MY PAPER, COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND ROLE PLAYING

BACKGROUND

      The origins of communicative language teaching(CLT) are to be found in British language teaching tradition from the late 1960s. In situational language teaching , language was taught by practicing basic structure in meaningful situation and based activities. Littlewood(1981:1)states,”one of the most characteristic features of CLT is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language. It means using procedures where learners work in pairs in problem solving task. The essential in all of them is at least two parties, there are an interactions and the other reacts to the intention. Let us now consider how this is manifested at the levels of theory,design,and procedure.


COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

 A. DEFINITION
     CLT is a theory of language teaching that starts from a communicative model of language and language use, and that seek to translate into a design for an instructional system,for materials, for teacher and learner,and for classroom activities.

B. THE PURPOSES OF C.L.T
     Since the mid 1970 the scope of CTL has expanded, it is an approach and not a method, it aims to: - to make communicative competence - to develop produce of the four language skills and communication

 C. THEORY OF C.L.T

 1. Theory of Language The communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. Henry Widdowson(1978) in his book “teaching language as communication”, He presented a view of the relationship between linguistic system and their communicative values in text and discourse, there are: - Grammatical competence, is domain of grammatical and lexical capacity - Sociolinguistic competence,is the understanding of the social context and to get communicative purposes for their interactions - Strategic competence,is the strategic that communicates employ to initiate,terminate,mantain,repair,and redirect communication. The language theory in CLT has charactheristic,there are: - Language is a system for the expression of meaning. - The primary function of language is to allow interactions and communication - The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.

 2. Theory of Learning Johnsons(1984) and Littlewood(1984) consider an alternative learning theory that, they also see as compatible with CLT is a skill and learning model. According to this theory, the acquisition of communicative competence in a language ia an example of skill development. This involves both a cognitive and behavioral aspect, there are:
 1. The cognitivre It include grammatical rules,procedure for selecting vocabulary and social conventions governing speech.
2. The Behavioural It occurs through practice inconverting plans into performance.

 D. STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF C.L.T

 STRENGTH;
 - The ability to use the linguistic system effectively and appropriately - In CLT, meaning is paramount - The primary goal in CLT is fluency and acceptable. - Teachers help learners in anyway that motivates them to work with the language.

 WEAKNESS:
 - The teacher cannot know exactly what language the students will use.
 - Accuravy is not a primary goal.
 - Language learning is learning to communicate only.

E. DESIGN
 1. Objectives Piepho(1981) discusses the following levels of objectives in a communicative approach:
 - Language as a means of expression
 - Language as a semiotic and an object of learning
 - Language as a means of expressing values and judgement about oneself and other
 - Language learning within the school curiculum

 2. Types of Learning and teaching activities

     Littlewood(1981) distinguishes between “Functional communication activities’ and Socialinteraction
activities” as major activity in CLT.
 - Functional communication activities include such task as learners comparing sets of pictures and noting similarities and differences,and giving instructions on how to draw a picture or shapes,and solving problem from shared clues.
 - Social interaction activities include conversation and discussion sesions,dialog,and role play,simulations,improvisation and debates.

2. Learner roles The role of learner as negotiator, between the self,the learning process,and the object of learning, emerges from and interact with the role of jount negotiator with group and classroom procedure and activities in the group.

 3. Teacher roles The teacher has two main roles, there are: - The first role is facilitate the communication process between all learners in the classroom,and the various activities and texts. - The second role is to act with the learning and teaching group.

 4. Group process manager CLT procedures often require teacher , the teacher’s responsibility to organize the classroomAs a setting for communication and communicative activities.

 5. The role of instructional materials Materials thus have the primary role of promoting communicative language use.
 There are three kinds of materials that used in CLT
- Text Based Materials , It include dialogs,drills,or sentence pattern,pictures,and sentence fragment to initiate conversation.
 - Task based materials, it include exercise handbook,activity cards, and students interactions.
 - Realia, it includr such as signs, magazines,advertisement, and newspaper, maps, pictures, symbol, and graphs.

