Matching Communicative Language Teaching to a Japanese EFL Context with The Principled
Communicative Approach

Andy Rushton
Abstract
For native English speaker teachers in Japan who have the responsibility of encouraging their students
to speak in English during class, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) can seem like a misnomer.
Japanese learners’ reticence to communicate with one another within the scope of meaningfulcommunicative classroom practice often hinders any attempts at improving their spoken English.
Furthermore, the recent trend, influenced by Dogme ELT, of EFL teachers looking for options otherthan textbook-based lessons, has perhaps exacerbated the situation within EFL in Japan. The
Principled Communicative Approach (PCA) is a focused attempt to systemize the practice of declarative
L2 input designed to bring about the automatization of grammatical rules and lexis for meaningfulcommunicative practice. In this way, the traditional context of EFL in Japan can maintain its culturalpreference for a teacher-fronted pedagogy while using it to increase the efficacy of CLT’s more implicit
meaning-focused communicative learning strategies. Opportunities for the application of PCA with acommercially published textbook will be discussed.

1. Introduction
In recent years, with the arrival of Dogme ELT and its move away from a textbook-based pedagogy inthe early 2000s, the trend of returning to a “stronger version” of Communicative Language Teaching(CLT) with its rejection of an explicit grammar focus at the expense of a “fluency first” stance has been
in vogue in western ELT methodology. Dogme is a teaching approach which essentially rejects
published textbook syllabi as over-prescriptive and instead prioritizes the real communication between
learners and teacher to provide both thematic and linguistic lesson content. However, in traditional
cultures such as Japan, students often resist their teacher’s attempts to facilitate learners to create
their own syllabi through so-called meaningful communication.
In the article “How culturally appropriate is the communicative approach?” Ellis[1] (1996) argues that
if communicative language teaching is to be applied to Far East English language classrooms then it
must be altered in some way in keeping with the culture in question. Many Asian learners and teachersof English have different cultural traditions as to how classroom interaction should proceed and whatshould be practiced and how. This is invariably a position that will be at loggerheads with the westernteacher, who was most likely trained to champion a communicative approach with an idea of saving
learners from their previous teacher-led English learning experience. The purpose of this paper is toreexamine the main ideas of CLT, their cultural appropriacy when viewed through the lens of the－ 33 －

specific English teaching context in Japan, and to consider a principled approach to CLT for the native
English speaker teacher to implement in Japan, bringing about the collaboration of both explicit andimplicit learning processes. A discussion on how such principles could be realized and applied to specifictextbook material will also be considered.
2. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
According to Richards and Rogers[2] (2001) Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) came about due
to a realization of the need to pay attention to communicative proficiency rather than solely knowledgeof discrete linguistic structures that had gone before, with the process of communication as animportant end-product. The main difference between the audio linguistic approach and CLT is theformer relied on the psychological construct of behaviorism, whereas the latter only followed thepremise of “learning through doing” and an emphasis placed on “situational meaning.” Lacking any
single authoritative source, CLT went solely on trust that communicative language ability developed
through the engagement of meaningful “communicative tasks.” In fact it was this lack of clarity
surrounding situational meaning coupled with a lack of any psychological grounding in language
acquisition to inform a teaching method that resulted in the various interpretations of CLT. Thisbrought about the extremes of a no-grammar approach contrasting severely with an acknowledgementthat both functional and structural components of language should be addressed.

A general set of principles of CLT learning theory includes:x

Language learnt by communicatingx

Authentic and meaningful activitiesx

A premium on fluencyxCommunication produced through integrative language skillsx

Learning from trial and error through creative communicative risk-taking.

