COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE.

Annotation: In recent years, CLT has become one of the most effective and popular methods in English language teaching. So, this article discusses the basic principles and practical application of the communicative language teaching (CLT) method, which is widely used in English language teaching. The article emphasizes the importance of real-life communication and interactivity between students in language learning. It also explains the basics of the CLT method – such as focusing on fluency, meaningful communication and student-centered teaching. The article describes how students’ communicative competence can be developed through classroom activities such as role-playing games and group discussions. Finally, the advantages of the CLT method are emphasized – it helps to develop motivation, self-confidence and fluency. This article may be useful for English language teachers and students preparing to become teachers.

Key words: language teaching methods, fluency development, learner-centered approach, speaking activities, real-life communication, motivation.

One of the most important and fundamental principles of CLT is to learn a language through real-life interactions, not just by memorizing grammar rules. This method focuses on speaking clearly and fluently rather than on grammatical errors. In CLT, the teacher plays a key role in helping students use the language in a purposeful and meaningful way. Unlike traditional, teacher-centered approaches, CLT is student-centered, meaning students are very active participants. For example, instead of translating sentences based on certain rules, students are asked to tell their partner their daily routine or talk about topics they encounter in everyday life. In such situations, students learn to use the language naturally and can speak confidently in real-life situations.

A range of classroom exercises are used in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) to motivate students to interact and have meaningful conversations. The exercises are intended to give students useful English assistance while reflecting real-world scenarios. Role-playing, group discussions, pair work, problem-solving exercises, and information gap exercises are among the most popular activities. Instead of merely memorising or repeating grammar, these exercises enable students to actively engage with the language. For instance, in a role-playing game, one student assumes the role of a user administrator, while the other assumes the role of a user registering. This enables students to engage in communicative tasks by posing, observing, or asking questions that are relevant to everyday circumstances. Information exchange exercises are another popular approach, in which students are given a portion of the material and must communicate with one another in English to finish the task. These kinds of activities add interest and effectiveness to the language learning process. For instance, whereas one student might have a list of travel-related activities, another might have a bus schedule. When answering questions about vacation planning, they will need to use verb tenses, everyday vocabulary, and other language. Students gain confidence, teamwork, speaking and listening skills, and the capacity to think in English through these interactive, goal-oriented activities. Through these exercises, they improve their real-world language skills and get ready for successful communication outside of the classroom.

For language learners of all ages, the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach offers a number of significant benefits that make it enjoyable in addition to being effective. Its ability to foster a supportive and engaging learning environment is among its most significant benefits. Students can express themselves freely and develop confidence in such a setting. This lessens the anxiety that comes with making mistakes when learning a language. Students practise more and progressively improve their fluency when they are not afraid to speak.

Second, the CLT approach enhances students’ communication abilities, particularly their capacity for listening and speaking clearly. In a pair assignment, for instance, students are tasked with organising a trip together. They are compelled to discuss subjects like time, travel, and competition, which leads to meaningful language learning. CLT’s capacity to inspire students and heighten their interest in the lesson is another significant benefit. because the tasks are frequently enjoyable, creative, or relatable to real life.

Students are inspired to be more active as a result. They consequently take charge of their language proficiency development and engage in the active learning process. The CLT approach also helps students improve their problem-solving, collaboration, and critical thinking abilities. They practise speaking up, listening to others, sharing ideas, and coming up with solutions when they work in groups. These “soft” skills are crucial for academic and professional settings in addition to language learning. Generally speaking, CLT gives students critical social skills that are necessary in everyday life in addition to language.

In conclusion, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is a strong and useful method that is changing the way English is taught and learnt. CLT helps students become more fluent, confident, and practical with their language skills by having them learn through real-life situations. It helps with language skills as well as social, cognitive, and emotional growth through activities that involve the learner and methods that focus on the learner. As methods for teaching languages change, CLT is still a useful and inspiring way to teach people how to communicate effectively in today’s world. Because of this, CLT should be the main focus of English classes today.

