Relfections And Explorations On The Communicative Approach In College English Teaching

In traditional language teaching, it is teachers who decideeverything in class and seek few opinions from students. The studentsare treated as containers only, waiting to be filled up with knowledgeby the teacher. There is little interaction between teachers and students.Students have almost no opportunities to apply what they have learntto real-life communication. In recent years, educational innovations inEnglish education have received considerable attention in China. Sincethe early1980s, Communicative Approach (CA) has been accepted inChina as a valid and indeed recommended approach to teachingEnglish. Communicative Approach takes the communicativecompetence as the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching andadvocates learning foreign language through communication.The paper first reviews the historical background of CA in UK,USA, and its development and interpretation in China. By designingquestionnaires and classroom observations of the20English teachersand70students from Tianhua College of Shanghai Normal University,this research addresses3questions:1) To what extent have collegeEnglish teachers put the Communicative Approach into practice in thepast few decades?2) What are the factors affecting the application ofCA in college English teaching in China?3) What are the possiblestrategies to be adopted for the promotion of CA and for thebetterment of teaching effect by adopting CA?From the data obtained, it is found that CA hasn’t been put intogood practice in College English teaching and that there are five majorfactors affecting the application of CA such as the size andarrangement of classroom, students’ lack of motivation for developingspeaking skills and reluctance to class participation, teacher’s belief,testing backwash effect etc. With such findings, the research has offered counter strategies to boost students’ motivation, to changeteaching methodology, reform testing system and make adaptations totextbooks.