Communicative Language Teaching: Students’ Understanding and Practices

Abstract

The pivotal concept in learning a foreign language is to communicate in the target language. English has been studied as a compulsory subject in Saudi Arabia to keep abreast with the international developments. Students need English for higher studies and work. Universities in Saudi Arabia have introduced activity-based syllabus to equip the students with communicative competence. In this study an effort has been made to understand the students’ beliefs about English language learning, specifically about CLT, and teaching practices at school level. A 48-item questionnaire was adapted (Savignon & Wang, 2003 pp.241-247) to gather the data from the students enrolled in the first year at the university. Though they are motivated and want to be confident speakers of English language but they are confused between the traditional way of learning and CLT approach. Their trend is towards CLT activities in the classroom but their beliefs and practices reflect a traditional approach at the same time. They confront a different situation at university and feel embarrassed when they have to communicate with teachers in English. They have an activity-based syllabus focusing on communication but it is exploited in traditional method stressing upon grammar and use of L1 in the classroom. Findings suggest a mismatch between students’ needs and beliefs and English language teaching practices, syllabuses and its exploitation, assessment, etc. There is a need to train the English language teachers at school level to adopt modern techniques to make their students confident in using English in their higher studies and social set up.