3. Ellis on the cultural appropriateness of CLT
Ellis[1] (1996) discusses the challenge of transferring teaching styles between cultures and how thatcan be transitioned more smoothly if an understanding of traditional “beliefs and values” is taken into
account allowing new learning to frame itself in the “learner`s world view”. A failure to do so, runs therisk of learners from traditional backgrounds devaluing new, or in this case, communicative teachingprocesses. These cultural differences are such a major cause of misunderstandings and inaccurate
perceptions of interactions, that the notion of a single Western methodological approach i.e. CLT, being
applied to every teaching situation worldwide regardless of culture is something that frankly is beyond
the scope of possibility.

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Ellis illustrates this with the Western “teacher-as-facilitator” notion which is upheld as the model
teacher-student relationship in the West. CLT places a lot of weight on process rather than content,
and meaning rather than form. Ellis regards this as “unsuitable” for both learners and teachers in Asia
who have predominantly engaged with a content approach, and whose collectivist cultures place
importance on the learning of linguistic form.
Ellis provides two bridges to these cultural divides: an “interculture” which seeks to join mutuallyaccessible elements from both cultures; and, the western teacher as “cultural mediator” whounderstands both self and learner cultural identity to uncover similarities with what look like opposing
cultural norms, and empathize with the experiences of learners. Through mediating, any professional
teaching skill they possess, can be implemented in the Asian classroom allowing them to transcend apurely theoretical stance with regard to communicative language teaching.
4. Communicative language teaching in the English language classroom in Japan
In Japan, except for the university entrance-examination preparation classes at high-school level,
where CLT is avoided, concerns for the appropriateness of CLT to other Japanese EFL contexts might
include: its efficacy; the degree to which it can be mixed with traditional approaches and needs; and theimposition of native speaker (NS) language ideology, with its culturally-affiliated definition of“communication” in commercially-produced, global textbooks. As mentioned, the cultural appropriacy ofthe communicative approach is something that must be considered if its influence is to find its way into
non-Western pedagogical contexts. In Japan, for example, traditionally the teacher is viewed as “anexpert and leader” (not a facilitator) due to a cultural expectation of teacher-centred learning, and there
is also a need to qualify a definition of “communicative competence” in the Japanese EFL context([3]Hedge, 2001). Furthermore, in agreement with Ellis, Hedge urges practitioners to be more sensitive
to specific contexts, relinquish a firm reliance on CLT and shape teaching practices accordingly,
achieving a balance between teacher-held belief of methodology and “contextual conditions” formulatinga “situated pedagogy”, prioritizing the context rather than teacher beliefs.
It is clear then that a CLT approach which is more amenable to traditional pedagogical contexts should
be sought i.e. an approach which offers plenty of explicit language input within a systematic learning
framework. The Principled Communicative Approach, which tries to counterbalance a focus on formand communicative meaning may certainly provide some of the answers to a native English teacher inJapan.
5. A Principled Communicative Approach
As discussed, CLT classrooms have recently shifted towards creating a naturalistic environment inwhich supposedly language acquisition occurs following copious authentic input as is the case in which
the mother tongue is learned. This happens well with L1 learning but is not mirrored in an untaught
L2 learning environment of a school ([4]Dörnyei, 2013).
Lightbrown and Spada[5](2006:176), categorically state:－ 35 －

