The Application Of Communicative Language Teaching In The Teaching Of Spoken English In Senior School

Speaking as one of the four basic skills of English learning, plays an important role in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching in China. In recent years, studies on teaching spoken English have aroused intense attention from both linguists and teachers. However, for a long time, English teachers in senior schools have long adopted the traditional Grammar-translation method, which is teacher-centered and neglects the students'role in their own learning. The weakness of this method is causing more concern than ever since it can't meet the country's development need. Also the New Curriculum Standard stresses knowledge of English as much as skills and special emphasis is given to the ability to use English for communication. Therefore, knowledge should be covered into communicative competence in speaking and writing.The purpose of this paper was to search for the effective teaching approaches to improve students'speaking ability and motivation. In order to strengthen the necessity of the research, the author carried out speaking tests and questionnaire survey among students before the teaching experiment, finding their difficulties in English speaking. In the experiment, two different approaches to teach spoken English on the class—Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) method and the traditional teacher-centered Grammar-translation method—were experimented and compared. After the 12-week experiment, the following conclusions were found: 1) compared with the Grammar-translation method, subjects in the CLT approach improve their oral performance more significantly.2) compared with the Grammar-translation method, subjects in the CLT approach participate more actively.Besides, the paper mainly talked about some language teaching principles and methods based on CLT theories and their application in English teaching. The CLT is of vital importance in English teaching. Most of all, it can help the students communicate in English and improve their speaking ability.However, limitations can also be found in the duration of the experiment and in the scale of the participants. Further studies on the application of the CLT approach are still needed.