Principles of Communicative language teaching

The study Creating an environment where learners are no longer dependent on the teacher is the main reflection of a learner centered classroom. In a language learning classroom, students learn the skills to read, write, listen and speak. The best way to learn and teach a foreign language is to use that language. The purpose of communicative language teaching approach is to communicate in the target language or to use it in communication. Problem statement In the communication, there must be interaction between teacher and student or student and student. According to my colleagues and my experience, though the door for classroom interaction is very open students participation is very poor in some classes.

This paper attempts to test this hypothesis and provides some systematically tested ways to increase the amount of Student Talk Time (STT) which leads to a learner centered approach. Review of related literature Teacher talk time (TTT) refers to how much the teacher talks during a lesson. However, this will vary according to the stage of the lesson. For example, the teacher needs to speak more when starting a new lesson. When he continues the same lesson next time he may speak less as students need ample opportunity to practice the new material. In a common view, the teacher must roughly limit his speaking to 20 to 30 of the class time allowing the students to make use of the language.

Allwright (1982, p. 10) said that teachers who work too much in the classroom were not teaching successfully. He mentioned that a good language teacher is able to get students to do more work in the classroom. Nunan, (1999, p. 209) also indicated that continuous teacher talk during the lessons did not develop students listening comprehension and communication skills. Nunan (2003, p. 55) proves the earlier fact, mentioning that Research has repeatedly demonstrated that teachers do approximately 50 to 80 percent of the talking in classrooms. Thesis statement It is often discussed that both teachers and students should participate actively in language classes.

Especially, in communicative EFL classes, students need ample opportunity to practice the target language so that the teacher should reduce the amount of their talk. Purpose of the study A language teacher must design her/his lessons to make participation of all most all the students in a classroom so his/her lesson plan has to include a certain percentage for teacher talk time (TTT) and student talk time (STT) to teach each skill. In a learner centered classroom, TTT must not exceed the expected percentage. In some cases student involvement is not very privileged. So that, though they have more knowledge in structure they are unable to apply that in the real communication.

Whether it is oral or written, communication is the main target of a language. This study tests the hypothesis that the students participation is poor and collects students attitudes towards increasing student talk time. Further, it intends to bring together their views regarding classroom interaction methods. Scope of the study This study was conducted among the students of Faculty of Arts and Culture. According to the common view of the teaching faculty of the first year Arts students, those students who are divided into ten ability groups are very much forward and coorporative not only in elicitation but also in doing spoken activities. But the condition with other faculty students is questionable.

I hope further research must be carried out comparing the percentage of student talk time of different faculty students to examine this situation. Significance of the study The analysis of the research shows that students have positive attitudes towards increasing STT which leads to a learner centered approach that most of the educators welcome. So the findings of the study open a new path to the curriculum designers, material producers, lesson planners, language trainers and teachers to integrate more STT in their lesson planning. This sort of research can inspire other language teachers to conduct research in their classrooms because it is considered to be an important tool for professional development.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Allwright, R. L. (1982). What do we want teaching materials for ELT Journal. 36/1 5-18. Carol, M. (2014) Teaching Speaking. From an unpublished module from a Teacher Training workshop held at ELTU of SEUSL on date 29.04.2014 Harmer, J. (2012). The Practice of English Language Teaching. China Pearson. Nilton, H. (2011). Teacher Talking Time in the EFL Classroom. Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge Cambridge University Press. Nunan, D. (1991).

Language teaching methodology A textbook for teachers. Hemel Hempstead Prentice Hall International. Nunan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching and Learning. Heinle and Heinle. Nunan, D. (2003). Practical English Language Teaching. McGraw-Hill. Rutherford, W.E. (1987). Second language grammar Learning and teaching. New York Longman. Ur,P. (2005). A Course in Language Teaching. India Cambridge University Press.