Masaryk university, brno faculty of education

2.1 History of Communicative Language Teaching 
According to Richards and Rodgers (1986) “The origins of Communicative Language 
Teaching (CLT) are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating 
from the 1960s” (p. 64). They add that this approach had replaced Situational Language 
Teaching, which represented the most widely used approach towards teaching English as a 
foreign language in Britain at that time (Richards and Rodgers, 1986, p. 64). Emphasis started 
to be given not on teaching and mastering language structures and their application in 
meaningful situation-based activities, but on the communication aspect of the language, in other 
words on how to become able to communicate fluently in various real-life situations.
Richards and Rodgers (1986) see the changing situation throughout Europe in the 
second half of the twentieth century and growing interdependence of European countries as one 
of the reasons for attempts to find more modern approach towards teaching English as a foreign 
language (p. 64-65). These ideas spread rapidly especially thanks to the work of the Council of 
Europe and British applied linguists such as Wilkins, Widowson, Candlin, Brumfit or Johnson, 
who formulated theoretical basis for approach to teaching a foreign language later known as 
the Communication Approach or Communicative Language Teaching (Richards and Rodgers, 
1986, p. 65-66). 
Communicate Language Teaching did not remain applied only in Britain, but it began 
to be used and adapted in many other countries, including the USA. Apart from other 

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approaches and methods, according to Richards and Rodgers (1986) “There is no single text or 
authority on it, nor any single model that is universally accepted as authoritative” (p. 66). It can 
be concluded that there are many interpretations of this approach throughout the world. As an 
example, Howatt’s theory of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ versions of CLT can be chosen. 
Howatt (1984) claims that:
There is, in a sense, a ‘strong’ version of the communicative approach and a ‘weak’ 
version. The weak version which has become more or less standard practice in the last 
ten years, stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use their 
English for communicative purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such 
activities into a wider program of language teaching…. The ‘strong’ version of 
communicative teaching, on the other hand, advances the claim that language is acquired 
through communication, so that it is merely a question of activating an existing but inert 
knowledge of the language, but of stimulating the development of the language system 
itself. (p. 279) 
Richards and Rodgers acknowledge the fact that there are many various interpretations 
of Communicative Language Teaching approach, on the other hand they try to search for 
similarities among the different interpretations. 
They state that: 
Common to all versions of Communicative Language Teaching, however, is a theory 
of language teaching that starts from a communicative model of language and language 
use, and that seeks to translate this into a design for an instructional system, for 
materials, for teacher and learner roles and behaviors, and for classroom activities and 
techniques. (Richards and Rodgers, 1986, p. 69) 

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