Communicative Approach Analysis

Before getting into the main issues of using the Communicative Approach in the English Teaching in Costa Rica and how using it could improve the pronunciation of students who are learning a second language it is important to know what the “Communicative Approach” is. The main idea of the Communicative Approach is for the student, the learner, to communicate efficiently in different scenarios, in other words, increase the learners´ communicative competence. In order to achieve this it is necessary for the learner to increase her/his competence in four areas: “listening, speaking, reading and writing” (Beltrán-Palanques, 2012). This method has been broadly recognized as one of the most, if not the most, appropriate model when teaching a second

“Transaction refers to the type of spoken situations which usually involve information-exchange in which attention is paid to what is said or done. Interaction is concerned with the use of language as a social event. In this respect, some of the main features of this type of language function are those of social function, reflection on participants’ role and speakers’ identity, use of conversational conventions, degree of politeness, and use of both generic words and conversational register. Performance is defined as a public talk in which speakers convey meaning and information to an audience. This particular type of language function is presented in the form of a monologue which is characterized by showing a concrete organization and sequencing of the spoken discourse in which form, accuracy and content matters.” (Beltrán-Palanques, 2012). Basically there are three ways in which we talk to each other, and they can be divided based on the situation, for example, if we are talking to a friend, a boss, or giving a

Pretty similar to listening, here the bottom-up model implies for the learner to pay attention to the smallest units giving on a text to create meaning out of that information, top-down model views reading as an “active” process in which the learner needs to activate a “their cognitive process to achieve full comprehension” (Beltrán-Palanques, 2012), basically creating an image of what is going to happen on the reading based on the learners´ background knowledge. And finally the interactive process is basically a combination of the previous two mentioned, it is said to be the most appropriate model in reading as the learner will achieve full