References:

1.Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (5th ed.). Pearson Education.

2.Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2014). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

3.Larsen-Freeman, D., & Anderson, M. (2011). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

4.Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.). Pearson Longman.

5.Littlewood, W. (2004). The Task-Based Approach: Some Questions and Suggestions. ELT Journal, 58(4), 319–326.

6.Savignon, S. J. (2002). Interpreting Communicative Language Teaching: Contexts and Concerns in Teacher Education. Yale University Press.

7.Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology: A Textbook for Teachers. Prentice Hall.

8.Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language Teaching (3rd ed.). Macmillan Education.

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”

James Baldwin

In this issue, we explore how people are influenced by their times and cultures, and how they learn from and engage with the thoughts of their forebears. Also, we acknowledge the wealth of wisdom and life lessons carried within each person due to the events through which they have lived.

Graciela Noemi Villaverde speaks to the inexorable and irrevocable passage of time.

Amit Shankar Saha writes of then and now, memory and future, remembrance and forgetting, universal human questions. Duane Vorhees’ poetry evokes change, thought, aging, and the creative process.

Stephen Jarrell Williams speaks to memory and the human experience. Eva Lianou Petropoulou speaks to artists and authors’ learning from and being inspired by each other throughout the ages. Writer Rizal Tanjung offers up an existential analysis of Eva Petropoulou Lianou’s poetry.

Giorgos Pratzigos interviews Konstantinos Fais on his artwork and advocacy for rediscovering Hercules and ancient Greek virtues. Muxlisa Khaytbayeva records her grandfather Jumaboy Allaberganov’s memories of knowing famed Uzbek author Omonboy Matjonov as a young adult and discusses Matjonov’s contributions to culture. Shukurilloyeva Lazzatoy Shamsodovna relates her scholarly and personal journey to understanding and illuminating Russian writer Alexandr Faynberg’s poetic legacy and its influence on Uzbek culture.

Kuziyeva Shakhrizoda highlights the Uzbek government’s investment in the nation’s youth and the incredible potential of their young adults. Otaboyeva Khushniya outlines how the psychology of early childhood can inform education. Su Yun collects and translates the work of Chinese elementary school students. O’tkirava Sevinch outlines strategies for learning Mandarin Chinese as a second language and for teaching the language in Uzbek schools. Olimboyeva Dilaferuz outlines verb conjugation rules in the Uzbek language.

Mashhura Farhodovna Joraqulova’s short story encourages students from low-income families to persevere with their education. Sevara Kuchkarova outlines strategies to motivate students to complete work at school. Rashidova Shaxrizoda Zarshidovna honors the life and work of a woman who mentored many of the girls at her school. Dilbar Aminova advocates for a balanced approach to screentime in young children’s lives. Shahnoza Ochildiyeva reflects on the value of her journalism education at an Uzbek university. Xo’jamiyorova Gulmira Abdusalomovna highlights the role of emerging and young poets in Uzbekistan’s national destiny.

Duane Vorhees compares the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Nikki Giovanni as part of a broader comment on changing Black consciousness in the United States.

Cherise Barasch writes with respect for the hardworking people she observes digging into the earth in the heat. Yongbo Ma brings a poetic and scientific perspective to fog. Sayani Mukherjee contemplates peaceful natural scenes in a reverie. Priyanka Neogi compares accepting life’s changes to living through different seasons and times of day. David Sapp reflects on the transcendent experience of seeing a peacock. Dilnoza Islamova looks to nature’s beauty as an invitation to spiritual faith and practice. Maki Starfield sends up elegant reflections on weather and fruits in Thailand as Maja Milojkovic meditates on sunflowers, existence, and perseverance.

