Expectation versus Reality: Communicative Approach to EFL Teaching

This article explores EFL teachers’ attitudes towards using the
communicative approach to the teaching of English and how it is
being understood and implemented by EFL teachers in the context of
Oman, given the likely discrepancy between professed theory and
classroom practice. More specifically, the study has investigated the
EFL teachers' perceptions of the use of the communicative approach
in teaching English. The study has also investigated how their
perceptions vary according to their gender, qualification, and the level
taught by them in relation to the place and importance of grammar,
error correction, the respective roles of the learner and the teacher in
the learning process, and classroom interactions in the form of pair or
group work. Ninety-three teachers of English – 47 male and 46 female
– from basic and general education schools in Oman were randomly
selected for the study. Karavas-Doukas’s (1996) attitude scale was
used in the present study. The respondents were asked to indicate the
level of agreement on a five-point scale. The responses were
statistically analysed for the mean scores, standard deviation and Ttest of significance across the variables. Overall, the study found that
there is a moderately favourable attitude among EFL teachers towards
using the communicative approach.