Emerging Interaction Patterns in the Use of the Communicative Approach: A case of a 9th Grade English Language Classroom

Year 2015, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 2 - 14, 28.06.2015

Ferdane Denkci Akkas , Berna Çöker

Abstract

In emphasizing the development of communicative competence, the communicative approach aims to enable learners to use language as a tool to negotiate meanings. Since its appearance in the 60s and 70s, it has been keeping its popularity in language teaching contexts in many countries in the world. Although the national foreign language curriculum depends on the principles of the communicative approach in Turkey as well, it is seen that foreign language teaching is not performed in a communicative way due to some challenges and problems (Coşkun, 2011; Özşevik, 2010). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of the communicative approach in a 9th grade classroom to describe the features of the interaction patterns and to understand the situation from the perspectives of the teacher and the students. The participants are the students and the teacher 9^th grade class of an Anatolian high school in 2012-2013 academic year. The class was observed for one hour per week for a semester to determine the communicative features of the classroom activities and interactions. The data were collected via COLT (Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching) observation schemes (Allen, Fröhlich & Spada, 1983) and interview questions. The data from the observation schemes were analyzed by proportion calculations whereas a content analysis was carried out with the data from the interviews. The results have revealed that the 9^th grade language class reflects important characteristics of a communicative classroom. However, the learners mostly produce pre-prepared and rehearsed interaction, and so they need to be guided and trained to use the target language in a more meaningful and creative way as it happens in natural discourse

Keywords

Communicative approach, interaction, communicative competence

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