 F. PROCEDURE OF C.L.T
 Savignon(1983) discusses techniques and classroom management procedures associated with a number of CLT classroom activities, there are group activities, language games, and role plays. The procedures of CLT are:
 1. Presenting of a brief dialogs or several mini dialogs and discussion of the function and situation.
 2. Oral practice of each utterance of the dialog segment to be presented that day.
 3. Question and answer based on the dialog topic and situation itself.
 4. Question and answer related to the students’ experiences,but centered around the dialog theme.
 5. Using picture,simple real object,or dramatization
 6. Learner of rules the functional expression or structure.
 7. Oral recognition
 8. Copying the dialogue or modules if they are not in the class text
 9. Sampling of the written homework assignment
10. Evaluation of learning


 G. ROLE PLAYING

1. Definition
 The role playing model is applicable to Communicative language teaching. With role playing student can increase their abilities communication. Among classroom activities, Role Play and simulation rate highly as suitable vehicles to use in a communicative approach to language teaching. The terms role play and simulation have been interpreted in many different ways by teachers and textbook writers, and as simulations involve role play.
Example: “What are they going to do when holiday?”
 In this simulation a group have the task of finding careers for holliday. They have to match this information with what they know of the boys and girls from holliday reports and references. The information they receive is practise both reading and listening skills as they collect the information. Simulations deserve a more considered place with teaching programme, they are more than just “fun” activities or the answer to the conversation class. They are motivating in themselves,provide a test and feedback on communicative competence and help to develop an empathy, that is to increase their abilities to recognize their own and other people’s feeling.

2. Drama
    Drama can be said to cover all those activities in which students to play themselves in an imaginary situation. From it, can stimulates the imagination and motivate the student to use language he has already learned.

WAYS OF USING DRAMA
 Example 1 “To illustrate the effect of feeling on an interaction activity, the students work in pairs. They are both watching a television programme. One student turns it off. The first time the exercise is done,this reaction should be nonverbal; once the underlying emotion and the means of communication have been established, appropriate words should be added.” At this point , they are playing themselves and interacting in an imaginary situation which they obviously show their feelings. It would seem much more valuable for students to begin from their own emotions and the ways of expressing them, until they have had extensive practice.

3. Advantages of Role Play
- Provides opportunity for students to assume roles of others, therefore appreciating another person’s point of view.
- Allows for a safe exploration of solutions and an opportunity to practice sexual health skills.
- Tends to motivate students to learn.
- Promotes and develops critical and creative thinking, attitudes, values, and interpersonal and social skills.

 4. Procedure

1. Prepare class for role-play
 - Present an artificial problem, situation or event that represents some aspect of reality.
 - Define the problem, situation and roles clearly.

 2. Give clear instructions
 - Determine whether role plays will be carried out using student volunteers in front of the class (the teacher may or may not play a role), in partnerships/small groups with every student playing a role, or in small groups with role-players and observers.
 - Divide students into groups, if appropriate, use small group activities.
 - Model the skill with a scripted role play.
 - Suggest including a few-minute time limit; and the opportunity to perform more than one skill practice.

 3. Act out role-plays
 - Students follow the procedure outlined by the teacher to act out role plays.
 - Unless the teacher is playing a role, it is helpful to walk around the room and observe how students are experiencing the role play and offer coaching to students who are stuck.

4. Discussion (small group and whole class)
 - Begin by allowing players to communicate feelings experienced during the role play.
 - Have students identify sexual health skills that were demonstrated during the role play.
 - Determine actions that strengthen or weaken these skills (i.e. body language).
 - Discuss how this role play is or isn’t similar to real life.
 - Identify ways of using identified sexual health skills in real life situations.

 5. Alternatives to Traditional Procedure
 - Have students write role plays as scripts.
 - Have students write down responses and then role-play in front of the class.
 - Have students generate a list of challenging “lines”, then have a student read the lines to the class and have each student give a response.
 - Have students develop and act out plays.

 6. Tips for Using Role Play
- Begin with fairly easy situations and work up to more challenging ones.
- Be aware that some students may feel threatened or self-conscious. Using humour can help dispel embarrassment. Using role plays that exaggerate weak responses might break the ice.
- Reduce the level of abstraction or complexity so that the students may become directly involved with underlying concepts.
 - If students find it difficult to determine skills which model sexual health, they could observe successful role models or ask experts to suggest approaches.
 - If attempting an unscripted exercise, be sure it is the correct approach for your students’ comfort level.
 - Try introducing readings before role plays to introduce new knowledge and experiences to help motivate students.  


CONCLUSION
    CLT is best considered an approach rather than method. It refers to a diverse set of principles that reflect a communicative view of language and language learning.
These princhiples include:
 1. Learners learn a language through using it to communicate.
 2. Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities.
 3. Fluency is an important dimension of communication.
 4. Communication involves the integration of different language skills.
 5. Learning is a process of creative instruction.
 Today, CLT thus continues in its classic form and it influenced many other language teaching approachs and methods that use in learning teaching.  


REFERENCES Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers,Approachs and Methods in Language Teaching,(University of Cambridge:Cambridge University press Keith Johnsons and Keith Morrow,Communication in the classroom,(Burn mill,Harlow:Longman Group,1981 http://teachers.teachingsexualhealth.ca/teaching-tools/instructional-methods/role-play/ Accessed on March 10, 2014.