Carlos Slompo
My experience with adult second language learners in the last two decades has confirmed the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) prevalence in the instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) settings and so has my participation in two professional training courses intended as pedagogical updates: the Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA), and the Certificazione di competenza in didattica dell’italiano a stranieri (DITALS).
These training experiences have confirmed a very high expectation for elicitation; reduced teacher talking time and class management, always having the CLT as approach and task-based language teaching (TBLT) activities as a primary pedagogical tool.
According to Cambridge University (2022), the CELTA gives teachers (both native and non-native speakers) a range of techniques and practical experience. Teachers get hands-on practice and observation of experienced teachers and apply the content learned during the course by delivering communicative teaching with authentic language learners. According to the University of Siena (2022), the DITALS theoretical basis is the communicative approach and grammar as instruments for language acquisition.
In these training contexts, where teachers are subjected to growing pressure regarding planning, and management of communicative-oriented tasks, besides constant assessment and grading, there is no or little space to consider one crucial purposeful direction of instruction models: personal student development. The preparation process for proficiency exams can illustrate the frustration of an adult L2 learner, doubting the prevalence of CLT in foreign language learning settings where proficiency exams are usually concerned. Tasks proposed in the exams can be accomplished through individual studies and form-focused drills, which was my personal experience. For some adult students, a very tangible outcome is needed: passing certified proficiency exams, frequently designed to fit the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) on a six-point scale, being A1 for beginners, up to C2 for those who have mastered the target language.
Allan’s (2006) study shows that paradox. Proficiency exams may actually act as “the only” gate to acceptance in the main stream of academic studies, and students might want to overcome that barrier by constructing individual strategies. Therefore, reinforcing the individual pragmatist study of a language for “passing” purposes only, leaving government policies of integration having language competence as a parameter even more blurred.
Such contradictions, where teacher training courses and employers advocate a communicative-orientated posture from teachers and, conversely, proficiency exams have few communicative tasks required, raised my interest in arguing the legitimacy of the CLT method prevalence.
Discussion questions
Would a more critical position towards CLT and TBLT help teachers and students create a healthier balance in foreign language learning settings? Where such an approach could be seen as not the only one, but one of the tools at hand.
Have you ever taken any CEFR proficiency exams in any European language? If so, what languages and levels did you take? How did you study for it?
Was taking the exam a gateway for something? Did it feel more like an obstacle? Why did you take it?
References
Cambridge, U. o. (20022). Teaching qualifications. Retrieved from https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-english/teaching-qualifications/celta
Dawn Allen (2006) Who’s in and who’s out? Language and the integration of new immigrant youth in Quebec, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 10:02-03, 251-263, DOI: 10.1080/13603110500256103
Siena, U. o. (2022). Certificazione de Competenza in Didattica dell’Italiano a Stranieri. Retrieved form https://ditals.unistrasi.it/home.asp
