An overview of the approaches and methods in language teaching: A TBLT Proposal in a CLIL program

Abstract

The increase of communicative competence in foreign languages has become one of the central points of educational policies in Europe. Since 2001 it has been reported an increase in the number of students learning a first or even a second foreign language in schools (MECD, 2012). As reported by the MECD, inside the list of foreign languages offered to be studied, English is the most selected by the students. Furthermore, in Spain, the educational Administrations are promoting the development of experiences that deepen the learning of foreign languages, a clear example of this is the introduction of foreign languages as the language of instruction of other curricular subjects (i.e. Content and Language Integrated Learning programs). Since learners in a Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) class are more likely to be engaged in activities that enhance their communicative abilities (LarsenFreeman & Anderson, 2011), the final objective of this paper is to provide a teaching proposal based on the combination of both communicative approaches: a Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) proposal in a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classroom. In order to carry out the practical point it is necessary to know and understand the evolution of the Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) methods throughout a theoretical review that starts with one of the first methods developed in the early nineteenth century: The Grammar Translation Method (GTM) and concludes with the current approaches of the twentieth century: CLIL and TBLT.