SUMMARY

Communications and Methods for a Communicative Approach Edited by Keith Johnson and Keith Morrow

Communications and Methods for a Communicative Approach Edited by Keith Johnson and Keith Morrow

In this book it is revealed that the communicative approach is term language training for a view of learning based on the meaning and context of the statement in a communication situation. This approach runs counter to the earlier views by focusing more on form and structure of language and context. It is important to consider the opposition in the linguistic theories to better understand the concept of traditional approaches.

The communicative approach in language teaching is born in a period when the behavioral structuralism pedagogues were booming. If the audio-oral methods and audiovisual years 60 to 70 provided that the contribution of new technologies in language courses, still attracted many of the traditional structuralism approaches. Behaviorism was the introduction of prefabricated structures to repeat and consolidate through a process of stimulation and the response from teacher to student. Structural exercises called “exercises” are used to learn characteristics redresser intensive practice at a point of grammar.

In the communicative approach is not to live longer than memorizing grammatical structures but mostly in communication skills. A question from the teacher does not give rise to a unique response that contains a syntactic structure, but allow students freedom to choose among a number of possible responses to the message you want to convey. Thus, the language courses are not a conference where the teacher only has the knowledge and the correct answer. It becomes an interactive session or context of communication is emphasized. In addition, the supports are no longer considered artificially created for the class with the exact number of structures to absorb, but are chosen from an extensive source of authentic documents (literary excerpts, newspaper articles, radio, music videos, etc.)

This book also reflects that by defining the threshold of the Council of Europe, the objectives for foreign language students have changed considerably. The myth of perfect bilingualism is questioned. It is more fluent in the target language with a perfect accent, but mostly to run a fund sufficient to be able to communicate in a foreign country. Thus, the error status has evolved towards greater tolerance. Preference is given to the transmission and understanding of a meaningful message in a communication to the detriment of a domain of grammatical structures and vocabulary.

Inspired by constructivism and ...