The teaching-learning scenario of English in
Bangladesh has assumed a new beginning. Grammar-translation method had been
practiced for a long time in the English Language Teaching context. Since 1998
in the secondary and higher secondary levels grammar-translation method has
been replaced by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The Grammar-Translation
method and the Audio-Lingual approach were the methodologies that were in vogue
before CLT. These methods involved repetition and memorization of forms. Mere
memorizing of grammar rules and studying literary texts are considered somewhat
irrelevant. Nowadays ability to use the language to meet practical ends has
become the major goal of learning English.
In other words we can say that to be successful in learning English
means ability to get the meaning across while communicating.
With the appearance of CLT second language teaching
faced a dramatic change in the method of teaching the language. The main reason
behind this change is that the educators began to realize the goal of foreign
language teaching is the communicative ability achieved by the learner. In the 1970s in Europe there was an influx of
immigrant population who had to learn English quickly to find employment. The
drills of the Grammar-Translation method and the Audio-Lingual approach did not
help the workers to communicate with their employers. ‘British applied
linguists began to call into question the theoretical assumption underlying the
Situational Language Teaching (Jack C. Richards 153). Since the mid-1970s the
scope of CLT has expanded. Both American and British proponents now see it as
an approach and not a method that aims to make communicative competence.
In this era of global communication, the purpose of
learning English should be stretched from the grammatically accurate written
productions of compositions and translations to the multidimensional oral
communication in multi-faced situations. Grammar Translation method demands
the utmost grammatical accuracy which involves time, carefulness and is a slow
process. To satisfy the immediate needs CLT is practiced by the learners. Communicative competence in CLT is a
linguistic term which refers to a learner’s ability to form correct utterances
in the second language and know how to use these utterances appropriately.
The teacher’s role had been outright authoritative in
the Grammar Translation Method. Such a teacher-orientated authority used to
make the students completely dependent on the teachers and devoid of the
practice of speaking skills making the students to be tongue-tied during the
spoken communicative production. The student’s role in the overall Grammar
Translation Method in the English Language
Teaching situation of Bangladesh had
been by no means passive and a kind of
inactive. They were supposed to remain silent during the instruction of the
lessons and were to be active in a limited way only during the written
production of grammatical problem solving tasks and translations when they were
used to be instructed to do so. Such inactivity during the maximum time of the
lesson was used to make the students incompetent in communication in English.
The CLT now reverses the ideas. Now classes are dominated by students.
Students’ talking time is greater than that of Teacher Talking Time. Equal
importance is given to speaking skill which remained totally neglected in GTM.
The teachers used to present the lessons in
lecture-based ways. As it is already mentioned, the participation of the
students was very limited during the lessons. They used to get an opportunity
of participation by directly asking the teachers only when they used to fail to
understand certain things. The more the class had been found silent the more
the teacher used to be satisfied of having been conducted a successful class.
Peer discussions as well as other kind of activities of peer co-operation had
been far beyond the expectations. Thus a gap between the students and the teachers
and also gaps at the levels of competence and proficiency among the peers were
used to be created of which the teachers and the students used to remain
oblivious during the conduct of the lessons. But in CLT teachers work as
facilitators and behave friendly with the learners narrowing the gap between
them. Hence, teaching learning takes place in a non-threatening environment.
In Grammar-Translation method grammar had been taught
deductively emphasizing on the meticulous rules and the grammatical output of
the students were used to be considered based on the problem –solving tasks of
the isolated sentences. In CLT only the essential grammatical elements are
taught through the context-based inductive tasks and activities emphasizing not
on the meticulous accuracy but on the overall linguistic negotiation of
meaning.
GTM is lecture-oriented; in the CLT the lessons are
action-oriented. Thus in GTM there had been only isolated written grammatical
and problem-solving tasks and activities of translations to be individually
done by the students. In CLT, activities
like pair works, group works as well as collective works besides individually
done by the students and in CLT activities as collective works besides
individual performances are to be conducted in almost every lesson ensuring the
integration of four major language skills.
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