© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Communicative language teaching: unity within diversity
Pham Hoa Hiep is a lecturer in the Department of English at Hue College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in TESOL and applied linguistics. He has also worked as a teacher educator for many projects in Vietnam. Hiep has an EdD in Language Education from the University of Melbourne, and an MA in Bilingual/ESL Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His professional interests include teacher education, English as an international language, socioliguistics, and translation. He has published in English Teaching Forum, ELT Journal, TESL-EJ, RELC Anthology, the Journal of Asian TEFL, and Teacher's Edition
Email: hiepsuu{at}gmail.com
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Abstract |
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Recent articles in the ELT Journal offer interesting debates on CLT. On one side, Bax (2003) proposes that CLT should be abandoned since the methodology fails to take into account the context of language teaching. On the other side, Liao (2004) suggests that CLT is best. However, within the broad theoretical position on which CLT is based, different understandings of CLT exist, and it is not clear what version(s) or element(s) of CLT these authors reject or advocate.
This article presents what are considered to be the key theoretical tenets of CLT. It then discusses the meanings of CLT theory in classroom practices, showing the dynamics of context that construct these meanings. Drawing on a study of teachers' beliefs and implementation of CLT in Vietnam, the article argues that inherent in CLT is a view of language, of language learning, and teaching that most teachers aspire to. When CLT theory is put into action in a particular context, a range of issues open up, but these issues do not necessarily negate the potential usefulness of CLT.