Brian Barbeito lets his mind wander to cosmological and existential places while walking near birds by a lake. Orinbayeva Dilfuza rejoices in the beauty of nature at springtime as Dilobar Maxmarejabova shares the emotional significance of tulips in her life. Don Bormon revels in the fun of rain at school. Mark Young renders up more of his fanciful “geographical” maps of Australian regions. Mathematics is a language we use to describe nature, and Timothee Bordenave discusses how his geometric studies inform his artwork. Mesfakus Salahin speaks to drought in Bangladesh in a meditation on accepting life and nature’s cycles.

Bruce Mundhenke urges humanity to turn away from hate towards love and acceptance. Vo Thi Nhu Mai illuminates the beauty and communicative power of the craft of poetry.

Leslie Lisbona sends up a childhood memory of having fun dancing to and figuring out rap lyrics. Marjona Baxtiyorovna Jorayeva celebrates sports and their fandoms and their power to bring enjoyment and bring people together.

Shomurotova Sevinchoy reflects on what it means to be a true friend. Munisa Ro’ziboyeva illuminates her appreciation for her mother’s care. Hamroyeva Shahinabonu Shavkatovna highlights the love and care both fathers and mothers have for their children. Rashidova Muallima offers up her love for her mother. Kamoliddin Hamidullah sends us a tender love poem. Thathanhally B. Shekara expresses his joy in romantic union with his beloved. Vo Thi Nhu Mai looks to wind as a metaphor for gentle connection among people.

Jim Meirose crafts a surreal piece in the language of fairy tales and dreams. Iduoze Abdulhafiz takes a lengthy journey through the subconscious with a wide selection of words. Dr. Maja Sekulic reviews Dr. Jernail S. Anand’s exploration of artificial intelligence, myth, and morality.

Kholmurodova outlines strategies to bring digital access and economic opportunities to the world’s rural women. Rakhimov Rakhmatullo outlines challenges and solutions for logistics technologies. Sa’dia Alisher outlines some benefits, problems, and challenges from modern digital technologies. Gulnora Rakhimjonovna Khomidova explores the educational potential of artificial intelligence.

Dr. Jernail S. Anand relates how, regardless of the tools we use to craft our work, restraint and discipline can serve as a creative force. Dr. Debabrata Maji highlights the power of perseverance and devotion. Azemina Krehic compares the care she has for her poetic works to the process of washing her clothes on a line. Hassan Mistura speaks to the journey of developing a healthy self concept. Surayyo Nosirova reminds us to let go of the illusion of more control than we have and to stay open to change.

Grant Guy offers up stage directions for absurdist theater, an artistic reaction to periods of rapid social change. Ahmed Miqdad speaks to the absurd persistence of normal life amid wartime. Mykyta Ryzhykh, in a similar vein, evokes the quest for queer love and sensuality among bombs and bullets.

Pat Doyne laments violent immigration enforcement overreach in Los Angeles. Otabayeva Khusniya reveals the deeply humane vision of Erkin Vahidov’s work Rebellion of Souls, a tribute to the memory of Nasrul Islam and other artists who died as a result of unjust persecution. Chimezie Ihekuna shares some of life’s paradoxes and urges nations and groups of people to move away from war as a solution to issues. Mahbub Alam also puts out a call for peace, remembering the many people lost to war. Boboqulova Durdona laments the many civilian deaths in Gaza as Stephen House highlights war’s effects on ordinary people, especially children.

Muslima Olimova reflects on surviving an unhappy marriage and urges families to welcome young brides and for women to carefully consider before marrying. J.J. Campbell speaks to the lingering effects of trauma on people and the tension between hope and disillusionment. Dr. Bindu Madhavi speaks to the inner battles many of us fight as Mirta Liliana Ramirez evokes the pain of loneliness.

Doug Hawley’s short story presents several characters representing a mix of lawful and roguish motives and actions. Taylor Dibbert’s poem lampoons the worldliness of a priest and the devotion it still inspires. Sarvinoz Sobirjonova Abdusharifova depicts the dual nature of humanity: kindness and cruelty.

Kelly Moyer uses vegetable humor to convey and navigate the experience of chronic illness. Alan Catlin frames evocative images with words, plumbing the imagined photos for meaning.

