Design considerations for CMC tools within a course management system based on communicative language teaching

Abstract

The Communicative Approach to language teaching and learning puts learners' communicative competence as the primary goal of instruction. Also known as communicative language teaching (CLT), it takes into account, and emphasizes, the social and communicative aspects of language learning. This paper will discuss the design considerations for a Course Management System (CMS) based on the major principle of the Communicative Approach: communication as the goal and process. The discussion will primarily center on the computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools within the CMS and how the principles of CLT could be used to guide the design of such tools.