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Date Posted: 16:53:30 06/10/03 Tue
Author: Lidiane
Subject: Task 6: a prototypical communicative course

TASK 6: Describe the design of a prototypical communicative course.

A prototypical communicative course is basically designed considering the following topics:
 The lessons are task-oriented, that is, instead of activities, it uses tasks, which are goal-oriented and require interaction. For instance, instead of simply filling in the blanks of a listening activity or answering questions about this conversation, students may discuss the conversation they listened to in pairs or groups, give their opinion about it, raise discussion about the topic of the conversation and so on. It is important that teachers should have learners aware of the purpose of the task, because language is not simply practiced for practice's sake.
 A communicative course is designed considering students' needs, that is, it should be needs-based. The curriculum, then, is planned and changed according to students' preferences and objectives and the activities are methodologically consistent or have an audience -specific.
 Besides, learners' needs CLT classes focus on the learners through: clear exposition of purposes of all activities to them; a tendency to a shift in the activities from controlled to less controlled ones; the learners' opportunity to interact with the lesson and give their reactions; and personalization.
 A CLT course is contextualized. It considers learners' background and experience. The language practice tasks chosen reflect upon communicative situations that learners may encounter outside the classroom. In this case, the activities always have a context and may be inter-related or recursively (in relation to previous lessons), for instance, practicing a reading activity and then explore its context in a spoken activity later.
 Another important feature that is considered in planning a communicative course is the authenticity of language. The purpose of it is to engage learners with real language for real communication. Discourse is not created only for teaching purposes, but for raising learners' ability to communicate with topics and situations they are likely to face in real life, that is, the activities must be meaningful and worthy for learners. It is also important to make learners realize the variation of discourse in real life, variations that socio-cultural values/beliefs permit; thus, a CLT course appeals to a variety of learning strategies and styles.
 As an attempt to incite comprehensible and negotiated input, group and pairs are important to increase interaction and negotiation. Activities are designed for students have opportunities to experiment language (for instance, use of scaffolding and debriefing in activities).
 Finally, a prototypical CLT course is designed concerning learning and acquisition. It moves from inductive learning (discovery and deduction) to practice and application of the models. There is also a movement from acquisition activities (rich and authentic discourse that explore learners implicit knowledge about language and are based on meaning-focused input/output) to learning activities (explicit explanation of models that support students' learning and awareness about language structure). The teacher's role is then to provide students with language skills and strategies necessary to effectively achieve the purpose of the activities.

Reference:
http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/L2MethodsMMdl/sld001.htm

http://www.american.edu/tesol/Lessonplans.htm

http://www.tickit.com/english/approach.html

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