Mark Blickley, a combat veteran who finished education later in life, reflects on what he gained as a person and an artist from popular literature and reminds the “literary” crowd not to so easily dismiss popular writers.

A New Day

After a long day

Full of burdens and responsibilities

Setting fire,

Collecting wood,

Carrying water

And searching for food.

Finally, the night comes for rest

I sit on my broken sofa

In my smashed balcony

With my cactus and the little mints 

There is no light outside, and darkness is  like a black hole

So deep and hollow hearted

Fire flames arise from that destroyed home

Someone is preparing dinner 

And the  sound  of  a crying baby for milk

Comes from the horizon.

The gloom stars appear in the clear sky

As the souls of the martyrs fly so far

And the timid moon hides

Like the killed child drenched with his blood

The ghosts of the demolished homes scream, ” Don’t be afraid, we’re not humans.”

The sea waves play

melancholic tunes

Recalling my  absent reminiscence

My weary mind hallucinates

With absurd words to write a poem

My fatigued body whispers

With sorrow and pain

“Sweet dreams among the rubble and ghosts”

Then my eyes closed like a gate of a prison

It arrests my suffering, sorrow, distress, toil, oppression, and pain for a new day.

Ahmed Miqdad, Palestinian poet, Activist

As a visual artist, photographer and painter and also a drawer, I have for very long in my life taken interest in the sacred geometry matter and issues…

Relatively recently, about ten years ago, I took back my geometry studies whilst trying to figure out how can be drawn a close surfaced square after a given circle.

I rapidly found out that if you derive from the unscripted square inside a circle, with your ruler and a compass, to find the two tangent lines in prolongation of this first unscripted square, that are tangent to the circle and form a new square at their intersection : well you have just drawn here very easily a second square, as marked on my figures, which surface is very, very close to the surface of the given circle considered.

Starting from this very interesting new finding, and encouraged by the good acceptance of my drawings by the Parisian mathematics community (Institut Poincaré, CNRS site Curie, etc.) then I went through other reflections about notably the duplication of the cube, the trisection of the angles and the unscripted regular heptagon. With – may I say that – some interesting results, as I was told. 

Then I also worked on the various concepts of the « prosperous isosceles triangle » in shapes and relations… And presently I am trying to get back some better algebra notions, in order to get for myself a better understanding and culture of these endless fields of interest that are the mathematical models.

All I did of modest good through my life of work was as a humble and obedient servant of Jesus Christ, Saint Mary, and for my country France. 

From Africa to America: For Flora

POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL (1773) was only the second book of poetry published by an American woman. The 20-year-old author was a slave, taken (according to scholarly consensus) to North America at seven years of age.  In fact, of course, nobody knows for sure when she was born (perhaps 1753) or where (maybe Senegal or Gambia) or even what she was called in her youth. She arrived in Boston aboard the Phillis and was purchased by merchant John Wheatley; and so her “name” became Phillis Wheatley. 

When she was 14 or so she began writing poetry, and by 16 her work began to attract public notice. Because of her gender and caste, she was forced to defend her authorship before the colonial governor, lieutenant governor, and other luminaries. Even after they attested that she had indeed written the verses ascribed to her, she could not get her collected material published in Massachusetts, though well-connected members of the nobility acted as her patrons and secured its publication in England. The book became an international sensation, prompting Voltaire himself to comment that it proved that black people could write poetry. Nevertheless, due to her own situation and the tumult surrounding the American Revolution, she was unable to publish another book before her death in 1784, though her work did continue to appear occasionally in pamphlets and newspapers.

One of her best-known  poems is “On Being Brought from Africa to America”:

   ‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

   Taught my benighted soul to understand

   That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:

   Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

   Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

   “Their colour is a diabolic die.”

   Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,

   May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

Nikki Giovanni, on the other hand, trod a very different literary path, publishing numerous volumes of poetry and essays, teaching at several prestigious universities, and winning major awards including 20 honorary doctorates. Named for her mother, Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Sr., she was born some 190 years after Wheatley, in Knoxville, Tennessee, but raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, until she was 10, at which time she returned to Knoxville to live with her grandparents. 

In 1967, the year she graduated with honors with a bachelor’s degree in History from her grandfather’s alma mater, Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee, she published her first volume of poetry, BLACK FEELING, BLACK TALK, which sold over 10,00 copies its first year; BLACK JUDGMENT (1968) sold 6,000 in just three months. Together, they established her as one of the most successful representatives of the Black Arts Movement that dominated African-American culture in the 1960s and beyond. 

Her fifth book, THE WOMEN AND THE MEN (1975), featured “Poem for Flora”:

when she was little
and colored and ugly with short
straightened hair
and a very pretty smile
she went to Sunday school to hear
’bout nebuchadnezzar the king
of the jews
and she would listen
shadrach, meshach and abednego in the fire
and she would learn
how god was neither north
nor south east or west
with no color but all
she remembered was that
Sheba was Black and comely
and she would think
i want to be
like that

It is almost as though Giovanni wanted to engage with her literary ancestor Wheatley in a poetical dialectic on the changes in racial attitudes over a pair of centuries of American development.

Both poets opened with a reflection on their youthful introduction to Christian worship. Wheatley claimed it was a “mercy” to be taken from her own “Pagan land” in order to learn that “there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too.” Giovanni seemed to project her psychic self  onto a family friend, Flora Fletcher Alexander, who often babysat for young Nikki. — “she loved clothes. Flora was the sharpest dresser,” she later recalled. Nikki/Flora “went to Sunday school to hear / ’bout Nebuchadnezzar the king / of the jews” and about “shadrach, meshach and Abednego in the fire.” But in the style of the times, before the Romantics began to relax the formalist standards of prosody and semantics,Wheatley mostly confined her remarks to a generality, while Giovanni reflected the Post-Modernist penchant for grammatical laxity and politically charged specificity. The Chaldean ruler Nabu-kudurri-usur II was indeed king of the Jews but only because of his conquest of Judea in 597 BCE; he was portrayed as a foreign oppressor in several books of the Old Testament, including the portion of the Book of Daniel where he cast Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace for refusing to worship a golden idol. (Ironically, as we shall see, the Alphabet of Ben Sidra posited Nebuchadnezzar as the son of Solomon and the queen of Sheba, a chronological impossibility.)

Both women expressed their approval of the universalism of the Christian doctrine that even “Negroes, black as Cain / May be refin’d, and join the angelic train” and that “god was neither north / nor south east or west” — though Giovanni insistently added the clarification “with no color but all” to counter Wheatley’s demeaning allusion to God’s punishment of Cain for the murder of his brother Abel by “marking” him, which was often interpreted as giving him a black skin and therefore providing a Biblical justification for racism.

But even in these religious introductory remarks, race was an essential referent. For Wheatley the matter was a subtext, almost parenthetical, a pun on her “benighted soul.” But for Giovanni the blackness took center stage. Flora may have been “colored and ugly with short / straightened hair” (since African-Americans of Flora’s generation “conked” their hair by using lye to straighten their naturally kinky locks. Black nationalist leader Malcolm X claimed that the process “makes you wonder if the Negro has completely lost all sense of identity, lost touch with himself.”) But Flora’s own takeaway from Sunday school was that “Sheba was Black and comely” and Flora/Nikki decided “I want to be / like that.”

The queen of Sheba made only a brief appearance in the Bible, visiting Solomon in order “to prove him with hard questions.” But that cameo role led to her starring in one of the world’s most widespread and protean cycle of legends. She was probably from Saba (modern Yemen); the Sabaeans also had domains across the Red Sea on the Horn of Africa., and the later kingdom of Aksum (ancestral to Ethiopia) was sometimes referred to as Seba. Nevertheless, though history has recorded several Arabic queens, no African ones are known, even though the queen of Sheba has come to be regarded as such.

