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Academic ID: 215058476

Under Supervisor of Dr.Waleed Othman

Table of Contents

Abstract 3

Introduction 4

Literature Review 5

Significance of the Study 6

Research Questions 6

Methodology 7

Ethical Consideration............................................................................................................7

Limitations of the Study 8

Expected Results 8

References 9

Appendices 10

The English language is an international and recognition as a world language, English has always been a part of our education system from Class 1-12. Alien students at several international universities find it very difficult in studying and interacting with fellow students at academic and social grounds due to the perennial problem of language barrier.the use of English language has been increasing in administration, education and other ventures to improve the learners’ competence in English. the Government adopted CLT approach to developing the learners’ English at first year in Dammam university students. CLT is very effective to teach communicative and functional English because it gives importance to four skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) in English.

The goal of CLT to focus on four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) as learner-centered activities within a communicative context. This method makes language learning more relevant, interesting, enjoyable and effective.

The core of this study is to delve and evaluate the communicative competence and enhancements among the freshmen students at the Dammam University through the application of CLT not the vocabulary or grammar competence of the students. After that, it has been noticed that the learners’ proficiency in English is not up to the mark as was expected. They have developed only reading and writing skills and other two skills (listening and speaking) are neglected. They can not interact properly in different circumstances.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the reasons behind the ineffectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching Approach at freshmen students at Dammam University and to find some ways to make this approach more effective. This approach is used to increase the learners’ four skills (reading, writing, listing and speaking) in the English language by the Saudi government.

Also, many teachers at this level are still confused about this approach. They do not know how to apply this approach in the classroom. This research attempts to focus on the results of practicing English language teaching-learning through CLT approach.The instrument applied for the study was survey questionnaire by interviewing teachers and students,

Also, this research tries to provide some ways to get the maximum result by using this approach.

English has introduced nearly 200 years ago when the British Merchants established their colonial settlement in the Indian sub-continent. They exported many things here alone with their mother tongue.They encouraged the people of Indian sub-continent to learn the English language. The learning perspectives of English of that period are not same as it is today.

During the British rule in the Indian subcontinent, English had become a school subject in secondary level. During Pakistan era, English was considered as a second language. Right after getting independence, the use of English was reduced but gradually the use of this language has been increasing in administration, education and other sectors in Bangladesh. For this reason, English is introduced as a compulsory subject from Grade 1 to 12.

In Dammam University, for example, learning Basic English by foreign students would command more than two years should it follow the traditional teaching and learning terrains for the grammar and realization of quality linguistic understanding. For example, it takes barely nine years for a direct method and the immersion approaches to establish proficiency among African and Arab students studying English other than the underlying specialty profession.

It is through this worrying time and target congruence that have leveraged the students and teachers into considering the communicative learning teaching as the most appropriate technique to achieve the desired time frame for absorbing the foreign languages among international students at the university and other several learning and interactive institutions. Additionally, the pressure for progressivism and the preexisting troubles adult category of students influenced the shift of learning stratagem from a direct translation of a sentence from the sentence, direct learning to the communicative learning that now appeared more efficient and effective with consideration of time and demanded resources. Most of the teachers and learners and teachers have therefore resorted into this mechanism in tandem to the other learning approaches to effectuate exemplary grammatical command ambitious target coherence between the primary profession study schedule and auxiliary requirements of the spoken or written target grammar and language.

The enhanced quicker learning through the CLT has therefore facilitated the realization of professional targets, globalization, trading and even learning at international schools with an isolated target language fundamental for the need.

Initially, the teaching of language was fundamentally regarded as a cognitive element that regarded very little efforts such as the mental engagement through memorization. It however developed through a socio-intellect and finally to the communicative language teaching that has lain great emphasize on socialization as the means and consequently the objective of the study (Savignon, 2008). In fact, for the communicative language teaching, the objective of the lingual study is an enhancement and the capacity to converse in the language targeted and nothing sort of grammatical prowess as a previously granted fundamental goal.

LCT was a theory laid by Noam Chomsky in 1960s to agitate and champion for lingual competence and greater understanding and proficient communication. CLT further received great concern from other linguists such as Michael Halliday in 1970 and Dell Hymes who studied the grammatical functionality of language and the venture of the broader concept of communicative aptitude beyond the elementary skeleton of Noam. LCT development and international acceptance further stabilized in the 1980s as an attribute to consistent failure of traditional approaches previously employed in obtaining the communicative capacity, and the fact that a galloping need for learning a foreign language was getting overwhelming (Nunan, 1989).

The growth and success of communicative language teaching are equally bolstered on the dynamic ideologies in the academia regarding the mainstream approach then applied which was the situational teaching. The method was realized to appear much clinical with limited primary communication. Linguists, from Britain, thereafter started getting skeptical on the efficacy of the mechanism with several more others such as Henry Widdowson and Christopher prompting views insinuating the inefficacies of the tactic in the classroom system.

Several countries and learning institutions, therefore, made communicative language teaching a fundamental policy and into the education system to enhance the attainment of the international standardization and satisfaction of needs of alien students in the facilitation of achievements of academic ambitions with limited to zero strain simultaneously to their main specialty. Such countries include China with the revision of the education system right in 1999 on the inclusion of the CLT to enhance the communicative strength of the students (Lee, 2003).

