The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach is meant for communication. The Sri Lankan Government has adopted the communicative approach to teach English in government schools to give more opportunities for students to communicate among themselves and with the teacher. However, the English Language Teaching (ELT) in Sri Lanka has not been able to achieve its intended objectives. English teachers of Sri Lankan government schools use many teaching methodologies and some of them have been proved less effective. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate whether the Communicative Language Teaching approach used in the schools of Rathnapura district is effective in English language teaching. The Sample of this study involved 240 students from grade 10 and 6 teachers from four schools who teach English for grade 10 students. A mixed-method research framework was used in this study. Direct observations, semi-structured interviews with the teachers, and questionnaires for both students and teachers were used to collect data. The qualitative data were analyzed through Thematic Analysis and the quantitative data were analyzed through Statistical Package of the Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings of the study proved that most of the schools use the CLT approach instead of traditional approaches but only one school has implemented the CLT approach at a satisfactory level. Using the CLT approach enhances student engagement and their active participation in classroom activities. Thus, CLT is a more effective way of teaching the English language, which enables the learners to communicate using the language rather than learning a set of grammar rules alone.
Language is a hallmark and the most enduring artifact of any community. It plays significant roles in social interaction and transmission of social values. Across the globe, language is the center of the educational enterprise. Therefore, language has given the highest priority and different language teaching methods have been introduced in order to improve the quality of language teaching. Some of these approaches are outdated whereas some other approaches are still in usage. The oldest method of language teaching method is Grammar Translation Method (GTM), which was utilized in 19th century. In order to avoid the problems of this approach, later the linguists introduced Audio-lingual method, which paid a lot of importance in practical usage of language. In 1970’s, during the foreign language movement, the teachers were in need of a teaching methodology, which went against the traditional systematic modes of teaching foreign languages, as there was a need to cater a non-traditional group of learners during this period. This non – traditional group of learners include the people who had gone abroad for employments and studies. With the need of a teaching methodology, teachers were utilized CLT approach at the experimental level. However, currently CLT approach is being used as a teaching methodology to teach English in many countries in the world including Sri Lanka. Through this research, it was intended to investigate whether the Communicative Language Teaching approach is being used in classroom teaching English and the effectiveness of using CLT approach in schools in Rathnapura district- Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Government has adopted the CLT approach to teach English in the government schools [1]. However, the English Language Teaching (ELT) in Sri Lanka has not been able to achieve its intended objectives [2]. The English teachers of Sri Lankan government schools are using many teaching methodologies and some of the traditional methods are being proved less satisfactory [3]. Based on the new attempts that have been made to improve the quality of English teachin in Sri Lanka, new sets of textbooks, teacher instructional manuals and new curriculums came to schools and the program ‘English as a Life Skill’ was introduced to present school curriculum mainly to enhance English-speaking skills in learners [4]. The lessons in the English textbooks are focused on CLT approach and most of the activities in English workbooks can easily be completed if the teachers use Communicative approach when teaching the lessons. Therefore, it is very important to investigate how the CLT approach is being used in Sri Lankan schools.
In present, the Sri Lankan government is going to conduct spoken English tests and written examinations in the near future for Ordinary Level examination. Therefore, all the English teachers in Sri Lankan government schools should implement the CLT approach to teach language in order to improve the communicative competence of the students. According to Karunaratne, [5], Perera, as cited in Samaranayake, [6] some studies that investigated the students’ English proficiency in rural schools, reported that those students show relatively low or limited proficiency in English in general and in oral proficiency in particular. Therefore, though the Sri Lankan government has integrated CLT approach to teach English language in government schools, the reality might be doubtful. Therefore, this study will help to find reasons for not using CLT approach in some schools and to find out what are the teaching approaches the language teachers are using in the classroom.
The primary purpose of this study is to investigate whether the CLT approach is being used to teach English and the effectiveness of using CLT approach in classroom teaching in four schools in Rathnapura district- Sri Lanka (R/Sivali Central College, R/Prince College, R/Pohorabawa Vidyalaya and R/Rahula National School). The results of the study would determine whether Sri Lankan government schools are using CLT approach or not and the effect of using it in Sri Lankan context.
