The Communicative Approach in Teaching
Introduction: It is important for teachers and instructors to embrace the communicative approach in their teaching career. The communicative approach will enable the teacher to build strong interpersonal relationships with the students. Communication in the learning process can be described as the passing of a message from the teacher to the student and vice versa. So as to have effective communication the message from the sender must be understood and properly respond or interpret the message that has been passed. The communicative is important because it will help the teacher to build good interpersonal relationships since communication is important in all aspects of interpersonal relationships.
Through communication interpersonal interaction which teachers and require on a day to day basis will become a possibility (Florian, 2007). The communicative approach helps mould the teacher as well as the student and offers them a chance to improve their listening as well as speaking skills. Both the teacher and the student should participate in this approach of teaching. The most important part of this approach is listening. By being an active or empathetic listener. This will help the listener to properly understand and interpret what the speaker is feeling.
Active listeners enhance communication. The listeners should allow the speaker to express themselves and respect whatever ideas others have. It is important for the sake of overcoming communication barriers to set up communication channels. This can be done by the use of accurate words so as to avoid miscommunication. One must be able to seek for clarification where they don’t understand what the speaker is saying.
It is also important to get feedback from the listener (Florian, 2007). This can be used as a gauge by the speaker to gauge whether they have passed the correct message and whether their message has been understood. In the communicative approach a teacher should also take time to listen to the students. The best form of listening to the students would be through empathetic listening. Empathetic listening is also called active or reflective listening. This is achieved by listening to what a speaker has to say and responding to it appropriately by first understanding what the speaker has just passed across.
This leads to improved personal trust between the source and thelistener. It also improves mutual understanding and personal interaction. This skill is important since it ensures that the recipient clearly understands the message, interprets it so as to give a perfect response. One of the most critical parts of interaction is response or feedback. It is critical for effective communication. (Lisa, 2008) Advantages of this approach: It brings about personal trust and respect between the source of information and the recipient.
It is important in conflict resolution since it enables the people in conflict to say they really feel and hence simplifying and assisting in conflict resolution. It eliminates tension between the source and the listener and thus more information is exchanged. An empathetic listener should be willing to compromise. They should let the speaker dominate the discussion. An empathetic listener should also acknowledge the speaker. This will work to their advantage since it boosts the speaker’s confidence and thus communication will be much easier.
An empathetic listener should always be alert at all times. They should not disrupt the speaker.This helps them gain the respect of the speaker and also the speaker’s co-operation. This will reduce the speaker’s tension and the speaker will be more open with the listener. This will ensure that the listener gains more information from the speaker. The listener should also acknowledge the speaker in an encouraging way that will motivate the speaker to continue passing on information.
The listener should show complete interest in what the speaker is saying and they should create an encouraging atmosphere by the use of non verbal communication. This will encourage the speaker to carry on speaking (Lisa, 2008). An empathetic listener should be non judgmental. They should let the speaker open his or her ideas and they should not judge or critique these ideas. This can be done by avoiding a lot of questions that seem as if the listener is interrogating the speaker.
An empathetic listener should not change the subject of discussion. They should only reflect on what the speaker is saying in a bid to identify with the speaker. By identifying with the speaker the listener is able to clearly tell what the speaker is feeling (Lisa, 2008). Emotional intelligence and its role in the communicative strateegy: The communicative strategy helps build emotional intelligence in the students as well as the teacher. Emotional intelligence can be defined as a person’s understanding and capability to communicate.
Emotional intelligence is important when building good relationships with people that people surround themselves with. It is critical for one to have emotional intelligence so as to able to create and maintain interpersonal relationships. In leadership circles it is very paramount that a leader has emotional intelligence so as to be able to lead efficiently. Emotional intelligence is comprises of several abilities (Berlin, 2005). All these abilities point to how well an individual is able to understand and interpret positively their emotions and the emotions of those they are in relationships with. Emotional intelligence helps an individual to be able to accurately decipher the emotions (Egan, 2005).
These can be achieved through the following ways: Advantages of emotional intelligence: Self awareness: This can be defined as the understanding of self. It’s the ability to be able to positively identify ones emotions. It is the most important aspect of emotional intelligence since when one has a clear understanding of themselves they can be able to understand others. Students will be taught to be self aware through the use of this strategy (Berlin, 2005).Management of emotions: The next most important aspect of emotional intelligence is the ability to properly manage the emotions that they have been able to decipher.
Students especially teenagers need to learn how to manage their emotions. This kind of strategy will teach them indirectly. It is critical for one to be able to keep their emotions under wraps so as to make sure that they don’t compromise decision making capabilities (Marshall, 2009). Self motivation: This can be defined as the emotional capability of setting and achieving of set goals and objectives despite challenges that may be encountered. This is important since it leads to one achieving their goals and ambitions (Marshall, 2009). Empathy: This can be defined as the understanding of others emotions and feelings.
It is critical since by being able to understand others we are able to relate better with them.
