Application Of Communicative Approach In FLT In Middle Schools

For a long time, under the pressure of the examination-oriented education, teachers of the Junior English have laid so much stress on grammar and vocabulary that they neglect to train students to use the language in contexts. In English class, the students are treated only as followers, waiting to be filled up with knowledge by the teacher, while the teacher acts as the controller. There is little co-operation between the teacher and the students. The students have almost no opportunities to apply what they have learnt to practical communication. It is difficult for students to play their roles fully in this kind of teacher-centered class.Communicative Approach advocates student-centered classroom and learning foreign language through communication. It takes the communicative competence as the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching. In communicative language teaching, students are the active participants in the classroom activities, while the teacher acts as facilitator, needs analyst, counselor, and group process manager.Nowadays many English teachers are making every effort to perform the learning activities in class with the Communicative Approach. But, whether do teachers in junior middle schools in Guizhou Province put the Communicative Approach into practice? The present paper intends to present the teachers and the students'perception of the Communicative Approach and the result of the investigation on the application of the Communicative Approach in junior English teaching in Guizhou and identify the problems therein to put forward some suggestions to solve these problems.The main methods adopted in the research are questionnaire and interview. This thesis consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 presents the current situation of English teaching in junior middle schools. Chapter 2 is literature review, it illustrates the notion of Communicative Approach. Chapter 3 describes the design of the research. Chapter 4 analyzes and discusses the findings gained from the investigation. Chapter 5 analyzes the difficulties affecting the application of Communicative Approach to English teaching. Chapter 6 puts forward some suggestions on solving the problems. Chapter 7 is conclusion. It states the Communicative Approach can benefits students a lot. It should be put into practice in junior English teaching in Guizhou Province for improving students'communicative competence. It also states the Communicative Approach is not the unique method to improve L2 learners'language ability.