In order to help the Sri Lankan government school students to learn English effectively, that will be benefited for their real life purposes after completion of school education and to help relevant authorities to provide in service training for all the language teachers on how to use CLT approach, this study seeks answers to the following questions.
How the CLT approach to language teaching is used in the selected schools in Rathnapura district and what are the outcomes of it?
What are the reasons for not using CLT approach in those schools and what are the teaching approaches they are replacing?
What are the perspectives of teachers and students on the current teaching method using in those schools
Objectives
In dealing with the objectives, there are main objectives as well as sub objectives. The main objective is to investigate how far CLT approach is implemented in the selected schools in Rathnapura district. In investigating it, the principles of CLT approach, teacher-student roles and activities practiced in the classroom were taken in to consideration. Therefore, this study would examine the outcomes of the classroom practices and teaching methods prevailing in each school.
Moreover, this study figures out the difficulties in implementing CLT approach in the government schools in Sri Lanka and the perspectives of the teachers and the students on the current teaching approaches using in those schools in order to investigate their satisfaction with the prevailing teaching approach.
Literature Review
CLT is an approach to teaching language, which is defined by many writers [7,8]. According to Richards [8], in the Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics defined CLT as “an approach to foreign or second language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative competence”. Littlewood [7] explains, “One of the most characteristic features of CLT is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language, combining these into a more fully communicative view”. All human beings need to communicate in order to express their ideas, feelings and thoughts. Therefore, communicative activities should be integrated into the ESL classroom in order to improve the learners’ communicative skills. Students’ spoken language is more productive and effective when they are engaged in a dynamic learning environment that encourages them to do their tasks. According to Richards [8], people learn a language when that language is used in communication, rather than by studying its functions, we have different examples where students learn a second foreign language because of their needs for that kind of language. By making the language relevant to the world rather than the classroom, learners can acquire the desired skills rapidly and effectively.
The main focus of the CLT approach is enhancing the communicative competence of the learners. Dell Hymes [9] introduced “communicative competence” on the basis of Chomsky’s notions competence and performance. He believed that second language acquisition or to acquire a language, learners should go beyond the language rules, knowing how to communicate using those rules. Accordingly, he stated that “communicative competence is the aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts” [10]. Further, Hymes stated that the speaker needs to communicate the language and to be able to use it according to the sociocultural environment. This means that the speaker of foreign language should use the language in a specific context. Canale and Swain [11] expanded this model of teaching by identifying four dimensions of communicative competence: grammatical competence, socio-linguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. It strongly emphasized that communicative competence is more than recognizing and producing the distinctive linguistic structures of a particular language.
The research approach for this study is the mixed method research approach. According to Dornyei, the purpose of mixed method research approach is to achieve a fuller understanding of the target phenomenon and to verify one set of findings against the other. A study conducted by Islam [12] which investigate the Effectiveness of CLT at Primary Level in Bangladesh used only qualitative research instruments to collect data where in this study use both qualitative and quantitative research tool to collect data in order to gather more reliable data. Accordingly, the data of this research study will be collected through classroom observation, interviewing the teachers and questionnaires for both students and teachers. This research study used direct observation, which involves observing without interacting with the objects or people under study in the setting. According to Schensul, as cited in Kawulich [13], observations helps to identify and guide relationships with informants, to learn how people in the setting interact and how things are organized and prioritized in that setting. Thus, in this study classroom observations will be used as a data collection tool to examine how the teachers use the CLT approach in the classroom and how the students themselves and the teacher interact with each other. Quad, states that “interviews are particularly useful for uncovering the story behind a participant’s experiences and pursuing in-depth information around a topic”. Accordingly, semi structured interviews which means, “interviewing by outlining the procedure of the interview” was used in this research in order to collect data on the teaching methods that the teacher is using in the classroom and if they are not using communicative approach, what are the reasons for that. As another data collection tool, questionnaires are a very convenient way of collecting useful data from a large number of individuals but they can only produce valid and meaningful results if the questions are clear and precise. In this research study, from the questionnaires for students the researcher mainly expects to get the students’ perspectives on the current teaching methods that they are experiencing in the classroom context.
