Communicative language training appeared in the 60's in British procedure where trained on situational language basis. The main structures of the English language were treated in various communication situations. In the mid-60 years in the United States was rejected by the theory of language audiolinvalizme. British Methodists questioned the theoretical principles of situational methods of teaching foreign languages.
They realized the inefficiency of teaching methods on the structure and began to develop a functional and communication approach to language learning. They saw a need-based language teaching communicative needs, and not on the basis of only structures. Proponents of this view were Kendlin S., H. Vidovson.
Another condition for the emergence of different approaches to language learning was to increase the social need for mastering a foreign language in Europe. The subject of research of this technique is: language as a means of expression. Language as a semiotic system and an object of study, the interpersonal relations of students and corrective study based on error analysis. Therefore, the communicative method is based on functional and communicative approaches. The development of methods that provide practical knowledge of the language in the shortest possible time has become a vital necessity.
In 1971, a group of scientists began to develop methods of teaching language, taking into account the needs and needs of students. In 1972, a commission under the leadership of the British linguist D. A. Wilkins prepared a message proposing a functional or communicative definition of a language, which could serve as a basis for developing a communicative program for language learning. The merit of D. A. Wilkins was that he conducted an analysis of the student's communicative need in terms of both the expression of thought and speech perception. This program was adopted by the educational department of the Council of Europe. Subsequently, this program played a major role in the development of methods and improving the quality of textbooks in Europe. The work of the Council of Europe, the study of British linguists, the message of the commission for the language learning program, etc., have played a big role in spreading the communicative approach or the growing communicative language learning. Sometimes, instead of the terms «communicative approach», «communicative language learning», the terms «substantive-functional approach» were used. Since 1970, the range of applications of communicative language learning has begun to expand. Both American and British supporters of this innovation began to consider it as an approach (and not a method) that was aimed:
- To make the objectives of language learning communicative,
- To develop a methodology for the development of 4 language skills, which takes into account the interdependence of language and communication (J. C. Richards. T. S.Rodgers).
The communicative approach emphasizes communicative competence. When the term «competence» was first introduced by N. Chomsky (1965), he was directly related to the knowledge of his native language. In other words, the term «linguistic competence» meant temporary forms that performed the necessary morphological changes and assumed the usual word order. However, the term «linguistic competence» was questioned by D. Hemes (1972). He suggested that the term «communicative competence» should be related to the interaction of grammatical (language rules) and socio-cultural (language application rules) language aspects.
According to him, if people have communicative competence, they will have the knowledge and ability to use the language. D. Himes emphasized that literacy is one of the components of grammatical competence. He pointed out that the sociolinguistic aspect of language is related to the intended use of language in this context. In his article «communicative competence», the author gives a more extensive meaning of competence, a social and socio-cultural factor. He argues that sometimes the grammatical parts of utterances may not be intended to achieve certain goals, and non-grammatical utterances may be acceptable. D. Himes concludes that we can separate sociolinguistic factors from linguistic competence. Therefore, knowledge of a language not only means knowledge of the language, but also knowledge of what is intended in this context. M. Kennel and M. Swain (1980) created an important speculative model that considers the connection between theory and practice.
They identified 4 main components of communicative competence:
- Grammatical competence: perfect mastery of lexical units, rules of morphology, syntax and phonology. Grammatical competence is mainly related to the linguistic aspects of a language focused on dictionaries, word order, sentence formation, pronunciation, writing, and others;
- Sociolinguistic competence: correspondence of statements (grammatical and communicative functions) in this context related to topics, roles and participants, directions and norms of interactivity;
- Speech competence: mastery of the skill of combining grammatical forms and knowledge to achieve unity of oral and written text;
- Strategic competence — verbal communication theory, which consists of the above 4 types of competencies.
- In other words, they consider communicative competence as a synthesis of knowledge of grammar, knowledge as the use of language in a social context.
However, in the development of communicative language teaching methodology theory has been a number of controversial issues. One of them is the use of terminology. J. Richards and Redrs write this «method» is defined in terms of three levels: approach, structure (design), procedure- technique works. The approach is a theory of language and learning. Project (design) — the definition of linguistic content and description of the role of the teacher, student and educational material.
Methods of work associated with the methods of work. E. Antonia differentiates the concept of «approach», «method», «welcome». According to him, the term «method» is a covering (umbrella) to define the term (s) of the relationship of theory and practice. The approach is the position point of view, the theory of the nature of the target language.
The concept L. Buckman communicative person's ability consists of knowledge or competence, the ability to perform speech acts. He believes that the concept of communicative language teaching includes three components:
1) Language competence,
2) Strategic competence,
3) Psycho-physiological mechanisms. In this case, language competence is knowledge: strategic kompetentsiya- mental capacity to carry the components of language competence.
Thus, we can conclude that in the history of foreign language teaching there, and there are numerous and varied attempts to find the most rational method of learning foreign languages. Every attempt (approach, method), and has had some impact on the development of the theory and practice of teaching. Moreover, each approach or method is based on a certain theory, both the methodology and the related sciences.
One of the modern technologies in teaching foreign languages is computer learning. Of course, one cannot reduce everything to it, and the number of hours spent behind the screen cannot serve as a criterion for the quality of teaching foreign languages, as they try to present in some private schools. But, of course, the fact that the computer is an excellent assistant in learning a foreign language for the organization of individual training. After all, as soon as the teacher stops seeing the student just a vessel that needs to be filled with knowledge and skills, he has to look for an individual approach to everyone, adjust to his interests, the pace of mastering the material, and the personal characteristics of the psyche. The computer performs the program that it contains, and presents a huge selection of topics in a foreign language to study. Modern methods of presenting information in computers include not only language and speech material for mastering, but also pictures, videos, sound fragments, which is very important for the phonetic development of words and whole sentences. This allows you to use almost all the senses used for the perception of the material, while it is duplicating through different channels of perception, which dramatically increases the speed and quality of the assimilation of language and speech material.
The creation of a communicative methodology is explained by the influence of two linguistic competences — structuralism and transformational-generative grammar, which prevailed in 50–60 years. XX century. Proponents of structuralism were engaged in the study and description of the structures of the language, and representatives of the second concept- education proposals based on certain images of models. It was assumed that having mastered the most common syntactic structures in the relations of their components, students would be able to communicate in a foreign language. In the 70s, communicative linguistics appeared. As a unit of communication, they began to accept super phrase unity. The term «competence» has become widely used in the methodology of teaching foreign languages.
References:
- Lyakhovitskaya MV, Methods of teaching foreign languages. M., 1981 — p. 110–11 1.
- Maslyko E. A., Babinskaya P. K. Handbook for a foreign language teacher. Minsk,
- Higher School, 2001. — p. 77.
- Methods of primary education in foreign languages. Ed. I. V. Karpov and I. V. Rakhmanov M.,1987 — p. 34.
- Essays on the methods of teaching oral speech in foreign languages / Ed. V. A. Buchbinder Kiev, 1990 — p. 160–161.
- Palmer R. Methods of teaching English spoken language L. 1983.
- Palmer, Harold E. Oral method of teaching English. M., 1961.-C. 205–207.
- E. I. Passov Communicative method of teaching foreign language speaking. M., 1991.-C. 35–36.
