THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSES: HOW COMMUNICATIVE ARE THEY?

Abstract

For many years, communicative language teaching (CLT) has been one of the most effective methods in second language and foreign language teaching. Based on this idea, this study takes the ideas and practices of English teachers on the Communicative Language Teaching Approach into account and examines the effects of communicative practices of teachers during their educational activities. The objective of this study is to reveal how much a course book is written with the communicative approach. In the present study the “Descriptive Approach” was used. The study data was obtained from Istanbul Aydin University, School of Foreign Languages, teachers who teach first grades. A questionnaire consisting of eight questions on how effective teachers can use communication-oriented language teaching methods and techniques during the teaching process was employed to obtain the data. As a result of the questionnaire, together with the analysis of the data obtained, it is seen that although participants adopt a positive attitude towards communicative language instruction for teaching staff, they do not use this approach fully effectively. It appears that the course books are generally written in the communicative approach, but the students are unable to transfer the classroom practices into real life. So it is seen that the book is considered as non-communicative and does not reflect real life. These findings support the contention that instructors are adopting the communicative approach in practice as it is given in the textbooks but the students are unable to communicate in real life since this knowledge is not put to use neither in class nor outside the class.