Four Fundamental Factors： A Communicative Approach in Chinese Language Environments Ling Ma University of Alabama at Birmingham Background Communicative approach, or simply communicative language learning aims to  Make communicative competence the goal of language teaching  Develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication Background Howatt distinguished between a “strong” and “weak” version of CLT  Stress the importance of providing learners with opportunities to their language for communicative purposes and characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities into a wider program of language teaching  Advances the claim that language is required through communication, so that it is not merely a question of activating an existing but inert knowledge of the language, but of stimulating the development of the language system itself Fundamental Factor 1 selecting or designing effective tasks that fit the students learning styles, needs and interests according to the curriculum  Consider the age of the learners, the purpose of learning Chinese, the proficiency level of the learners, and the cultural background of the learners  It is difficult to have topics that would please everyone, so aim for the middle Fundamental Factor 2 The practice of narrow a general topic to a more specific subtopic  Choose a topic, narrow it down to a more specific subtopic, and then select or design the right kind of task  Time teacher-talk and student-talk  Observe the students as they talked Fundamental Factor 3 The use of language and activities at a level that is just beyond the learner’s current proficiency level  Plan well  Know students’ grammar and vocabulary level, then pre-teach any words that students may need  Not just output but pushed output Fundamental Factor 3 教学实例方案一：请列举在学校超市里，以下食品的价格。然后用“x比Y贵”,“我觉得x比Y贵”的句型，跟语伴交流自己的答案。一瓶水一杯咖啡一罐可乐一盒沙拉一个汉堡包 Fundamental Factor 3 教学实例方案二：请参照学校超市里以下食品的价格，按从便宜到贵的顺序为食品排序；然后跟语伴交流自己的答案；最后向大家报告小组的答案。一瓶水一杯咖啡一罐可乐一盒沙拉一个汉堡包 Fundamental Factor 4 Offering the solutions of certain tasks for students to reference their work  Long(1990) found that students speech in closed tasks features more topic, more feedback from the other participants, more incorporation of feedback, and more rephrasing of language  Make your task feature two-way interaction, allows learners to plan what they might say, and has a closed solution References • Howatt, A. P. R. (1984). A history of English language teaching. Oxford University Press. • Long, M.H. (1990). Task, group, and task-group interactions. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. • Folse, S.K. (2013). The art of teaching speaking. The university of Michigan Press. • Richards, C. J. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge University Press.