Communicative Approach to Teaching Programming

Abstract

There are many different theoretical researches, which deal with the content and quality of teaching. Their common aim is to improve the quality of teaching both for students and pedagogues. The aim of the paper is to give the basic information about methods of the communicative approach to teaching, in teaching programming. The communicative approach to teaching (CAT) is based on the optimization of the amount and retention of knowledge, and the character of subject matter achieved by the higher motivation of students, and applying the knowledge in a real context. The communicative approach to teaching exploits a broad spectrum of methods, which support the general development of instructional ability of students, independent and cooperative solving of problems, and also object teaching. The centre of teaching is created by methods which use mutual communication, together with solving problems in pairs and in groups, and processes elaborating the independent solving of problems. The purpose of this paper is to suggest applying the CAT method with some patent description mainly used in teaching foreign languages, to teaching programming by means of the Java programming language. Keywords: Communicative approach, teaching, computer programming, computing education, communication, Java, programming languages