Learning an additional language

Abstract

In today's highly inter-connected world, the principal reason for learning an additional language (L2) as part of the educational endeavor is for learners to be able to communicate with first language speakers in the target language. This impetus for L2 learning saw the emergence of so-called Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), or the “communicative approach,” starting around the late 1960s and persevering into the present. CLT represented an alternative to strongly grammar-focused or literature-oriented “academic” programs that had dominated L2 teaching and learning up to that time and is now established across the world as a leading paradigm for L2 teaching and learning. In the context of broader debates about human learning and development, CLT does not represent a single approach or method. Rather, CLT acts as an overarching label for a range of approaches. These approaches have in common the goal of developing learners' communicative competence in the L2. However, since the early beginnings of CLT, these approaches have developed different emphases and gone in several contrasting directions. The purpose of this article is to present key aspects of the development of CLT, in both theory and practice. The article provides a historical account of CLT's emergence alongside contemporary implications. It considers L2 learning in both naturalistic environments where the L2 and the language of the majority of the community may be the same (so-called second language contexts) and environments where the L2 is not the same as the language of the majority of the community (so-called foreign language contexts). Regardless of context, this article is concerned with what goes on to support language learning in classrooms (instructed L2 learning). The article also explores some of the tensions that have emerged as theorists, researchers, and teachers have attempted to identify the ideal conditions for L2 learning from a communicative perspective.