“we do not find support for the hypothesis that language acquisition will take care of itself if
second language learners simply focus on meaning in comprehensible input.”
With this in mind, the Principled Communicative Approach (PCA) highlights a need for explicit
instruction to clarify form or provide controlled practice pushing learners past basic communication
towards a desired target ability. This explicit learning process is not meant to replace implicit learning
but rather focus on the two processes working together. This integration is realized with a focus onform and form-focused instruction, fluency and automatization, and formulaic language.
5.1 Focus on form and form-focused instruction
Learning a language can be viewed as a deliberate or incidental unconscious action known as explicit
and implicit learning respectively. It is this latter view that has given rise to the belief that creatingclassroom environments which simulate naturalistic learning conditions must be salient because itcomes near to L1 language acquisition to substantiate its validity. However, despite the powerfulpotential for infants acquiring an L1, it has been shown that for efficient L2 acquisition an
instructional approach is far more effective than relying on meaning of “comprehensible input([5]Lightbown and Spada 2006). Explicit learning centering on a focus on form, not just L2 exposure, isnecessary to produce communicatively effective learners moving towards target-like L2 ability.
This does not mean however that with recent shifts towards the inclusion of more explicit practices that
implicit learning should be replaced, but rather it is important to combine the two approaches. The
focus on form within a meaning-focused CLT approach does not mean a total return to grammar
though, but rather the inclusion of language issues (grammar). Ellis. R.[6] (2008:420) calls this the‘strong interface position’, one in which ‘explicit knowledge converts to implicit knowledge throughpractice’ or a shift from declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge, i.e. not learning through doing,
but learning, then doing. This finds its roots in cognitive skill-learning theory, which highlights theimportance of using declarative knowledge to encode or internalize a particular skill before actual
practice takes place.
5.2 Fluency and automatization
After the initial declarative input stage with rules and examples to begin the internalization process,there follows a practice period which starts controlled with intensive repetition of meaningful language,
and progresses to semi-controlled activities, ending with free practice despite the inclusion of an
explicit language framework.
5.3 Formulaic language
Formulaic language chunks are consciously learned with the intention of greatly increasing
automatized fluent language production. Memorized as single units, they are retrieved quickly in realtime production. Native speakers of a language have at their disposal thousands of preassembled－ 36 －

language chunks to use as conversational building blocks. The cognitive ease by which these chunks areaccessed allow the speaker to simultaneously manage the entire act of communication by allowing moreplanning to be channeled into discourse. For L2 learners, however, the lack of such language chunksmeans sentences are mostly created from the individual word level, which requires greater cognitive
capacity which in turn distances them from nativelike Áuency, ([7]Nattinger and DeCarrico, 1992).
5.4 The Seven Principles
Dörnyei [4] (2013) distills these ideas into seven principles to embody both explicit and implicit
learning mechanisms that resonate with current research beliefs for taught second language
acquisition to form a systematic psychological concept. The seven guiding principles in the Principled
Communicative Approach are as follows:
1. The personal significance principle - personal meaning imbued communication. A major facet oflearner-centered CLT from the outset.
2. The controlled practice principle - practice of discrete skills to strengthen the automatization ofan L2, similar to a musician or athlete practicing to improve performance.
3. The declarative input principle - explicit input such as memorizing lists of vocabulary to initiate
the automatization process.
4. The focus-on-form principle - analysis of the formal or structural aspect of an L2 to promote
linguistic, discursive and pragmatic accuracy and appropriacy, while balancing the inclusion of
meaningful-based activities.
5. The formulaic language principle - encouraging learner noticing of formulaic language andpracticing them to increase automaticity.
6. The language exposure principle - encouraging extensive exposure to L2 input to activate
learner implicit learning processes enhanced by pre-task activities.
7. The focused interaction principle - the provision of real L2 interaction, centered on an
identifiable formal or functional purpose making use of target phrases.
Dörnyei sums this up as "a creative integration of meaningful communication with relevant declarative
input and the automatization of both linguistic rules and lexical items."
In many ways, these principles are already utilized to varying degrees in most modern commerciallyproduced textbooks. As previously mentioned, textbooks have recently come under fire with newteaching approaches such as Dogme ELT which have sought to marginalize the efficacy of a textbookbased pedagogy by identifying itself with a strong version of CLT with its fluency-first approach and－ 37 －

aligning itself with task-based learning with a retrospective stance on grammar input ([8]Meddings
and Thornbury, 2009). The fact that PCA aligns itself with up-to-date psycholinguistic researchpertaining to skill-learning theory, should allow the textbook to once again find legitimacy among
teachers, giving them confidence to use explicit input before practice takes place.

