Episode 5: Communicative Language Teaching with EAP higher education students

This episode addresses the challenge of the communicative language teaching (CLT) classroom for EAP students who have no familiarity with this teaching approach. Not only do these students need to decode language, but then they must determine whether the language is the target language for the lesson, the metalanguage to discuss the target language, or classroom language giving direction and instructions. Hence, the CLT classroom, contrary to its goal of inclusivity, becomes overwhelming and daunting for such students.

Cao Liu, an EAP lecturer at a transnational education university in China, joins me today to provide more insight into the EAP students who are failing their EAP courses. She speaks specifically of Chinese mainland students who are unfamiliar with CLT classrooms and struggle with the language and the expectations. She also gives some suggestions of how EAP lecturers can address the struggles of these students. 

https://ontesol.com/communicative-approach/

A helpful summary article "Revisiting communicative competence" by Shona Whyte can be retrieved at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1290295.pdf 

The CEFR, to which I often refer, is available here in connection to classroom learning https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/cefr-in-the-classroom