Communicative Language Teaching Theoretical Description

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3. Communicative Language Teaching

As stated above that the goal of the English hour is the communicative goal in which the students are expected to be able to communicate with others or to use language in the communication, the principle of communication should be clear. As cited in Richards Rodgers 2001: 161, Johnson 1982 states that the principle of communication is activities that involve language in the real context of learning. As cited in Richards and Rodgers 2001: 155, American and British experts state that Communicative Language Teaching as a teaching approach which has two purposes. The first purpose is to create a communicative competence of the language teaching. The second purpose is that Communicative Language Teaching is used to develop a strategy of the teaching English skills in which those has a relation to language and communication. Richards and Rodgers 2001: 172 write some principles of Communicative Language Teaching as a reflection of a communicative view of a language and language learning. Those principles are: learners learn a language using that language to communicate, the goal of classroom activities should be authentic and meaningful, fluency is an important aspect of communication, communication involves the combination of language skills, learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error. As cited in Richards and Rodgers 2001: 155, Howatt 1984 defines the theory of Communicative Langua ge Teaching by dividing into “strong” and “weak” version of Communicative Language Teaching. The strong version of Communicative Language Teaching means that a language is got through 16 communication. The learners got a language when they use the language to communicate with others. It also can be said that the strong version of Communicative Language Teaching is using language to learn. The weak version of Communicative Language Teaching is providing opportunities to the learners to use English for communicative purposes. In another term, the weak version of Communicative Language Teaching is learning to use English. Communicative Language Teaching is an approach of a language teaching which has two main purposes: 1 to create the communicative competence of teaching English in which the students are expected to use the language for communication, 2 to develop the strategy of teaching English skills speaking, listening, reading, and writing which has relation to the language and communication. In this research, Communicative Language Teaching is used to develop the English hour teaching strategy as the speaking teaching strategy. When looking at the Howatt’s theory, the English hour belongs to the weak version of Communicative Language Teaching because the English hour provides a chance for the students to learn how to use the language. The students are invited to use English in the communication context during the teaching-learning activities such as asking permission, asking and answering questions, and communicating with their friends.

4. Curriculum