural part of learning language. Learners trying their best to use the language creatively and spontaneously are bound to make errors. Constant correction is unnecessary and even counter-productive.

The Communicative Approach isn’t a single， fixed teaching pattern， the core of which is using language to learn and learning to use language rather learning language or learning about language. The ultimate goal of Communicative Language Teaching is to help learners to acquire communicative competence which they can acquire in the classroom activities through speaking， reading， listening， and writing.

3 The Application of Communicative Language Teaching in Listening Activities

In listening activity the way in which the information in the message is understood by the receiver is an integral part of the communication. In order to reconstruct the message that the speaker intends， the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources. The majority of utterances we hear in daily life could be conceived as carrying different meanings in different circumstances. The active nature of listening means that the learner must be motivated by a communicative purpose which determines to a large extent what meanings he must listen for and which parts of the spoken text are most important to him. In the listening activities， the teacher can have a number of techniques for providing a purpose for listening.

William Littlewood (1981) proposed to distinguish communicative activity between two main categories， that is， functional communication activities and social interaction activities. According to him， the main purpose of functional communicative activities is for the learners to share and process information as effectively as possible， while in the social interaction activities learners must take account of the social meaning as well as the functional meaning of different language forms. According to the contents of listening practice， the listening activities in college can be classified into the two main categories. Now let’s see through some examples how the Communicative Language Teaching can be applied to these two categories of listening activities.

3.1 Sharing and processing information

A great number of listening activities in the college classroom are similar to functional communication activities which help students to form or practice the ability to find language which will convey an intended meaning effectively in a specific situation.

3.1.1 Identifying numbers， letters， or a wanted person described

This practice is very common in listening activities. The students may listen to a description or dialogue in which there is a number. He must catch the number correctly. Identifying numbers may be boring in some way， but it is a necessary practice to the students in the classroom. To add interest， the teacher can ask one student to describe one of his classmates， and another student to identify the wanted person.

In such listening activities， the student is alerted to look for specific meanings， related to a task which he must perform. So it is unnecessary for him to understand every word. What he should do is just to listen selectively， extracting only information which is relevant to the task. The criterion for success in these listening activities is not whether he has understood the whole information but whether he has constructed enough of the meanings in order to satisfy his own communicative purpose.

3.1.2 Completing a grid， timetable， or chart of information

In such activities， students are still required to look for specific types of meaning. However， the outcome of the listening is not just a physical response to the language. Students must extract relevant information from the text and transfer it to some other form.

For example， students may be asked to listen to a radio interview in which a man talks about the effects of global warming， and to use the following table to make notes about what he says:

The topics in the table help students to narrow down considerably the range of meanings that they would expect to hear. And these clear expectations would make the comprehension task easier.

In activities such as the one above， the information obtained through listening can be used as a stimulus for communicative interaction. Take the listening practice above for instance， after listening to the interview， the teacher can ask students to interview each other to obtain similar information. Or simply， the students act as the speakers， just replaying the original interview. The prospect of taking part in communicative interaction can provide students with a strong purpose for listening.

3.1.3 Reporting orally or writing down the information contained in a spoken text

After the students listen to a story or a description， the teacher can ask them to retell the story or the description in their own words. The teacher may also ask them to write down the important content in their own words and evaluate the information they obtained.

Such activities require students to listen absorbedly and catch all the important information， which is a little harder to most of the students. But the whole process can be full of fun. The teacher may ask the students to prepare in advance some short articles and let some of them read the articles before the whole class， then the rest students repeat what they have heard. The teacher may group the students， and let them have a discussion on the same topic.

3.2 Listening for social meaning

In listening practice， the students are often required to pay attention to the social implications of language forms. After listening to a dialogue or conversation， students may be asked to figure out what is the relationship between the two speakers or where the dialogue or conversation may take place. They are expected to express their ideas on such matters as who the speakers might be， what the speaker’s mood is， and what the speaker’s words really mean.

People in different social status， when speaking， may use different style， vocabulary， and intonation. Students can infer who the speakers are， and what the relationship between them is. And certain words and expressions can only be used in certain social situations and places， which provide enough clues for the students to make a right judgment.

4 Conclusion

Halliday said， ( Halliday， in Lyons，1970) “Language serves to establish and maintain social roles， which include the communication roles created by language itself.” Therefore， communicative ability is the goal of foreign language learning. One of the most characteristic features of the Communicative Language Teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language， combining these into a more fully communicative view. Applying this teaching approach to the listening activities gives students more opportunities to use the language， to receive， and to convey information associated with their specialist studies as well as promoting the students’ interest， enthusiasm， and initiative in learning.

References

[1]Jo McDonough Christopher Show. Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teacher’s Guide， (2nd Edition)[M]. Beijing: Peking University Press， 2004.

[2]Austin， J.L. How to Do Things with Words [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press， 1962.