Practical Knowledge Growth in Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative language teaching (CLT) is promoted in teacher education programmes around the world, although the appropriateness of this methodology in contexts outside the English-speaking West has been questioned, often from a theoretical perspective. In fact, very little empirical research has been conducted into the practical knowledge of CLT of non-native speaker teachers of English, and there is a lack of such research investigating growth longitudinally in this area. Using observations, interviews, and reflective writing, this study charts the practical knowledge growth in CLT of a lower secondary teacher in the Middle East while she was studying part-time on an in-service BA (TESOL) programme run by the University of Leeds in conjunction with the Ministry of Education in the Sultanate of Oman. Qualitative data suggests that the teacher’s practical knowledge of CLT developed considerably during the course. Further research into the influence of teacher education programmes in TESOL on practical knowledge is called for.

[1]  J. H. Frey,et al.  The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text , 2000 .

[2]  Keith Johnson,et al.  Designing Language Teaching Tasks , 2002 .

[3]  Martyn Hammersley,et al.  Ethnography : Principles in Practice , 1983 .

[4]  M. Pajares,et al.  Teachers’ Beliefs and Educational Research: Cleaning Up a Messy Construct , 1992 .

[5]  D. Freeman,et al.  Renaming experience/reconstructing practice: Developing new understanding of teaching , 1993 .

[6]  R. Stake.  The art of case study research , 1995 .

[7]  Susan Halliwell,et al.  Teaching English in the Primary Classroom , 1993 .

[8]  J. Draper.  Doing and Writing Qualitative Research , 2002 .

[9]  유창조.  Naturalistic Inquiry , 2022, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[10]  S. Borg,et al.  Teacher Cognition and Language Education: Research and Practice , 2007 .

[11]  Nina Spada,et al.  语言学习机制=How languages are learned , 1995 .

[12]  J. J. Courtney,et al.  Voices from the Language Classroom , 1998 .

[13]  David Kennedy,et al.  THE ROLE OF THE FOREIGN TEACHER AS AGENT OF CHANGE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMMES IN CHINESE TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGES , 1996 .

[14]  Russell K. Schutt,et al.  Research Methods in Education , 2011 .

[15]  David Nunan,et al.  Teaching English to young learners , 2018, The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners.

[16]  Jeremy Harmer,et al.  The Practice of English Language Teaching , 1983 .

[17]  Margaret C. Donaldson.  Children's Minds , 1978 .

[18]  Pham Hoa Hiep.  University English classrooms in Vietnam , 2005 .

[19]  Edith M. Guyton,et al.  Constructivist pedagogy in primary classrooms: Learning from teachers and their classrooms , 2004 .

[20]  J. Knottnerus,et al.  Real world research. , 2010, Journal of clinical epidemiology.

[21]  Ann Dashwood,et al.  Teaching a foreign language: one teacher's practical theory , 2004 .

[22]  Harry F. Wolcott,et al.  Writing Up Qualitative Research , 1990 .

[23]  Jane Willis,et al.  A Framework for Task-Based Learning , 1996 .

[24]  D. Nunan.  Communicative Language Teaching: Making It Work. , 1987 .

[25]  Ronald J. Chenail,et al.  Presenting Qualitative Data , 1995 .

[26]  C. Alptekin.  Towards intercultural communicative competence in ELT , 2002 .

[27]  Martin Lamb,et al.  The consequences of inset , 1995 .

[28]  Jeong-Bae Son,et al.  Framing Communicative Language Teaching for Better Teacher Understanding. , 2007 .

[29]  Melanie Williams.  TEN PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS / MELANIE WILLIAMS TEN PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS , 2006 .

[30]  Freema Elbaz.  The Teacher's "Practical Knowledge" Report of a Case Study , 1981 .

[31]  J. Calderhead,et al.  Understanding Teacher Education: Case Studies in the Professional Development of Beginning Teachers , 1997 .

[32]  Jeremy Harmer,et al.  Popular Culture, Methods, and Context. , 2003 .

[33]  Titin Susilowati,et al.  Teaching English to young learners , 2000 .

[34]  S. Borg.  Teachers' Pedagogical Systems and Grammar Teaching: A Qualitative Study , 1998 .

[35]  Peter Tomlinson,et al.  Having it Both Ways: hierarchical focusing as research interview method , 1989 .

[36]  W. Shaoxiang,et al.  Children Learning English , 2006 .

[37]  Ann Dashwood,et al.  Similarities and differences in teachers’ and researchers’ conceptions of communicative language teaching: does the use of an educational model cast a better light? , 2005 .

[38]  B. Kumaravadivelu.  Maximizing learning potential in the communicative classroom , 1993 .

[39]  Lois W. Sayrs.  Interviews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing , 1996 .

[40]  J. Harmer.  The Practice of English Language Teaching, 3rd Edition , 2001 .

[41]  Kazuyoshi Sato,et al.  Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): Practical Understandings , 1999 .

[42]  C. Geertz.  The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays , 1975 .

[43]  P. Atkinson,et al.  Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies , 1996 .