Essay Example on Communicative Language Teaching in Pakistan

Communicative Language Teaching in Pakistan Pakistan is a country where 70 different language are spoken Urdu is the national language of Pakistan English has a significant role in Pakistani society as a second widely spoken language which is primarily learnt for finding employment in top professions running reputable businesses and traveling abroad for study and work English is merely taught as a compulsory subject from grades one to twelve in Pakistan The traditionally used Grammar Translation Method GTM is prevalent in Pakistani education system for past 70 years which was initially introduced by British rulers in the Sub Continent This method has been a continuous failure as far as developing English language skills are concerned In this modern era where areas of knowledge are expanding and increasing use of the English language is pertinent in all fields of life it requires the future generations to improve their English language skills in all forms to achieve greater goals 

This is the time when there's a need of transition in English language teaching approach in Pakistan Jilani 2004 Throughout my experience of learning English language as a student and then teaching in secondary and higher education in Pakistan there has not been any changes recorded throughout those years in approach used in teaching English The predominant technique traditionally used in teaching language in Pakistan is largely described by Behaviourism which is based on teaching English by stimulus response enforcement methodology called Audio lingium Lightbown Spada 2013 A research carried out by Behol 2011 explains that language learning methods which are still largely used in Pakistan emphasis on repetition memorization and remembering sentence patterns by heart Saeed points out that the fundamental reason for this never changing approach is that English is considered as a foreign language in Pakistan However some misconceptions also prevail about its status as a foreign or second language The advocates of the idea of EFL think that English is not a resource of communication among the common people but only regarded as a language of trade education military affairs and Judiciary 

The CLT approach faces major challenges due to the difference of English as a Second Language ESL and EFL in a non native environment Although efforts have been made to implement the CLT equally in both contexts yet its application in an EFL context is still under scrutiny Both these context are used in countries where English is not the first language still there's a distinction in teaching approaches To clarify this difference between the both contexts Ellis explains it in the following way ESL is integrative in that it is designed to help individuals function in the community EFL is a part of the school curriculum and therefore subject to contextual factors such as support from principal and the local community government policy etc It is also dependent on the teacher s language proficiency teaching resource and the availability of suitable material Can CLT work in Pakistan Many non native countries with English as foreign language EFL are persistent with adopting CLT approach despite of inappropriate infrastructure to facilitate CLT The review of related literature on CLT provides ample proof of its usefulness in English language teaching despite the fact that some problems still persist Wenjie 2009 Akram Mehmood 2011 carried out research by conducting interviews from the teachers about the prospect of introducing the communicative language teaching approach in teacher training programs in Pakistan 

The result was pleasantly surprising as it was unanimous opinion of the teachers that CLT develops confidence in the learners and teachers feel that they have somehow achieved their goal when students start using foreign language in their conversations in the classroom and CLT is definitely a better approach than Grammar Translation Method GTM which more focuses on teaching than learning language Communicative approach creates a direct link between the learners who learn the language through their own experience and practice The opponents of CLT method argue that large classes is one of the major factor which limits the use of communicative activities in the classroom However Faraz Ali replies with his research that the large classes are not main issue the actual problem is the teaching method Better trained teachers bring better results 

The use of right curriculum to create interactive activities based teaching the use of group work and how peer assessment can be manageable with innovative teaching all these add to the factors which could improve the quality of English language teaching in Pakistan It is understood that there may be many cultural and socio economic causes of failure of CLT approaches such as pair group work or interactive learning in Pakistan and it is recognised that CLT is not universally designed approach which could be implemented in all countries of the world Nonetheless CLT is reckoned to be an approach which needs adaptations according to the limitations in certain contexts where it could not be fully be implemented