The communicative method or communicative approach to language teaching is not a new method at all: it appeared abroad around the 60s of the last century, and came to our country around the mid-90s. Then all those studying English began to complain that “they understand, but they can’t speak.” The adherents of the communicative approach embarked on the path of combating this nonsense.

Initially, the communicative method implied group lessons with a native speaker. From the very first lesson, teaching was conducted in English. Later, the approach underwent some changes, and now it is used both in groups and in individual lessons.

Like any other method of learning a language, the communicative approach has transformed over time, but its fundamental principles have not changed:

• The student begins to speak English from the first lesson. Even those who study the language from scratch master a couple of dozen phrases in the first lesson. This allows you to quickly get used to the sound of speech, prevents the emergence or eliminates the language barrier.
• Accuracy and Fluency – literate and fluent speech. Studying a language using this method, you will not have to choose: to speak freely or to speak correctly. Speech will be fluent and literate at the same time.
• Only modern authentic teaching aids are used in training. Carefully developed English-language textbooks contain fascinating and, most importantly, practical material that you can use in life.
• The teacher goes through three stages of training with the student: engagement, study and activation. At the engagement stage, the teacher involves the student in the learning process: initiates a fascinating discussion, offers to discuss a picture, etc. At the study stage, the grammar topic and the use of new words and expressions are explained to the student, that is, they work on expanding vocabulary and mastering grammar. At the knowledge activation stage, the student does various exercises to consolidate new grammar and words. This may be a continuation of the discussion of the topic being studied, but already with the application of the knowledge gained [1].

The main objective of the communicative method is to help the student get rid of the language barrier. About 70% of the lesson on the communicative method is devoted to conversational practice on various topics. This technique allows not only to “adapt” to the use of a foreign language, but also to stop mentally translating Russian phrases into a foreign language and vice versa. The method helps to remove both the language and psychological barrier: students lose their fear of speaking a foreign language. The more and more often a student speaks a foreign language, the faster he learns to formulate his thoughts. In classes using the communicative method, students communicate in a foreign language for most of the lesson. The teacher builds the dialogue in such a way that it is interesting for students to answer questions so that they can make the most of the knowledge they have gained. The communicative method teaches coherent speech, various conversational phrases and cliches, which subsequently allow them to speak fluently. Students learn not only to hear, but also to understand foreign speech. To this end, they listen to and analyze short audio and video materials together with the teacher during classes. Such material is usually used as a basis for discussion [2].

Another feature of the communicative approach is the change in the role of the teacher in teaching English. The teacher is no longer at the center of the educational process, as it was before, when it was the teacher who spoke most of the lesson, explaining the rules and dictating new material to be recorded. Now the focus is on the students and their communication with each other.

But the role of the teacher is still very important and includes:

• Creating numerous opportunities for communication in the lesson;
• Maintaining a friendly atmosphere in the group, in which it is not scary to speak (and, therefore, inevitably make mistakes);
• Inventing tasks and providing clear and understandable instructions for them;
• Maintaining student motivation;
• Monitoring student progress, correcting mistakes and providing feedback [3].

The communicative method of learning English is most suitable for those who are already familiar with the language at some (even small) level, but want to learn to communicate fluently and competently in English, learn to think in English right away, improve their pronunciation, read books in English fluently and watch their favorite films and TV shows without subtitles. In addition, learning using the communicative approach method will be a good choice for those who want language lessons to be lively and fun, because most of the lesson is spent on practice, skits and live communication [4].

Let’s consider the main advantages of the communicative approach for students:

• The approach is focused on students, not on the teacher. Students work actively for most of the lesson: they perceive the language (listen and read) and use it (speak and write their own texts, the latter to a lesser extent). They learn independence in real speech situations with the unobtrusive help of the teacher. After all, in real life they will need to achieve their communicative goal – to explain themselves to a real person with the grammar and vocabulary they have without a teacher nearby.
• With this approach, students have a clear goal for learning the language: to use it in life in various situations. Having a clear goal and the ability to use the language usefully even at the initial stages of learning is an excellent motivator and does not allow you to abandon learning.
• As a rule, authentic language materials are used in classes, i.e., created by native speakers for non-educational purposes (various videos, podcasts, songs, articles, fiction, interviews, etc.) Sometimes they can be adapted to the level of students, but the understanding that this is not an educational text, but one that actually exists and was written for native speakers, adds additional interest and motivation for learning.
• With this approach, grammar and vocabulary are also better learned. Firstly, students try to derive the rules themselves or guess the meaning of new words. Secondly, they actively use them in speech situations where they are appropriate and necessary, i.e., in context. All this contributes to much better memorization.
• And finally, studying with this approach is simply more enjoyable and fun. Diverse and interesting authentic materials, constant participation in the communication process, rather than boring copying of rules into a notebook, constant interaction with classmates in pairs and groups, the presence of educational games and modeling of real-life situations – all this makes the lesson inspiring and exciting for the student [3].

Despite the large number of advantages, the communicative approach has a number of disadvantages [5]:

• Superficial knowledge of grammar. In class, only a brief, understandable explanation of a particular grammatical phenomenon is given, with the emphasis on bringing the use of a grammatical construction to automatism, so that the student can apply it “without thinking”. This leads to insufficient knowledge of sentence construction and word forms, as a result of which the student will not be able to adequately use the acquired knowledge in work that requires professional proficiency in a foreign language.
• The ability to maintain a conversation only on general conversational topics, which is insufficient for work in the professional field;
• Difficulty in students adapting to classes without an intermediary language;
• Rejection of this method by some adult students. In the context of Russian realities, this method still causes bewilderment among adults who received knowledge at school or at university using the grammar-translation method and expect to “cram” the rules;
• Inability to fully immerse oneself in the language environment. The absence of a real English-speaking environment both in and outside the classroom, different views on the personality of the learner, and the socio-cultural foundations of the types of activities in communicative teaching mean that teachers must critically perceive the ideas of communicative learning in order to develop tasks that are suitable for their students [6];
• Duration of training courses. Modern intensive methods offer 3 months to master one level of language proficiency, which in practice turns out to be insufficient, and the student, not having time to consolidate the knowledge gained, begins to experience difficulties and increasingly encounters misunderstanding.

There is no method that can guarantee knowledge forever. But after completing a course of classes where non-traditional methods were used, forgetting often occurs even faster. This is due to the fact that such lessons are mainly conversational. The main problem with non-traditional methods is how not to lose intensively acquired practical skills without being able to regularly apply them in real life. The main problem with the traditional method is how to bring the acquired extensive knowledge to the level of practical skills [7].

Imitation of real foreign language communication allows to overcome the psychological barrier, but in the flow of foreign language speech, students, as a rule, make many grammatical errors. Thus, it can be concluded that the effectiveness of the communicative method is observed in those cases when it is skillfully combined with the traditional methodology of teaching a foreign language.