May you check it please

[hashem]

Hi,I am writing in response to this question:
Describe your approach to teaching and learning language at this point of time (after having a coures in EFL teaching methods).May you check it and suggest more ideas about the way I should answer this question.

My response is:

"My teaching approach while taking Ling580 is, in away or another, the same as my approach before. Before I start elaborating, let me talk about Saudi students’ needs for learning English .English in Saudi Arabia is taught as a foreign language and the National Policy of Education has stated the aims of teaching English in Saudi Arabia as :to enable students communicate in English and though understand different cultures. As a teacher, I tended to follow the communicative language teaching approach in order to achieve these goals because there are certain techniques in it which can be useful for encouraging students to negotiate, express their needs and use the language communicatively .Besides, I have a belief that second language can be acquired but not learned so, in order to make students learn the language I have to expose them to real life situations , such as buying food at the market or asking someone for directions, where they can use and practice the language.

CLT aims at developing procedures for teaching of the four skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication. It aims at having students become communicatively competent. Communicative competence requires being able to use the language opportunity in a given social context (such as the difference between speaking with an elder and a peer). This requires the knowledge of the linguistic forms, meanings and function. Students must be able to manage the process of negotiating with their classmates. Learning a foreign language is viewed by CLT as acquiring the linguistic means to perform different kinds of functions. Four dimensions of communicative competence are identified: grammatical competence (which refers to linguistic competence), sociolinguistic competence (refers to an understanding of the social context in which communication takes place), discourse competence (refers to the interpretation of individual message elements in terms of their interconnectedness) and strategic competence (refers to the coping strategies that communicators employ to initiate).

My teaching approach becomes more student-centered than before. My role as a teacher is different from traditional teaching methods. In the traditional teaching methods (grammar-translation, direct method, and reading approach) the teacher is in charge and controls the learning .In CLT the teacher serves as more of a facilitator, allowing students to be in charge of their own learning. Activities, which students will do in class, will be driven by their needs .These activities are the ones that involve real communication and in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks to promote learning. Examples of these activities are role playing, interviews, information gap, games, surveys and pair work."