Communicative Language Teaching to Help the Students to Achieve

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2. Communicative Language Teaching to Help the Students to Achieve

Their Expectation As it was showed in the data displaying in the finding section, the ultimate goal of the course participants in joining the English course held by SMA St. Fransiskus 1 Jakarta was to gain communicative competence in English. It was found that the course participants considered English as important for their further study, finding job, or socio-interpersonal reason like making connection with English-speaking people. However, from the data and discussion presented in the previous sections it was revealed also that almost all the interviewees and the questionnaire-respondents were not really satisfied with what they had been going through, stating that they did not meet their expectation yet concerning that of communicative competence. The question set as the subtitle above is a key question concerning the research question stated previously. In the discussion of realizing the course participants’ expectation in joining the English course, it was allegedly the problem of the course process that was not engaging or failed in accommodating and responding to the challenge and threat occurred during the process. On the other hand, the discussion presented in the previous section also revealed the kind of English course model that the course participants thought of being the best way of reaching out the communicative competence. Therefore, the previous section has already answered some aspect concerning why communicative English teaching is considered as the way to engage more students to the course, involving 81 themselves deeper in the course so that they could reach the communicative competence they had pursued. Thus, this section focuses on how the communicative English teaching works to assist the course participants to deal with the communicative competence as the final goal. The discussion, then, will be based on the theory of Communicative Language Teaching, as it has been discussed in Chapter II. The main characteristic of CLT, as Larsen-Freeman describes, is the acknowledgment of the interdependence between language and communication. Giving this interdependence as the characteristic, CLT has its main goal in language teaching as to make the learners reaching the communicative competence. Regarding to the previous discussion on the course participa nts’ expectation in joining the English course held by SMA St. Fransiskus 1 Jakarta, which is communicative competence to serve their real future plan, the goal of CLT is in line with the expectation of the course participants. It is, however, not only bec ause the CLT’s goal fits the course participants’ expectation that CLT is discussed, but the rationale underlying this approach that is supposed to color the English course’ process. Following the division of the definition of CLT as presented in Chapter II, in terms of theory of language, CLT obviously accommodate the course participants’ expectation of English for practical communication, since the theory of language of CLT emphasizes the basic definition of language as the system in which people communicate meaning. Furthermore, not only communicating meaning, language also enable human being to make abstraction of the reality, 82 and then extend their knowledge to new fields they had never been before Sudarminto, 2002, p. 42. In this sense, communicative English teaching not only make the learners communicate meaning, but also prepare them for on-going learning process as they develop their English competence. Communicative English teaching then do not only fulfill the course participants’ expectation, but also fulfilling the expectation of the foundation to which the course participants belong to, as it was stated in the foundation chairperson’s testimony. Observed from the theory of learning, using the three principles of communicative, task and meaningfulness, CLT will provide the course participants with certain methods and activities which explore the course participants’ potentials contextual enough to their real lives. As one of the interviewee mentioned the freedom of learning materials choice as the learning process he wanted to be conducted in the English course, CLT seen from the theory of learning will provide more chance for tutor-learners communication. It will also provide more space for learners to participate actively in the learning process. It is only by this learning process that communicative competence is not a far-away goal, but in the reach of every learner.

3. The spirit of Credit-based Modular Approach for the English Course