Communicative Language Teaching In Primary School

There are diverse propositions and arguments about the development of thestudents' communicative competence in foreign language learning and teaching andhow to carry it out in primary English education is still a problem faced by languageeducators all over our country. This thesis is mainly concerned with the necessity andincorporation of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in primary schools,arguing that the CLT is an effective way to promote the students' communicativeawareness and interpersonal communicative competence in English.This paper illustrates the present state and limitations of foreign languageteaching in China, explores the theoretical basis of the CLT from a pragmaticperspective and then puts forward several strategies. One of the objectives of thestudy is to provide the students with more information about the target language andto promote their communicative awareness and competence. A second objective is toillustrate if it is possible and productive to integrate the development of the students'communicative competence into primary English education. Furthermore, for a longtime, the students' linguistic competence has been more emphasized than their otherones, esp. their communicative competence, and because the primary Englisheducation is a relatively new field of research, many teachers are still not very sureabout how to develop the students' communicative competence in their languageteaching. The present study specifically seeks information and analysis on how tocarry out the CLT in primary schools, esp. how to develop the students'communicative competence through class activities, which is our central concern inthis paper.According to some researcher's surveys and the responses from the students andteachers, we notice that the primary students' communicative awareness andcompetence are not developed as well as their knowledge and competence inlanguage. An overview on the history and present state of the ELT also reveals thenecessity of teaching reforms in foreign language education. After presenting thedefinitions of the communicative competence and the CLT, the author explores itstheoretical basis, namely, some important pragmatic principles concerning with theinterpersonal communication. Certain strategies are also put forward, most of whichare observed in primary school classrooms or experimented to be practical. In thisway, the effectiveness of the CLT and the correlation between the CLT and thestudents' language performance can be explored. It may also give the primaryteachers some hints on their English language teaching.This thesis consists of five parts, including the Introduction and the Conclusion.The Introduction presents the research background of the CLT and the main issuesinvolved in the research. The first two chapters are the theoretical considerations,setting a foundation stone for the conduction of the strategies proposed in ChapterThree.In Chapter One, the history and present state of the ELT in China are reviewed,and then the limitations of the traditional teaching pedagogy are explored,demonstrating why we should do some reforms and employ a new teaching method todevelop the students' communicative competence, esp. in primary schools. In the pastfew decades, several methods have been adopted in foreign language teaching andtheir common limitation is that most of them emphasized too much on the mastery ofvocabulary or grammatical rules while ignoring the development of the students'communicative competence. The present state of English language teaching in today'sprimary schools is not very satisfactory either. The main problem does not exist in thefacilities and equipment available in the primary classrooms, but exists in theteachers' communicative awareness and their understanding about the CLT, whichalso reveals the necessity why we should study the CLT from a pragmatic point ofview.In Chapter Two, after explaining what are communicative competence andCommunicative Language Teaching (CLT), the author answers the questions 1) ofwhy the present study is so urgently needed, 2) of what theories it is mainly based onand how they can guide our study in this paper. For the first question, according tosome researchers' surveys and the responses from the students and the teachers, wenotice that the communicative awareness and competence of primary students are notdeveloped as well as their knowledge and competence in English. In spite that theCLT has been widely emphasized in recent years, many teachers still find it difficultto carry out in their classes while the students generally are not satisfied with thepresent situation of English language teaching. For the second question, someimportant Pragmatic theories are presented in detail, serving as the basic rules onwhich the present study is based. The correlation between interpersonalcommunication and limitations of the traditional teaching pedagogy are also listed toshow that some problems revealed in the English language learning and teachingcould be solved in this way at least partly and theoretically.Having taken these relevant elements into consideration, we will come to themain body of the thesis, Chapter Three, which deals with the strategies proposed andthe relationship between grammar and the CLT. First, the author discusses the role ofgrammar in foreign language teaching, from which draws a conclusion that it isimpossible to teach a foreign language without teaching grammar. The key question isthat we'd better teach grammar in a certain context and help the students understandits different pragmatic meanings in different situations. The other four strategies areall combined with certain parts of the primary English textbooks, which may providea new perspective for its application in primary schools. Furthermore, becausebilingual education can help our students make practical use of what they havelearned, we have a special discussion about how to develop the students'communicative competence intentionally through bilingual education.To sum up, I have presented here the history and limitations of the traditionalEnglish teaching pedagogy, explored the theoretical basis of the CLT and put forwardseveral teaching strategies incorporated into the new primary English textbooks.Therefore, the peculiarities of the current study lies in the fact that: 1) The subjectsare the primary students, not the language learners with a certain language knowledge;2) Several strategies are put forward in the study to set an example for the applicationof the CLT so that the English teachers would not find it too abstractive to practice intheir class;3) This study does not deny the role of grammar in foreign languageteaching but demonstrates that the contextualization of grammar can also contributeto the students' communicative competence;4) The main concern of the research is toinspire the primary English teachers' communicative awareness and help them carryout their language teaching in a communicative way.I will conclude by saying that the scientific study of how to improve the primarystudents' communicative competence in foreign language teaching is a relatively newfield and one that holds much promise in terms of language teaching and learning.And it is expected that the insights drawn from the above–mentioned research can beof much help and value to the ELT practically and theoretically with respect to itsteaching methodology, material development as well as the cultivation of thepragmatic and communicative competence on the part of the students. I need to stress,however, that communication can be a very big concept. This study is merely aresearch on the CLT from a pragmatic perspective and its effect on the developmentof the students' communicative awareness and competence at the stage of the primaryschool, which remains open to be discussed and improved.