Impact of Communicative Approach on English Language Teaching in China

Investigation

With the publication and application of the textbooks complied by the People’s Educational Press and the Longman Group Ltd. at the beginning of 1990s, Communicative Approach was formally introduced into the language classroom in China. But the information in Table 3.2 obtained from the questionnaire answered by some middle school English teachers in Hebei Province, showed that few English teachers in middle schools practice Communicative Approach in their own classes (see Table 3.2 and Table 3.3 in this chapter). Even those who proclaimed that they practiced Communicative Language Teaching failed to carry it out (see Table 3.4).

Table 3.2　Communicative Approach Used in English Class at Rural Middle Schools

(Note: The total number of respondents is 372. They are all rural English teachers in middle schools.)

Table 3.3　Communicative Approach Used in English Class at Middle Schools in the City

(Note: The information in Table 3. 3 came from the English teachers in city middle schools including some key schools. The total number of the respondents is 313.)

Information in the following table was collected from some teachers’ lesson plan when the author attended their lectures. In order to avoid the embarrassment, the teachers’ names are replaced by numbers.

(Notes: CA—Communicative Approach; TM—teaching methods; TA—teaching aims; RE—review; TE—teacher explanation; LK—language knowledge; EX—exercises)

Table 3.4　Communicative Approach Had Failed in Practice in Their Own Classes

Even the lead teachers in Hebei Province acknowledged that they had not practiced it in their own classes.

Findings

From the information above, there came the following findings:

•　Most of the English teachers in rural areas are of poor educational background. Their language skills are comparatively poorer. So it is very difficult for them to manage their classes in English.

•　Most of the rural English teachers know nothing about Communicative Approach, and they are ignorant of language teaching theory.

•　Few English teachers in rural areas implement Communicative Approach in their own English classes because of their poor listening and speaking ability.

•　Most of the English teachers, even some authorities in rural areas still cling to the traditional teaching concept and stick to the traditional teaching mode.

•　Educational reform on English language teaching is only a slogan for some practitioners and educational authorities in some schools.

•　More traditional work still finds a market in most of the classroom English language teaching. Ironically, in some schools in the countryside, Grammar-Translation Method still plays a dominant role in English classes up to now.

•　Language teaching in the last two decades of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century witnessed a period in which Grammar-Translation Method, Audio-Lingual Method, Communicative Approach, etc. coexisted together though Communicative Approach has been advocated by the experts in language teaching.

•　No classroom language teaching is a pure communicative one. The practical implications of Communicative Approach have yet to be explored fully. It is likely that their principal value will be illuminative rather than operational, more helpful in providing teachers with insights into the learning processes of their students than in stimulating new materials or methods.