6. Applying PCA in a Japanese EFL context
The above Principles are a clear way to integrate two previously opposed pedagogies i.e. a more
traditional teacher-fronted directly-taught approach common in Japan with a meaning focused CLT,
and multiple activities could cover all seven of them. As mentioned above, modern commercially
produced textbooks offer many opportunities to utilize PCA. To illustrate this, unit six from Cuttingedge Pre-intermediate, Third edition (Oxford University Press, 2016), a typical commercially-produced
communicative textbook, will be used to examine to what extent the seven PCA Principles can beutilized, and provide several suggestions for expansion for the following aims provided by the material:x

Vocabulary - going holiday; describing holidays;xGrammar - plans and intentions; predictions with will and won’t;xTask - Choose a holiday.

x

Opportunities for intensive listening and reading.

6.1 Vocabulary
The title of Unit six is “Going Away” and starts with vocabulary input for going on holiday (vacation in
American English). There are three exercises, with exercise 2 being an opportunity for declarative
input by providing a list of items that could be packed for a holiday – Principle 3 (P3). Further practiceof this input is in the workbook section at the back of the textbook. Students could learn this list either
for homework or in class then use the gap-fill exercises provided to test them. This first page ofvocabulary also provides opportunities for P1, 3, 5 and 7 to be utilized. This is a useful combination ofprinciples which reoccur throughout any textbook sequence where students are required to talk about
their own experiences in relation to the topic as either a warmer or as semi-controlled practice. In thisparticular incidence, the learners are asked to talk about the different kinds of holidays they can see inthe photos provided, say which they prefer and why, then discuss questions relating to the frequency of
their weekends away (if any), the location and who they go with. There is naturally plenty of scope for“personal significance” (P1). By complying with a Japanese cultural need for a teacher-led pedagogy,
the teacher inputs sentence frames to help guide the students in their interactions (P3) which will tend
to be formulaic (P5). These can be drilled and practiced using the teacher as model. As the exchange of
information is real, this also provides focused interaction (P7).

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Exercise 3, referring to the list of items in exercise 2 again, students are instructed in pairs to selectfive things plus two others of their own choice not on the list. Again, the teacher provides language tohelp what is essentially a negotiation process between the two learners: I think it’s a good idea to take~ because ~; I want to take ~ ; I intend to take ~; I’d rather take ~. This language is dealt with in thefollowing section on grammar, and the expressions are naturally formulaic (P5).
6.2 Grammar
The grammar input (P4), also has a corresponding workbook section page at the back of the book where
further attention to form can be practiced. As well as providing a focus on form, there is also an
opportunity to practice discrete skills, such as listening and reading (P2). The first exercise (1a)provides statements relating to holidays which students have to mark as either true or false. This list
could be dictated by the teacher to give listening practice. Exercise 1b has a short article about packing
a suitcase. There is a variety of numerical data which lends itself to listening or reading practice bymeans of a cloze. Exercise 1c asks if students are an organized or disorganized person. This once again
provides practice for P1, 3 and 5, with its need for interaction with personal significance and theteacher providing formulaic phrases and discourse markers to scaffold the interaction. P6 could also be
included here with its language exposure principle. Exercise 1b introduced the theme of suitcase
packing which could be expanded on with material taken from another source for example, elllo.org(English Listening Lesson Library Online). This is listening material available on the internet with its
own audio-scripts and quizzes. For example, Lesson #895 “Packed” is just under two minutes long andis about someone who lives out of a suitcase. The material provides students with vocabulary such as:

prolific traveler; live out of a suitcase; days gone by; personal hygiene; and necessities, and could serve
as homework with students practicing reading aloud or shadowing, with teacher feedback in thefollowing lesson.
Exercise 2 presents eight sentences on the theme of holiday preparations beginning with a combinationof the following stems: I’d like to~; I’d rather (not)~ ; I’m planning to ~; I’m (not) going to~ one such

example is: I’d rather not write a list of things I need to pack. This activity could be done as a read

aloud information gap activity with one student having the odd number sentences; the other having
even numbers. This would be P2 offering controlled practice with the teacher emphasizing the highfrequency of such language being formulaic (P5). This language is specifically analyzed for its meaning
with the students selecting the closest in meaning of the two options to the sentence:

