The Power of the Communicative Approach in English Language Training
by Paul Catiang

Based on a presentation and group activity given and moderated by Rocky Peltzman, ESL Consultant

On January 5, 2007, John Clements sponsored a Business Forum at the Manila Golf Club with the aim of discussing English-language training issues. Rocky Peltzman, a John Clements ESL Consultant, began the discussion by placing it the context of English-language training in the Philippines. For her, the experience began in 2004, when Carol Dominguez, President and CEO of John Clements, asked her to develop a finely-tuned oral assessment scale that would be used to retrain John Clements assessors. This resulted in the designing of a training course. “We named it Polishing English—we would buff their language skills until they shined,” said Ms. Peltzman. “The course ran for 40 to 80 hours, usually including Customer Service. Well, now, Polishing English cannot be used to describe the 80-to-120-hour English language courses we are running, because the course must go deeper than just a ‘polishing’.”

This deepening of English-language training also necessitates a different approach to training. Thus, the forum conducted a basic comparison of a few basic language concepts—fluency, accuracy, and pronunciation and accent—through the use of Small-group Communicative Methodology.

The discussion began with dividing the attendees into three groups. Group A was tasked with defining fluency; each group member had to give their personal definition of the concept and was required to take notes. They were also asked to compare the fluency-building activities they employ in their own training programs, and how they use the fluency component in assessing their trainees. Group A was also asked to compare how much fluency is weighted in their assessments. Group B simultaneously went through the same process to define accuracy, compare accuracy-building activities, and evaluate how their assessments weigh accuracy. Group C was assigned to discuss pronunciation and accuracy, how they build pronunciation and accuracy in their own training programs, and the weight of pronunciation and accuracy in assessment.

After all groups had compared their practices and their definitions, they were once again divided into groups: each group included three people, one each from Groups A, B, and C. This time around, they were all asked to compare what they’d discussed in their previous groupings, including what their previous group mates said about fluency, accuracy, and pronunciation and accent.

What took place at the business forum was an example of how a small-group communicative methodology class is conducted. Ms. Peltzman describes the method:

“If a teacher gives each student in a class of 15 equal opportunity to speak during a 60-minute class, how many minutes will each student actually speak English? The answer, of course, is four minutes—60 minutes divided by 15 students.”

In Small-group Communicative Methodology, the same class of 15 would be divided into five groups of three students each. Each group of students would then spend the next hour discussing amongst themselves, resulting in 20 minutes of English speaking per student—60 minutes divided by three students. “By dividing up the class into small groups, a language instructor can greatly maximize Student Talking Time (STT) in the classroom, thereby minimizing Teacher Talking Time (TTT),” says Ms. Peltzman.

“The role of the language teacher here changes dramatically. His or her foremost responsibility is to structure the oral activity so that all students are talking. This means activities using information gap exercises (where questions must be asked to extract information that a partner or partners have), guided discussion questions (to have been written up by the students as homework), and so on. Oral exercises designed for pairs, or groups of 3 to 4 are ideal for maximizing STT.”

“The function of the instructor is then to move between the groups, monitoring that students have more or less equal opportunity to practice, practice, practice, are correcting each other, or pointing out that an error has been made and allowing the student to self-correct.”

The communicative method has led to several developments in English-language training. First, it encourages learner autonomy through self-correction and peer correction. This is more apparent in classes that last longer, as the usual contact center training program covers so many topics within 10 to 15 days. It also develops students’ higher-order thinking skills, like critical and creative thinking—skills needed in contact centers above and beyond the language requirement. Students also do not learn language for its own sake but in order to develop and apply their thinking skills in situations that go beyond the language classroom. Lastly, teachers become co-learners in the communicative method. They become facilitators who constantly try out different alternatives, such as learning through doing.

This, then, is where the power of the communicative method in English-language training lies: it enables its speakers, its learners by giving them the tools with which to assess their own use of the language, encourages them to correct themselves, and allows them to use the language in a variety of contexts outside of the classroom. The importance of communication skills has risen drastically over the past few years, owing to the expansion of the business process outsourcing industry, and now prompts a change in the teaching methods used to train its would-be workers. The communicative method, by far, proves to be the most effective in training people through constant practice and application.