1. WHAT ARE COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES AND WHAT ARE THEIR ROLES IN TEACHING AND
LEARNING?
The communicative approach to language teaching is based on the belief that, if the
development of communicative language ability is the goal of classroom learning, then
communicative practice must be part of the process.
Brumfit (1984) argues for `natural language use’ and suggests the need for what he calls
`fluency activities’. In his definition, fluency activities `develop a pattern of language interaction
within the classroomwhich is as close as possible to that used by competent performers in the
mother tongue in real life’. He lists a set of criteria necessary for achieving fluency.
 The language should be a means to an end. That is to say, the focus should be on the
meaning and not on the form.
 The content should be determined by the learner who is speaking or writing. The
learner has to formulate and produce ideas, information, opinions, etc.
 There must be a negotiation of meaning between the speakers, students must be
involved in interpreting a meaning from what they hear and constructing what to say as
a response. This brings into play pragmatic and discourse competences as well as
fluency.
 What the learner hears should not be predictable, there should be an information or
opinion gap.
 The normal processes of listening, reading, speaking and writing will be in play, for
example improvising and paraphrasing in speech; in other words, students will practice
and develop strategic competence.
 Teacher intervention to correct should be minimal as this distracts from the message.
In Brumfit’s view, fluency activities will give students the opportunity to produce and
understand items which they have gradually acquired during activities focused on linguistic
form, which he calls `accuracy work’.
One issue of great interest for materials designers has been how to create the `gap’ of
information or opinion which exists between speakers in the real world, and which creates the
unpredictability of normal discourse.
Prabhu (1987) gives a useful typology of activities which have formed the basis of much
contemporary material:
1) Information-gap activity, which involves a transfer of given information from one
person to another_ or from one form to another, or from one place to another_
generally calling for the decoding or encoding of information from or into language. One
example is pair work in which each member of the pair has a part of the total
information (for example an incomplete picture) and attempts to convey it verbally to
the other.Another example is completing a tabular representation with information
available in a given piece of text. The activity often involves selection of relevant
information as well, and learners may have to meet criteria of completeness and
correctness in making the transfer.

2. 2) Reasoning-gap activity, which involves deriving some new information from given
information through processes of inference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a
perception of relationships of patterns. One example is working out a teacher’s
timetable on the basis of given class timetables. Another is deciding what course of
action is best (for example cheapest or quickest) for a given purpose and within given
constraints. The activity necessarily involves comprehending and conveying information,
as an information-gap activity, but the information to be conveyed is not identical with
that initially comprehended. There is a piece of reasoning which connects the two.
3) Opinion-gap activity, which involves identifying and articulating a personal preference,
feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation. One example is story completion;
another is taking part in the discussion of a social issue. The activity may involve using
factual information and formulating arguments to justify one’s opinion, but there is no
objective procedure for demonstrating outcomes as right or wrong, and no reason to
expect the same outcome from different individuals or on different occasions.
The fundamental issue is how learners actually use the activities they are provided with in
order to acquire language, and whether different ways of exploiting activities provide different
opportunities for learning. Skehan (1996), for example, has pointed out that in performing a
task under time pressure, learners may place greater emphasis on communicating messages in
order to complete the task quickly and may not therefore pay much attention to correctness
and completeness of language form. They may use communication strategies or string lexical
phrases together to express ideas. Negotiation of meaning in such tasks will provide for the
development of greater strategic competence and fluency, but will not necessarily lead to more
comprehensible output and the development of greater accuracy. There is a danger, in fact,
that learners may develop what Skehan calls `undesirable fluency’ with the use of convenient
but incorrect forms which they then make use of in other tasks.
Teachers should strike the balance between accuracy and fluency. Brumfit (1984), for example,
sees these as co-existing but suggests that the balance would change over time. His suggestion
is that one might expect to find a preponderance of accuracy-based work early on, for
beginners, but that there would be a gradual shift in emphasis as learners acquire more
language and that upper-intermediate learners might be involved for a high proportion of class
time in fluency work.
Linguistic competence is a fundamental component of communicative language ability and it
has perhaps been a misconception among teachers that the communicative approach
somehow excuses teachers and learners from a consideration of how to develop high levels of
accuracy in the use of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. On the contrary, it is rather a
question of how to develop communicative language ability through classroompractice but, at
the same time, to ensure an understanding of how language works as a system and to develop
an ability to use the system correctly, appropriately, and creatively.
Adapted from `Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom’ Tricia Hedge