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On Directness in Communicative Language Teaching
Author(s) -
CELCEMURCIA MARIANNE,
DÖRNYEI ZOLTÁN,
THURRELL SARAH
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
tesol quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.737
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1545-7249
pISSN - 0039-8322
DOI - 10.2307/3587905
Subject(s) - communicative language teaching , linguistics , psychology , language education , pedagogy , sociology , philosophy
* We have read with interest Scott Thornbury's reaction to our commentary on communicative language teaching (CLT) (Vol. 31, No. 1, Spring 1997). Colleagues in the EFL/ESL profession work in very diverse linguistic, cultural, and institutional contexts, and therefore we specifically invited comments on our essay, in which we highlighted a new trend in CLT that involves a gradual shift within communicative teaching methodology towards a more direct approach that we called the principled communicative approach. Thornbury's response is thus a welcome contribution to the discussion, and it is particularly interesting in that he adopts an EFL perspective; that is, he considers the type of language instruction that takes place primarily in a classroom setting in which learners do not experience any significant regular contact with L2 speakers. This type of language teaching is probably the most common form of L2 instruction in the world, yet we believe that it is often underrepresented in the professional literature and at international conferences.