Some misconceptions about communicative language teaching

Some misconceptions about communicative language teaching by Geoff Thomson (1996)

New Words
-Poverty is a recurrent them in her novels.
-From the vintage point of the present, the war seems to have achieved nothing.
-How do you put this into words?
-Colours like red convey a sense of energy and strength.
-With hindsight it is easy to say they should not have released him.
-The excellent menu is complemented by a good wine list.
-I came to London for preliminary survey.
-The product was called in because of a defect in construction.

Communicative language teaching (CLT)
-‘It is established as the dominant theoretical model in ELT’.
-There are a lot of confusion and completely different perceptions in CLT.

Misconception1-Explicit grammar teaching is avoided.
Grammar is essential to communicate effectively. Learning grammar through CLT leads a natural development. Learners could communicate quite naturally by being conducted in English.
Misconception 2-Only speaking is emphasized.
It is thought teacher talking time (TTT) should be reduced and student talking time (STT) should be increased. However, communication should be thought broadly because ‘communication does not only take place through speech’.
Misconception 3-CLT means pair work (role play)
Role play is useful as a follow-up pair work, but pair work can be used for a preliminary activities as well such as doing a grammatical exercise and analyzing the new language structures.
Misconception 4-CLT depends on the teacher’s language proficiency.
‘CLT is an approach developed by and for native speaker teachers’. However, teachers need a different balance of proficiency skills and they have an opportunity to develop their skills.