Communicative Language Teaching:

A Guide

What is communicative language teaching (CLT)? Is it a methodology? And how can you use it to create a

compelling language course?

A great many language teachers today employ "communicative" methodology in their classes to engage the

learners. Thing is, "communicative" is too broad a concept and leaves too much room for interpretation.

Does it mean that one learns only by talking? That grammar is no longer important? What is the primary

goal of a communicative methodology?

In this guide you will find the definition of communicative language teaching, what the founding principles

of the methodology are, and how you can make the most of every student interaction. In the communicative

approach, in fact, interaction is both the means and the goal of language teaching.

As you will discover as you read this article, CLT involves a lot of effort on the part of the teacher in

preparing materials and lessons. If you are looking for an all-in-one tool to manage time-consuming

activities, look no further than the Edugo.AI platform. Thanks to our artificial intelligence system and

other LMS features designed for language schools, you will be able to delegate tasks and devote 100 percent

of your time to students during the live lesson.

What is communicative language teaching

Communicative language teaching, rather than an actual methodology, is a set of principles. Not all

educators and researchers agree on these principles, but the basic ones are:

• the development of communicative competence as the primary goal

• learners must be able to use strategies to negotiate and understand messages and meanings

• learners learn through collaboration and real-life tasks

Like the direct method of language teaching, communicative language teaching originated in opposition to

grammar-translation methods. Since the 1950s and for many years to follow, language learning has been

considered a mechanical training process, having learners repeat dialogues to assimilate the habit of

producing correct sentences.

Around the 1970s, some educators began to shift the focus from language accuracy to practice, and from

grammatical competence to communicative competence. Language learning is now viewed in a profoundly

different way: an interaction between users who collaborate to create meaning, negotiate messages, and

incorporate new linguistic forms into their communicative competence.

The main language knowledge aspects of communicative competence therefore are:

• using language for different purposes and functions

• vary language register in relation to the situation

• understand and produce different types of texts

• use different strategies to maintain communication despite one's limitations in the target language

• an emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language

• the introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation

• the provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning

management process

• an enhancement of the learner's own personal experiences as important contributing elements to

classroom learning

• an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom

• Focus on communication: Students learn language through real-life communication, using authentic

texts and engaging in communicative activities.

• Functional language use: CLT prioritizes the ability to perform various functions, such as requesting,

apologizing, or expressing opinions, rather than simply being correct grammatically.

• Task-based activities: Lessons are centered around tasks that students complete, simulating real-

world situations and encouraging interaction.

• Collaborative learning: Group work and pair activities play an essential role in the CLT classroom,

as they foster interaction and negotiation of meaning between students.

 • Student-centered learning: CLT promotes students taking an active role in their learning process,

emphasizing their responsibility and autonomy in language development.

Note that while the focus of CLT is on communication, it does not completely disregard the

importance of explicit grammar instruction. However, grammar is typically taught in context, as a

means to support communication.

As mentioned earlier, unlike the direct method, communicative language teaching is not really a method. It

is more of a framework, to whose principles different methods can correspond.

Communicative language teaching strategies

The spread of CLT principles has popularized new formats, very different from the memorization of

grammar rules and dialogues. These include role-plays, group activities and project work. An example of

communicative language teaching is practicing questions among students to find out personal information

about their peers.

As the activities change, the role of the language teacher also changes. Students must abandon the

individualistic learning approach in favor of a cooperative one, taking more responsibility for their own
learning. Teachers thus assume a role of coordinating and monitoring learners: not so much role models for

the correct way to speak and write the target language, but facilitators who develop learners' ability to learn.

Communicative language teaching activities

Listening: Students listen to an authentic podcast episode, then share information in pairs or groups to

answer questions, compare opinions, or solve a related problem. This activity targets listening

comprehension, information exchange, and functional language use.

Speaking: In a speed-dating format, students rotate and engage in brief conversations with various partners,

discussing predetermined topics or answering questions. This activity enhances speaking fluency, social

language use, and adaptability to different conversational partners.

Reading: Students read short, authentic texts (such as news articles, blog posts, or reviews) and collaborate

to complete a jigsaw reading activity. Each student becomes an "expert" on one aspect of the text, before

sharing their knowledge with others in a group discussion to reconstruct the complete text. This activity

bolsters reading comprehension, summarising skills, and cooperative learning.

Writing: Students participate in an email exchange activity, where they assume roles (e.g. a customer and

customer service representative) and address a specific issue or inquiry. This activity enhances writing skills,

particularly in crafting coherent, context-appropriate messages for a specific audience.

A variety of techniques and activities can be found within the Communicative Language Teaching method. Below is a

table that highlights some common CLT activities:

- Role-plays Students take on specific roles and engage in conversations, simulating real-life situations.

- Information gap activities Students work in pairs or groups, with each individual possessing some

information that others do not have. They must communicate to share information and complete the task.

- Debates and discussions Students express, defend, and challenge opinions on various topics, promoting the

use of functional language for persuasion and argumentation.