It is important to study the causes of the ineffectiveness of CLT in a freshmen students Dammam. Also, it is important to increase the learners’ four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in English.

The emphasize of CLT is essential in achieving the urgency in attaining a standard and essential prowess in conversation and communicative command of the target language one wishes to utilize. The study is therefore relevant for the learners and individuals with potential international interactions to understand the most appropriate language learning technique from other variables.

Research Questions

The current study project made an attempt to answer the below research questions:

1) Why is the Communicative Language Teaching Approach not that much success to teach the learners communicative and functional English?

2) What are the various language teaching techniques applied in the learning institutions?

3) How can the Communicative Language Teaching Approach be best applied at the freshmen students at Dammam university to get the maximum result?

4) What is communicative language teaching approach all about?

5) Is there any importance of CLT approach over others in terms of time and effectiveness?

There are two kinds of communicative activities. They are pre-communicative activities and communicative activities. Through pre-communicative activities, the teacher isolates specific

elements of knowledge or skills which compose communicative ability and provides the learners with opportunities to practice them separately. The learners exercise some parts of skills rather

than practicing the total skills. The learners learn different structures of target language through the pre-communicative activities. For example, the learners must produce the correct form of simple past. Then the learners learn to relate structure to communicative function.

Also, The study hence unveils the findings of the interviews and questionnaires established and conducted with observing teachers and observer students on the determination of the efficacy of the communicative learning teaching.

the sample used to represent the school in the study, a total of four teachers and 16 students were used as observers. The sample population was randomly picked regardless of the gender and the age.

Below instruments were applied in the study;

1) A descriptive self-administered questionnaire for the teachers and student observers to survey the speed, impact on communication prowess attained by the subject students as observed in the Dammam University.

2) One-on-one interviews conducted by the student and teacher observers formulated on a casual conversation with the subjects using the target language to validate the mile development.

Ethical Considerations:

The survey team observed the following ethical considerations while carrying out the survey to enhance the confidentiality and safety of respondents and safety of the enumerators.

• Confidentiality of individuals and the information they revealed was protected at all times.

• Informed consent was obtained from respondents before questionnaires were administered.

• All enumerators were carefully selected and trained for this survey, and given ongoing support throughout the survey process.

This study was fundamentally essential for the achievement of the Bachelor’s degree (English and Literature) therefore the sample and time invested in the study would be inefficient to achieve a more comprehensive and more reliable conclusive data.

The sampling technique was random thereby limiting the consideration of groups dominated by individuals with target language as the first language that might influence the quicker achievement of the learning among group members.

The researcher found that most of the students had the ability to understand her questionnaire without much difficulty. As far as teaching force is concerned, a large number of teachers are not yet to be trained in ELT and a few of them have acquaintance with the modern development in the field of language.

The first item of the teachers’ questionnaire tries to investigate whether they have received any pre-service or in-service training with English as one of the main subjects, a few of them are trained in CLT. As a result, the introduction of communicative textbooks in colleges necessitates for the teachers to be trained in the communicative methodology of teaching

English.

Although many teachers’ ability and knowledge of communicative language teaching methodology is not up to the mark, they have started to think that it is better than traditional Grammar-translation Method.

Lee, G. L. (2003). Teaching English to Students from China. Singapore: NUS Press.

Nunan, D. (1989). Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J. C. (2006). Communicative Language Teaching Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Savignon, S. J. (2008). Interpreting Communicative Language Teaching: Contexts and Concerns in Teacher Education. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Dear student,

I am seeking for your assistance. The study is complementary to my graduation research and your response will be of great determination of the success. Cheer up and supply honest reactions to the entire statements and questions. I’m grateful for your cooperation.

Level One Research Students

Part 1. Background Information

Provide short answers or select the correct response to each statement by making a tick (✓) in the circle of your wish.

1. Are you:

⃝ Male ⃝ Female

2. How old are you:

⃝ Under 15-years ⃝ 15-25-years ⃝ 26 – 30-years Above 30( )

3. In which way can you rate your experience and observation in the efficacy of Communicative Language Teaching?

⃝ Excellent ⃝ Good ⃝ Average⃝ Poor

4. No. of years learning English: ………… years

5. Language(s) spoken natively spoken as first or immediate choice:

( ) Chinese ( ) English ( ) Both Chinese and English

( ) Other (please specify): ………………………

6. Language(s) considered and admired as the target language:

( ) Chinese ( ) English ( ) Both Chinese and English

( ) Other (please specify): ………………………

7. Mode of English language learning tending to be difficult (Tick all that apply):

( ) Listening ( ) Speaking ( ) Reading

( ) Writing ( ) Grammar ( ) Vocabulary

Part 2:

Tick (√) in the appropriate column using the following scale of agreement with each statement about your English language use:

SA = Strongly Agree A = Agree N = Neutral D = Disagree SD = Strongly Disagree

No.	Statement	Strongly Agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
	Teachers have low resources and less time for teaching languages.
	Communicative Language Teaching is more relevant for urgency in language understanding for.
	Students practice oral grammatical pronunciation during class lessons.
	Class teaching and mainstream teachings of language have become inadequate for emerging urgency.
	Communicative language teaching assures speedy adaptation and understanding of language.
	Communicative language teaching is appropriate due to the reduced restrictions from the casual interactions.
	Communicative language teaching attributes to effective communicative competence.