The literary confusion seems to have begun with the Books of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament, which referred to her as a “queen of the South” from “the uttermost parts of the earth,” At the same time, the historian Titus Flavius Josephus claimed she was a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.A century later, the Christian theologian Origen conflated the “bride,” the female speaker in the Song of Songs, as the “Queen of the South,” (“I am very dark, but comely,” she proclaimed, or, in the NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION, “black and beautiful,” though this translation would have been too late to directly influence the Giovanni poem).

Matthew preached the Gospel in Colchis (modern Ethiopia), and even earlier than that Philip the Evangelist had converted one of Queen Candace’s court officials there, making Ethiopia the site of the oldest Christian church (though “ethiopian” is Greek for “burnt face” and may have referred to Africans in general). The Ethiopians, in turn, seem to have taken particular delight in associating themselves with Biblical traditions. So the wordplay of Origen (conjoined to the comments by Matthew and various Islamic traditions concerning Queen Bilkis, the Arabic version of the queen of Sheba) seems to have been the basis for the Ethiopian national saga, the 14th century KEBRA NAGAST, in which Queen  Makeda visited Solomon, who impressed her with his wealth and wisdom. She converted to Judaism and, on her way home, gave birth to Solomon’s son, Menilek, the ancestor claimed by all the kings of Ethiopia. until the last of them, Haile Selassie, was deposed in 1974. That last reigning descendant of Solomon and the queen of Sheba is regarded by the Rastafari as a divine messianic figure who will lead a future Golden Age of eternal peace, righteousness, and prosperity. (And thus the Rastafari bring the entire process full circle: they adapted their Haile Selassie symbolism from some rhetorical statements made by fellow Jamaican Marcus Garvey, who popularized the pan-African notion of “black is beautiful” and organized various separatist entities in the United States; one of Garvey’s followers was Earl Little, the martyred father of Malcolm X, whose own 1965 assassination sparked the creation of the Black Arts Movement of which Giovanni became a prominent representative figure.)

So, as a leading exponent of the “Black Is Beautiful” sentiment of the 1960s, Nikki Giovanni proudly focused on the fabled African queen of Sheba — “all / she remembered was that / Sheba was Black and comely” — while Phillis Wheatley was meekly apologetic about the way the Christians of Boston viewed her “sable race with scornful eye” because of the “diabolic die” associated with Cain, the world’s first murderer. Despite the commonalities in their two poems, this difference in attitude speaks volumes about how African-American views about the nature of their roles changed dramatically over the course of two centuries.

The Beautiful Nature of Spring

You bloom, spreading far and wide,

The trees in gardens, full of pride,

Your flowers speak no word or sound,

In spring, the beauty does abound.

On the trees, the flowers rise,

Pure white, a sight before our eyes,

They look like snowflakes falling near,

In spring, the beauty is so clear.

The rain falls often, soft and light,

Irrigating crops in sight,

The wind blows suddenly and free,

In spring, the beauty’s all we see.

Nature wakes from its long sleep,

Turning golden, calm and deep,

Peace shines in the sky so bright,

In spring, the beauty fills the light.

After rain, a rainbow shows,

Colors that dazzle, as it grows,

It dazzles eyes with every hue,

In spring, the beauty is renewed.

Poem about the Sunflower

In the field where sky and earth meet,

stands the sunflower — alone, yet not lonely.

It seeks nothing but light,

constantly turning its face toward the horizon.

Its stem is strong and steady,

as if holding the silence of ages within.

Its leaves whisper secrets to the wind,

while roots intertwine deep into the soil.

It does not crave fame, nor attention,

only wishes to absorb every ray,

to be part of something greater —

that invisible conversation of light and life.

When the sun sets, it still stands,

with its head lifted toward the sky,

waiting for a new day, a new chance

to feel the warmth and to grow.

The sunflower is not just a flower,

but a symbol of existence —

an existence that follows the light,

regardless of the shadows that fall.