- Problem-solving tasks Students work together to solve problems or complete puzzles, requiring them to

exchange information and negotiate meaning in the target language.

 - Project-based activities Working in groups or individually, students create a product, such as a presentation,

poster, or video, focusing on the effective use of language skills to convey information and meaning. Overall, the

Communicative Language Teaching approach encourages student engagement, collaboration, and active learning,

ultimately preparing students to navigate real-world communication effectively and confidently.

- Communicative activities: any kind of real-life communication situation in which an exchange of

information with authentic language takes place is fine. Examples might be asking for information to

get to places or about an event.

- Opinion-sharing: in this type of activity, learners share their beliefs, opinions and values.

- Information acquisition: engaging learners to acquire information on a given topic in the target

language.

- Information-gap: it can be said that the purpose of communication is largely to acquire information

that we do not know. In information-gap activities, students try to communicate in order to obtain

information. Again, elements of role-playing can be introduced and, therefore, it represents a way of

incorporating gamification in language learning.

The communicative approach in the hybrid classroom

CLT activities are great to perform in a physical classroom, but that's not to say you can't employ them in a

hybrid or virtual classroom. That is, of course, using the right tools.

Benefits of Communicative Language Teaching

There are several reasons why Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is beneficial for students:

• Develops communicative competence: CLT helps students develop not only their linguistic skills

but also their sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competences. All these components contribute

to becoming an efficient communicator in the target language.

• Encourages functional language use: By focusing on real-life situations and tasks, CLT teaches

students how to use language in practical, functional ways, improving their ability to communicate

effectively across various social contexts.

 • Promotes active learning: CLT fosters a student-centered learning environment where students

engage in meaningful activities and take responsibility for their language development. This active

learning approach helps students retain information and become autonomous learners.

• Builds confidence: Through ample opportunities for genuine communication and interaction,

students develop their speaking fluency and become increasingly confident in expressing their

thoughts and ideas in the target language.

• Enhances cultural understanding: CLT often incorporates authentic materials and real-life

scenarios, exposing students to various cultural aspects linked to the target language, promoting

tolerance, and increasing cultural awareness.

How to develop effective communicative language teaching activities for your students

Creating impactful CLT activities involves considering factors such as student proficiency levels, interests,

learning objectives, and available resources. By keeping these elements in mind, you can design activities

that meet the diverse needs of your learners and promote meaningful communication. Here are some

essential steps:
- Identify learning objectives: Determine the language skills, functions, or topics that you want your

students to practice and develop. Consider any specific grammar points, vocabulary, or cultural

aspects that may be relevant to your objectives.

- Select activities: Choose one or more communicative activities that align with your identified

objectives and appropriately challenge your students. Consider varying the activity types to maintain

engagement and cater to diverse learning styles.

- Design materials: Develop or adapt authentic materials (such as texts, audios, or visuals) and create

any additional resources or supports (such as worksheets, question prompts, or guides) that your

students may require during the activity.

- Plan the lesson flow: Determine the sequence of activities, including any necessary lead-in tasks,

pre- and post-activity discussions, and error correction or feedback stages. Ensure that the lesson

progresses smoothly, with clear transitions between tasks.

- Provide clear instructions: Ensure that students understand the purpose of the activity, their roles

and responsibilities, and any specific procedures or expectations. Use clear, concise language and

model tasks when necessary.

- Monitor and support: Observe your students during the activity, offering guidance, encouragement,

and support as needed. Identify any patterns of error, confusion, or difficulty to address in later

stages of the lesson.

- Evaluate success: Assess the students' performance in the activity, considering their communicative

and linguistic development, as well as their level of engagement and collaboration. Reflect on the

activity's effectiveness and identify possible improvements for future lessons.

- Use relatable and authentic materials: Select texts, recordings, or visuals that are relevant to

students' interests and reflect real-world language use. This approach helps students see the practical

value of the target language and better relate to the content.

- Incorporate student choice: Allow students to choose topics or tasks within the learning activity,

fostering a sense of autonomy and increasing motivation to communicate meaningfully.

- Encourage collaboration: Design activities that promote cooperative learning, so students can

practice teamwork, negotiation, and intercultural communication alongside language development.

- Challenge students appropriately: Ensure that activities offer the right level of challenge for your

students, taking into account their proficiency levels, interests, and learning needs. Provide scaffolds

and support structures to foster success.

- Monitor and adjust: Observe student interactions and participation during activities, and be

prepared to modify tasks or instructions as necessary to maintain engagement and address any

difficulties.

- Provide constructive feedback: Offer feedback on students' communication and language use,

celebrating successes while also highlighting areas for improvement. Encourage peer feedback as

well, to help students learn from one another.

- Talk the Talk. In an ESL classroom that uses the CLT method, students do most of the talking. This

enables students to practice communicating in English, continuously talking with each other, rather

than listening to an instructor’s lecture. ESL teachers can encourage students to interact with each

other with minimal direct correction. The intent behind the communicative approach to speaking is

to have students practice English without fear of awkwardness or making mistakes when learning a

new language.