I’m going to take a taxi to the airport.
I want to take / I intend to take a taxi to the airport.
As is often the case with communicative textbooks, the method by which attention is given to form isindirect instruction (the textbook supplies language examples to illustrate the target structure forlearners to 'discover' the rule for themselves, inductively. In this case, the students have to notice thefollowing verb form after the stem, i.e. infinitive with or without “to”. To practice this (P4), the textbook－ 39 －

offers a specific Practice section in which students should make a six-item questionnaire about going
away, from prompts such as:(plan/have) any days or weekends away in the near future? Who (plan/go) with?
Students ask each other the six questions and provide real information when answering (P7).

Depending on their ability the teacher could provide formulaic answer stems such as: Nothing definite,

but I’ll probably end up ~ ing ~ with ~.(P5)

If students require further controlled practice before making the questionnaire, there are two exercises
included in the workbook section at the back of the textbook to further consolidate the form.
Alternatively, these could be used as a review by completing them as is, and then again as a later
review as dictation. This follows P2 by giving sufficient controlled practice to move learners towards
their automatization of the language.
6.3 Task
The task is to choose a holiday from five location options. As a warmer exercise, students are told thatthey are planning a long weekend with friends, and asked to think of places they could go to and thedifferent activities they could do there. This is an opportunity for P1,3 and 5 to be utilized. This

necessitates language for suggesting, stating and asking preferences, and agreeing and disagreeing,
and will be needed in the main task. Most of the required language is provided on the opposite pageunder the heading Useful Language except for suggesting which is easily supplemented with stems

such as, Why don’t we~; We could ~; How about ~ing~?

Without drawing attention to the Useful Language the teacher can input some phrases from there tohelp complete the warmer activity (P3). These will be used again for the main task, so initial exposure
at this stage is important to help begin the shift from declarative to procedural knowledge.
Students read information about the competition rules and holiday locations and answer six
comprehension questions. Proceeding this, students listen to two friends choosing a location andanswer two comprehension questions. The teacher could allow students to listen numerous times andprovide a listening cloze specifically targeting the language from the Useful Language. Students thenmove on to actually carrying out the task of choosing a location for a holiday in groups (P2). The groups
are split up and reformed into new groups with students sharing which location their first group chose
and why (P2). Students could then individually video themselves explaining their choices with ahomework assignment of transcribing the text and analyzing it for grammatical accuracy and a general
focus on form (P4).
7. Conclusion
PCA offers a situated-pedagogy for the Japanese EFL context allowing the balance between form andcontent, and process and meaning to be readdressed thus creating a culturally appropriate form of
CLT.

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The most important thing about PCA is to utilize practice opportunities to allow a shift in focus fromexplicit form-focused activities to communicative exercises. Where explicit attention to L2 form isrequired it should be practiced intensively and sufficiently to maximize the successful outcomes ofcommunicative meaningful utterances within a specific target language framework which allow thelearner to gradually move toward a target-like second language ability.

8. References[1] Ellis, G (1996) How culturally appropriate is the communicative approach?
ELT J (1996) 50(3): 213-218[2] Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2001) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[3]Hedge, T. (2001) Teaching and learning in the language classroom (Vol. 106). Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
[4] Dörnyei, Z. (2013). Communicative Language Teaching in the twenty-first century: The 'Principled
Communicative Approach'. In J. Arnold & T. Murphey (Eds.), Meaningful action: Earl Stevick's
influence on language teaching (pp. 161-171). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[5] Lightbown, M. and Spada, N. (2006) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[6] Ellis, R. 2008. The Study of Second Language Acquisition (second edition). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

[7] Nattinger, J. R. and J. S. DeCarrico. (1992). Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
[8] Meddings, L. and Thornbury, S. (2009) Teaching Unplugged, London: Delta－ 41 －