Communicative Language Teaching: Cognitivism, CLIL and Autonomy

Psychological Theory: Cognitivism

Meaningful learning: Learners need to understand what they are doing (the meaning is important). Connect new ideas with ideas they already have. They have to connect new knowledge with old knowledge.

Linguistic Theory: Functionalism

Functionalism: TL (target language) is used for a communicative purpose. Necesitamos la lengua con un significado comunicativo para expresar el significado — the language needs to be contextualized and is based on communicative functions (e.g., greeting, apologizing, making a request). These functions are related to activities or tasks (real-life situations of language).

Role of L2 and L1

L2: Used as a means of communication.

L1: Three main uses:

1. Instructions
2. To explain something difficult (e.g., grammar)
3. To explain things learners (Ls) don’t understand

Techniques and Activities

Real-life interaction:

1. Information gap
2. Negotiation of meaning — express and clarify intentions, thoughts, opinions in a way that allows participants to arrive at mutual understanding

Examples of audio-lingual development:

• Cooperative learning: pair or group work
• Task-based approach: project work, role-play, problem-solving tasks

Errors

Errors are tolerated — a natural and positive part of language learning. They reflect a learner's stage of interlanguage development. The basic aim is fluency (not accuracy).

Skills

Four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Teacher's and Learners' Role

• Teacher: Facilitator of opportunities for communication; communicator (engaging in communication with learners).
• Learners (Ls): Active role; communicators.

Get Two for One: Bilingual CLIL Method

4. GET TWO FOR ONE: (this is a bilingual method). Content subjects, or parts of content subjects (e.g., History, Social Sciences, etc.) are taught through a foreign language (FL). Get two for one: subject-matter content and the target language (TL). CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). AICLE (Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenido y Lengua Extranjera).

Teach What Is Teachable

5. TEACH WHAT IS TEACHABLE: Pienemann’s Multidimensional Model. Some aspects of the language develop according to 'natural' sequences of development. Other aspects (e.g., vocabulary) can be taught at any time.

Ex. Developmental stages of English questions (in Lightbown and Spada, 2013: 49–51):

1. STAGE 1: Single words, formulae, or sentence fragments. Ex.: "dog?"
2. STAGE 2: Declarative word order, no inversion, no fronting. Ex.: "It's a monster in the right corner?"
3. STAGE 3: Do-fronting, wh-fronting, no inversion, other fronting. Ex.: "Where the children are playing?"
4. STAGE 4: Inversion in wh- + copula, 'yes-no' questions with inversion. Ex.: "How do you say proche?"
5. STAGE 6: Tag questions, negative questions, embedded questions. Ex.: "It's better, isn't it?"

Get It Right in the End

6. GET IT RIGHT IN THE END: Form-focused instruction (not everything has to be taught). Correction of learners' errors occasionally. Meaning-focused instruction: at the beginning, learners engage in language use. Vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, etc. will be acquired naturally with adequate exposure to the target language (input + output). This is in line with the 'teach what is teachable' proposal.

Learner Autonomy (Learner-Centred Approach)

7. LEARNER AUTONOMY (LEARNER-CENTRED APPROACH)