Communicative language teaching in EFL contextthe case of Omani universities

Resumen

This study aimed to analyze and understand teachers’ and learners’ attitudes towards Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach in a foreign language context in higher education in Oman. “CLT represents a philosophy of teaching based on communicative language use and is defined as an approach to foreign or second language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative competence and which seeks to make meaningful communication and language use a focus of all classroom activities” (Richards & Schmidt, 2002:90). The focus of this study has been decided to be on teachers’ and learners’ attitudes towards CLT due to the important roles that both teachers and learners play in the success of any innovation in the field of education. In the literature review, learners’ attitudes play a strong role in determining the success of innovations in instructional practices (Savignon and Wang, 2003). Moreover “research on teachers’ beliefs is crucial in determining the way teachers understand and organize instruction” (Yavuz, 2007: 302). In addition to that, this study is considered as an evaluative study to explore teachers' implication of CLT and the impact of this implication on students "communicative competence", which is considered as an ultimate goal of communicative language teaching in a foreign langue context (FL). The importance of this study is due to its significance to come up with a clear understanding of teachers’ and learners’ beliefs considering teaching and learning process. It also aims to specify the impact of CLT as an effective teaching approach in English as a foreign language (EFL) among higher education students and to specify any difficulties or challenges that might hinder CLT implementation in the Omani context. To achieve this, a quantitative study had been used to collect data from both teachers and learners. The participants of this study were 631 students (189 male and 391 female) who were enrolled in Intensive English language programs (IELP) in Foundation Institute (FI) in two Universities (210 students from public university and 421 students from private university) and those participants were from three different English proficiency levels (247 level 1, 155 level 2 and 229 level 3). The teachers participating were twenty four, who were teaching those groups of learners; mainly 66.7% of them were native English speakers while 33.3% were non-native speakers of English language working in higher education in Oman. In terms of teachers’ beliefs towards CLT principles, the results showed that teachers had positive attitudes towards CLT principles in general and teachers showed more preference attitudes towards group and pair work. Furthermore the descriptive statistics results about teachers’ beliefs of CLT difficulties and challenges indicated that student related difficulties and challenges are considered as a major challenging to implement CLT in Omani context. Additionally, we found that teachers’ beliefs about CLT principles correlated inversely and statistically significant with perceived difficulties of implementing CLT. In other words, the participants who reported most positive attitudes towards CLT encountered less challenges and difficulties in relation to students, teachers, education system and CLT approach itself. In addition to that, regarding teachers’ perceptions of CLT practice, firstly, the results showed that communicative language teaching approach was the most common approach used in the classroom compared to other teaching methods such as grammar translation, the audiolingual, and the direct method. Secondly, in terms of teachers’ perception about CLT practice, teachers perceived their classroom practice to be more towards practicing strategic competence and CLT principles which encourage more collaborative work and communication in English. On the other hand, teachers perceived their classroom practice to be less towards sociolinguistic and intercultural competences and also less practice of CLT principles which focused on using authentic materials and genuine communication. In general, the results indicated that there was more practice of grammatical and strategic competences, and less practice of sociolinguistic and intercultural competences. In addition to investigating teachers’ perceptions about CLT practice; teachers’ perception about CLT impact on students’ learning and motivation was studied. The descriptive results showed that CLT impact on students’ cognitive changes recorded the highest mean; then it was flowed by CLT Impact on students’ affective change motivation towards learning language. On the other hand, the results showed that CLT negative impact was recorded the lowest mean score. Therefore teachers believed that CLT had a positive impact on developing students’ learning skills and CLT also had an impact on students’ motivationThe correlation between teachers’ perception of CLT practice and their perceptions of CLT impact on learning and motivation was also studied. There was a statistically significant and quite strong positive correlation between teachers’ perceptions of what they did in their classes associated with CLT and their perceptions of its effect on students’ development cognitively and affectively. The results emphasized the apparent impact of CLT on students’ learning and motivation towards learning English in the Omani context. In addition to studying teachers’ perceptions, learners’ perception about classroom practice was also investigated. The analysis revealed that students perceived classroom’s practice to be more oriented towards using strategic and grammatical competence and less towards sociolinguistic and intercultural competences. The study also included factors which influence students’ perceptions about what is practiced in their classes. In terms of learners’ perceptions about CLT impact, students’ mean responses associated with CLT impact on students’ cognitive changes and affective changes and motivation towards learning language was higher, compared to negative impact of CLT. The correlation between students’ perceptions about communicative language teaching practice in their classes and students’ perceptions about CLT impact on students’ learning and motivation was statistically significant, quite strong and positive.