The Communicative Language Teaching Approach: Theory and Practice

Merlissa Elpedes Suemith

Magister Scientiae
No 30 (2011)

This paper is an exposition of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Approach. After establishing the need for a more effective teaching strategy by presenting the limitations of earlier methods, the emergence of language learning theories is discussed and how they, in turn, paved the way for the development of CLT. CLT is tackled as a more comprehensive approach because it takes into account learner’s communicative needs. There is less emphasis on grammar precision but more on fluency. The learner is the focus, while the teacher is a facilitator. From this, some pedagogical implications are given, although not exhausted, as a way of bringing the approach into the classroom setting