COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES Thalia Calderón Gamarra

Maldonado

WHAT IS COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING?

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

The Communicative approach is the theory that language is

communication.Therefore the final aim of CLT is communicative competence.

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF CLT:

O Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities.

O Primacy of oral work. Fluency is an important dimension of communication.

O Active modes of learning, including pairwork and group-work.

O Use target language in a communicative way for meaningful activities.

O The classroom should be student centred.

O Errors are a natural part of learning language.

WHAT IS A COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITY?

It is an activity where students are encourage to

speak and communicate in a meaningful way. .

Communicative activities have real purposes: to find information, break down

barriers, talk about self, and learn about the culture. Not

only repeating phrases, Students must think and ask

questions, and also think what they need to answer

COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES:

O Role-playsO SurveysO ProjectsO InterviewsO Information gapO Games

INFORMATION GAP:O Info Gap activities are excellent activities

as they force the students to ask each other questions; these activities help make the language classroom experience more meaningful and authentic.

O An information gap activity is an activity where learners are missing the information they need to complete a task and need to talk to each other to find it.

Why are Info Gap activities useful?

O They are very meaningful. O All students are involved in the process equally

and they are all moving towards a specific purpose.

O Each student has the task of finding out certain information, and therefore must find a way in which to ask for this information.

O Motivation is usually quite high in these activities.

O Students are using lots of the target language, and in the process discovering where they need to know.

Some examples of Info Gap activities:

O Fill in the chartO Same and differentO Twenty questionsO Find your partnerO Picture dictationO Words on backO Guess the card

Fill in the chart:A's Information: Person's Name From Occupation Weekends Movies

1. Jill (female) doctor romance

2. professor go fishing

3. Jared (male) Cincinnati action

4. Cleveland banker play cards

5. Janet (female) Dayton

B's Information:

Person's Name From Occupation Weekends Movies

1. Toledo relax at home

2. Jason (male) Columbus horror

3. mechanic play baseball

4. Jenny (female) drama

5. lawyer read novels comedy

Same and different:

Twenty questions:O Students work in pairs or small

groups. One student chooses an object or person and keeps it a secret. The other students must ask yes or no questions to determine what that object/person is. The maximum number of questions is 20.

Picture dictation:

Student A:

Words on back:O Students work in large groups or as

a whole class. Each student has a word attached to his or her back; the students must then circulate asking each other yes or no questions to determine what word is on their back.

Guess the card:O Students work in partners. This is

similar to 20 questions only the students already have the object chosen for them. One student holds a card so that their partner can’t see. The partner must then ask yes or no questions to determine what is on the card.

Benefits of using communicative activities:

O More exposure to Target LanguageO More authentic opportunities to USE

the language O Provides opportunity to use

authentic materials.O Learners are more motivated,

interested in the class and they are more active in their learning process.