Communicative Language Teaching

I really liked reading this article.  It provided examples of what not to do and was sort of like a FAQ and answered all of my questions in CLT.  It provided several activities that we as future TESOL teachers can utilize.  I think that emphasis on communicative language teaching is the best way to teach a language, "-knowing when and how to say what to whom."  "If teachers intend studentsto use the target language, then they must truly understand all that being communicateively competent entails."  I totally agree with the Communicative Approach in that communicative competence is the goal of language teaching.  I do think that there was a lack of emphasis on being able to use the language academically, being able to read and write in it, etc.  However, I think the most important aspect of learning a language is the communcation aspect.  I particularly liked the section, "Thinking About the Experience" because it broke down what each observation meant and how it should be interpreted in association with the communicative approach to language teaching.  The first observation stated is perhaps one that should be prioritized.  "The teacher distributes a handout that has a copy of a sports column from a recent newspaper."  The principle of this is "Whenever possible, authentic language'-language as it is used in a real context-should be introduced."  The reason I believe this should be prioritized is because of its' relevance to learning another language.  Sometimes, when saying something in another language or translating, words or sayings sound funny.  Especially for me teaching a high school class, students might laugh or joke about it.  This takes away from the learning experience and what they get out of the lesson and what they learn of the language overall.  So, using authentic language would hopefully prevent that and show students real situations where the target language is used; how, when, where, etc. (this shows the context).