Over the last four decades, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been recognized as an ideal approach to help learners acquire a foreign language. This approach stemmed from the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s. A lot of British linguists contributed to the need for creating the Communicative Language Approach, which seeks to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching (Hymes, 1972). This approach aims to put into practice procedures for the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) that recognize the interrelation of language and communication.

Richards and Rodgers described Communicative Language Teaching as an approach rather than a method. For these theorists, CLT is a philosophy of teaching based on the communicative use of the language. In addition, the CLT approach has been advocated by many linguists as it promotes functional concepts and, especially, communicative competence, a term that creates an interdependence when talking about a communicative language approach, rather than grammatical structures, as central to teaching.

First of all, it is necessary to know the meaning of the CLT. Different researchers have presented their understandings in relation to communicative language teaching. For example, Larsen-Freeman (2000) argues that CLT refers to a theoretical view of a communicative approach by promoting communication. The author also states that communicative competence is the main objective of teaching any language, by recognizing the interdependence of communication and language.

In this sense, Savignon (1971) had already defined communicative language teaching as purposes and procedures in classroom learning, which is built on the theoretical concept: “communicative competence basically means expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning” (Savignon, 1971, p. 9).

The Communicative Language Teaching approach started from a theory of language as communication proposed by Hymes (1972), who stated that the objective of language teaching was to develop what he referred to as communicative competence. This theorist, who was the initiator of the concept of communicative competence, defined it as: “the language knowledge a speaker needs to have in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community” (Hymes, 1972, p. 282). In a few words, a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language use.

According to Richards (2006), the approach appeared during the 1970s, and its main principles at that time were the following ones:

• Make real communication the focus of language learning.
• Provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know.
• Be tolerant of learners’ errors as they indicate that the learner is building up his or her communicative competence.
• Provide opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency.
• Link the different skills such as speaking, reading, and listening together, since they usually occur so in the real world.
• Let students induce or discover grammar rules (Richards, 2006, p. 13).

In the application of these principles in the classroom, Richards (2006) asserts that new techniques and classroom activities were needed, as well as new roles for teachers and students. Instead of using activities that required memorizing exact phrases and repetition, there was a need for activities in which students could negotiate meaning and interact significantly.

In relation to this, Larsen-Freeman (1986) stated that in a communicative language class, students are actively asked to participate in negotiating meaning and in trying to make themselves understood even when their knowledge of the target language is not as complete as their own language. In doing so, students are more motivated to learn a language since they can see the immediate relevance of the language in a given social context. If they can see how classroom learning is achieving the main goal, their interest in learning is more likely to increase.

Moreover, this approach mainly focuses on the development of communicative competence as its main objective through the foreign language as a means of communication in the class sessions. In this sense, Canale and Swain (1980) explained communicative competence based on four dimensions which held importance in the Communicative Language Teaching approach. These dimensions were defined as follows:

• Grammatical competence: the ability to make good use of grammar rules established in order to produce and understand a message.
• Sociolinguistic competence: the ability to use language in any social context.
• Discourse competence: the ability to connect a set of ideas correctly to understand, interpret, and exchange messages.
• Strategic competence: the ability to use abilities and communication strategies to compensate for a lack of language (vocabulary, grammar complexity, etc.).

The main goal to be achieved when using these skills is to be able to understand and be understood at the time. Having said that, it should be clear that communicative competence needs to be the core issue when it comes to teaching a language. That is, not only grammar should be considered when teaching a language, but it is also important to pay attention to the language used and its respective functions.

Moreover, nowadays the CLT has become an important approach that is sufficiently recognized when teaching a language. This is because, when referring to foreign language learners, they cannot really learn the target language well without paying close attention to this competence.