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What is the focus of the communicative language teaching approach?

Communicative approach to classroom teaching equips the teacher of English with a set of techniques to implement its principles. The techniques are:

Group Work: In this technique, the teacher divides the whole class into different groups (depending upon the size of the class) to give these groups a chance to speak instead of individual speaking. In this technique, the teacher reads the content, says a paragraph and later makes each group read turn wise. It is not that only one person from each group always gets a chance to read but the following day – other children from the same group get turn wise a chance and in a week the whole class gets a chance to read. There is no end to the variety of techniques that can form part of group work. The objective is to help the learners use the new language function in a small group, talk to each other, ask questions, give replies and practice and use of the communicative expression that essentially constitute conversational English. It happens that the teacher has to take care of keeping monotony and dullness off the class to generate effective teaching.

Pair-Work: It is a very interesting and effective device for initiating communicative activities. The class is divided into pairs. Inter-discussion, inter – questioning and inter-action among the pairs lead to communicative usage of the language. Children find it very interesting to work with their friends. They talk, ask questions and reply as if being involved in some game and learning takes place quite naturally and pleasurable. The greatest advantage of pair – work is that it is a very simple method and the whole class can be kept busy and active at the same time. Every individual gets the necessary involvement and attention.
Role-Play: It is a very recent, dynamic and interesting technique that lies at the core of communicative language teaching. Since everyone in life has a role to play. Many roles are played by an individual at different stages of his life. In communicative language teaching these natural roles in society are simulated in the classroom and the learner uses language to give expression to the same features of experience. Thus, real-life situations are brought into the classroom and a role-play is performed. This technique is also very natural and brings out communicative skills with great excellence and competence.
Mimicry: Mimicry is again a somewhat synonymous technique to role-play. A character, a hero or so is selected by the teacher. One or more students are engaged in a process of imitating them. E.g. Imitating say a blacksmith, a doctor, a clerk, a manager, etc. the teacher either guides the imitation and asks the students to perform the same or does the imitation and then asks the students to interpret, say or write what the teacher was doing. Mimicry is an easy technique and can be performed easily in a classroom situation.

Dramatization: This is a vast technique that can be applied in many types of situations and various ways. Sometimes it can be a simple enactment of a short piece of conversation and sometimes the whole lesson of the text can be dramatized in the form of a skit in which the whole theme can be handled, Dramatization can be simple as well as complex. Here, the children have to perform the role of laying stress on the communicative function. In this aspect the teacher as well has to take a lot of care.
Questioning: Questioning is a technique for teaching English effectively. This technique of questioning serves and has been serving as a very important device for learning, teaching and testing. This fact has been accepted by all the language teachers world over that effective teaching is determined by the skill of questioning. A good language teacher is capable of building up his/her lesson on question answer method, as most of the doubts are cleared by queries and solutions. The questioning keeps the class active and encourages live interaction.

Question can be of different kinds:

Introductory Questions or Probing Questions: These are the questions asked in the beginning of the lesson to arouse attention and interest which leads to retention of lesson.

While Teaching or Developing Questions: These are the questions asked during the presentation of a lesson. Here the questions framed should go a step forward for the final construction of the lesson. Vague questions should be avoided. Short, precise and to-the-point questions should be asked.

Recapitulation Questions: These are the questions asked for testing the comprehension of the students at the end of the lesson. The questions containing the answer within should be avoided because it discourages sentence construction. Too lengthy questions should also be avoided.

Questions should be such that they encourage the students to contemplate, reason and motivate them to guess about the coming or following events.

Illustration: This technique aims at making use of models, pictures, flashcards, charts etc. to explain difficult ideas and vocabulary by appealing to their senses. These can be used for very creative use in communicative language teaching. A group or a pair can be asked to produce communicative sentences and expressions from the picture. Models of any kind can help generate communicative language material as the students have a direct experience with the visual exhibition. Illustrations arouse the interest in learning. The illustrations should not be too many as they can mar the real objective of teaching-learning. they should serve as an aid to make English language teaching-learning interesting.
Narration: It is a very important device for oral communication and makes language teaching learning interesting and easy to grasp. It aims at presenting the pupils through the medium of speech with clear interested ordered sequences of events in such a way that their minds reconstruct these happenings. They imagine and enter this world of imagination as either like spectators or participants. We are aware of the fact of the importance of listening in language learning, a teacher can exploit narration to the utmost to encourage listening. The teacher develops listening skills through this technique by narrating the matter and then testing their comprehension by asking very simple questions. this technique helps in testing and developing listening skills. While resorting to this technique in class, the teacher should bear certain points in mind:

If teacher selects a story for narration, it should be in accordance with the age and level of the students.
While narrating, there should be proper interaction and gestures taking place in the class. The dramatic form of story – telling is best for teachers who are teaching very young children.
The teacher should narrate the content with proper sequencing instead of jumping and retreating from one event to another.

The narration should be made interesting by making use of illustrations ego Metaphors and similes falling within the verbal experiences of children.
The teacher should narrate naturally and orally without reading from the text.
The narration should not be very long and devoid of action and the narrator can act as one of the characters.

Assignment and self-study: Most of the teaching-learning takes place in the classroom situation but assignments courage the students to work and plan independently. The technique gives students a chance to work outside the class in an open atmosphere. The students discover their talents in self-study and feel responsible, confident and independent. The assignments can be assigned to groups or individuals. It is through this technique that a teacher discovers and fosters individual innate qualities. Students feel motivated and resort to self-reliance, and self-direction and take initiative to solve problems without any help that arises during work under this technique. This technique inculcates the habit of reading among students besides developing their creative thinking and writing necessary to achieve proper communicative skills.
Use of Audio-Visual Aids Like Television, Tape-Recorder, Overhead Projector etc: If television is available to the pupils at the school or in the classroom, the silent visual stream can become an excellent material for communicative language activity. The tape recorder is the best aid for communicative language teaching, either as part of the regular classroom. Through the medium of a tape – recorder, recorded dialogues, character conversations, short stories with background voices, music etc. can be played to the pupil. We can also introduce in a communicative manner structural changes of tenses, voices, reported speech, interrogative patterns and so on thereby making the concept more clear and firm.