- Instead of interrupting or correcting students when they make mistakes, instructors who utilize

the CLT approach might use indirect feedback or conversational redirections that do not interrupt a

conversation. They might reform faulty grammar (e.g., “his shoes is old” can be answered with, “yes,

his shoes ARE old”) to give students clues for further conversation. However, variables such as age

and proficiency can influence how effective indirect and direct feedback are in classrooms that

utilize the CLT approach.

- Real-Life Scenarios. Encouraging meaningful interactions, ESL teachers can utilize a wide variety

of individualized activities and meaningful tasks. Students might engage in role-playing based on

real-life scenarios such as discussing hobbies and popular culture, negotiating prices when shopping

or describing the plot of a book or movie they have recently enjoyed. The focus is on utilizing real-

world situations to allow students to practice using language for context and content rather than

learning about grammatical rules and structure. Techniques include modeling, repetition, pair and

group work to help students develop communicative competencies.

- Working Together. CLT activities are most effective when they allow students to work together in

pairs or groups. This mimics realistic communication that encourages fluency over grammatical

competence. Research has found ESL students usually feel more confident and comfortable

practicing their language skills and ideas when working with other students. Since they are working

with fellow English Language Learners (ELLs), they often feel safer communicating without fear of

making mistakes.

- Grouping and pairing students also encourages engagement with in-class activities. For example,

one might have students work together to play a game where they must describe an object to each

other in English so their peers can guess what that object is. Having students work together not only

encourages them to engage with the language meaningfully, but it also holds the potential to gamify

the ESL classroom and incentivize active participation.

- Practice using functional language. But just speaking is, for sure, not enough. Students have to

make attempts to apply their target vocabulary and grammar rules while speaking. That is why the

tasks chosen or created by the teacher have to facilitate this need. Make sure to help your students if

they feel confused about the target language (pronunciation, meaning, etc.) while completing their

communication activity: answer the questions, write down common mistakes and discuss them after,

and pay attention to the most difficult cases. Сommunication as a form of activity at the lesson is not

the final aim. Students have to learn something through the communication process.

- Implement TBL (task-based learning). As far as CLT method specialists are concerned, all the

tasks that students complete at the lesson should be meaningful and interconnected with a certain

topic or even plot. There should be a sense of discovery, so try implementing task-based learning to

achieve this goal.

- Embrace cooperative learning. There won’t be a better chance for students to cooperate than

during CLT classes.Communication is not something that one can do on their own. Therefore, there

should be a lot of space for pair or group exercises, games, role-plays, etc. These tasks will often

imitate real-life situations which require communication with other people.That is why ESL teachers

should embrace cooperative learning and get their students used to working together. After all, it

always turns out to be their favorite part about the lessons.

- Make your classroom student-centered. In CLT, the teacher is an advisor rather than an instructor.

Therefore, you don’t have to answer every single question or explain every single thing. Give your

students an opportunity to do so. Chances are, some of them do know the right answers and can

explain certain things themselves. By giving your students a chance to contribute to the explanation

and express their opinions on certain matters, you make the lesson more engaging, dynamic, easy to

follow and fun.This is something that is much harder to get if the lessons are teacher-centered and

the only thing that students need to do is follow the teacher’s instructions. By incorporating these

principles and strategies into your CLT activities, you can create engaging, meaningful lessons that

help your students develop their communicative skills, boost their confidence, and achieve their

language learning goals.

- Introduce real context and use authentic materials. Textbooks are certainly not enough when it

comes to teaching students how to speak.That is why you have to implement as many authentic

materials as possible. It is crucial because both coursebook texts and the latest TV-show serve as

examples of the language to the students, the examples that can and even must be copied. The ESL

teacher’s responsibility is to make sure that these examples are worth copying as they represent the

language that is really spoken and can be used.

- Be error-tolerant. It may sound weird, especially if you are used to a traditional classroom, but you

don’t have to correct every single mistake you hear. The main goal of CLT is to help students gain

confidence in language usage rather than making them build that one perfect sentence. Constant

instant error correction demotivates students especially when it comes to the lower levels where

students are not sure about their skills at all and may be oversensitive to criticism. Practice various

forms of error correction and choose delayed error correction over the instant in order to boost

students' motivation to speak.

Integrate Reading, Writing and Speaking

However, studies have found that these pairing and grouping conversational techniques alone are not enough

to promote active participation in ESL classrooms. Instructors utilizing the CLT approach might also include

work reading, writing and listening, as these skills are also vital to ELLs’ development as English language

speakers.

The integrated-skills approach to CLT brings these major language talents together in activities. For

instance, teachers might ask students to watch a video online (listening), post their opinion about it in the

comment section (writing) and describe others’ opinions from the comments section (reading). Activities

that integrate multiple language skills can enhance communication-based ESL education by offering

students the chance to practice multiple skills while also offering teachers a chance to demonstrate best

practices in each of these modes.