Reconsideration on CLT in College English: Theory and Practice

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which is believed in many counties to be a successful method to train communicative competence, has been more widely talked about and practiced in college English teaching since its being first introduced in China in 1980s. However, during about 2 decades of practice, Communicative Language Teaching has met with some inevitable difficulties and barriers. Considering the current impossibility of removing those difficulties and barriers such as the unfavorable learning environment and inconsistent testing system within years, we suggest that an eclectic approach be brought into college English teaching as the present expedient. It is an integration of the revolutionary Communicative Language Teaching principles and traditional Grammar-Translation Method, in coordination with Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Key words: communicative competence, Communicative Language Teaching, Grammar-Translation Method, Computer-Assisted Language Learning, Eclecticism Resume: L’approche communicative dans l’enseignement des langues, qui est consideree comme une methode reussie d’exercer la competence communicative, a ete beaucoup discutee et pratiquee dans l’enseignement de l’anglais universitaire depuis son introduction en Chine dans les annees 1980. Cependant, durant les deux decades de pratique, l’approche communicative a connu des difficultes et barrieres inevitables. Etant donne l’impossibilite d’eliminer dans les prochaines annees ces difficultes et barrieres telles que l’environnement defavorable de l’apprentissage et le systeme de test inegal, nous proposons d’introduire l’approche eclectique comme expedient dans l’enseignement de l’anglais. C’est une integration de l’approche communicative et la methode traditionnelle de grammaire-traduction, qui a combine aussi l’apprentissage des langues avec l’assistance de l’ordinateur. Mots-Cles: competence communicative, approche communicative, methode de grammaire-traduction, apprentissage des langues avec l’assistance de l’ordinateur, eclectisme