According to Braun and Clarke [14], thematic analysis is an accessible and flexible method of data analysis, which is systematically identifying, organizing and offering insights into, patterns of meaning (themes) across a dataset. Hence, in this study thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data gathered from classroom observations and interviews with the teachers. The quantitative data of this study were analyzed through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) which “enables to obtain statistics ranging from simple descriptive numbers to complex analysis of multivariate matrices” and it helped the researcher to plot the quantitative data obtained through SPSS in histograms, Graphs, Pie charts and other ways.
The role of the teacher in a CLT classroom has totally different from the role of the teacher in a traditional classroom. The teacher should motivate the students to speak in the target language. The teacher in a CLT classroom is a guide, a planner, an organizer, a facilitator of learning, an instructor, a curriculum developer, a classroom manager a consultant and a monitor. Also in a CLT classroom the teacher should be more flexible and creative when using methods and teaching techniques to achieve a more effective teaching performance. Knight [15] summarizes the role of the teacher as the CLT teacher is often more autonomous than the audio lingual teacher because classroom practice are usually less predictable, and in his/her role as facilitator of communication the teacher often interacts with the learner in ways which mirror interaction outside the classroom. Therefore, the teacher talk in a CLT classroom should be limited and it should be student centered by providing more opportunities for the students to practice the target language and on fulfilling the teachers’ various roles.
To explore the teacher role in CLT approach effectively, teachers should have a proper training. As some research projects found that lack of training in CLT was identified as a major difficulty in adopting CLT. In relation to this, Gamal and Debra supported that most teachers in their study identified lack of CLT training as a barrier to successful implementation of CLT which is posing a problem in practicing Communicative Language Teaching in ESL settings.
The traditional image of teachers as a dominant figure in the classroom has become dissolved over the years and it creates the need to facilitate the communication process in the classroom in which students feel safe and without threats. According to Ozsevik, as cited in Fosch [16], in the CLT classroom, the whole environment is student-centered, and it does not depend on the teachers all the time, waiting for instructions, correction, permits, and words of approval, evaluation and praise. Instead, the students take a positive role. They do not ignore each other but communicate with one another. They appreciate the contributions from each other; they all also cooperate and learn from each other in the best way possible.
Accordingly, the emphasis in CLT leads the students to different roles in the classroom. They are, Negotiators for meaning: The learner as negotiator between the self, the learning process and the objective of learning emerges from and interacts with the role of joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which the group undertaken.
Communicators: They need to communicate with each other and share their opinions in class.
Discoverers: They have to discover how to improve their learning. Contributors of knowledge and
information: the implication is that learner should contribute as much as he gains and thereby learn in an independent way.
The study was conducted by selecting four government schools from Rathnapura district in Sri Lanka. The four schools were selected through the categorization of schools by functional grade. Accordingly, all four schools belong to “1 AB type” grade (schools with G.C.E. Advanced Level). Convenience sampling was used to select the participants for this study, as “the participants are often readily and easily available” [17]. Accordingly, grade 10 students from each school were selected for the study and altogether there were 240 students. If the same teacher is teaching for all grade 10 classes, only the students in one class were selected for the study. The students in grade 10 were selected as they face for the GCE O/L examination after one years’ time and therefore they should have a good communicative competence since majority of the Sri Lankan school children neglect English language in GCE Advanced Level. The English teachers who are teaching those grade 10 classes also participated and there were six English teachers. The mother tongue of all the students and teachers were Sinhala. Moreover, most of the students were very interested in learning the English language as they have realized the fact that English is very essential in the modern world for interaction and the development of the nation and individual in the globalization. Though these selected four schools belong to the same functional grade, there are some differences in terms of the facilities and the number of students in the school. The basic attention of this study was paid to the implementation of the CLT approach in language teaching in the context of school learners. Thus, the principal target groups were school children and the English teachers in selected schools in Rathnapura district in Sri Lanka. Majority of the students who participated in the study had a Limited English Proficiency as they have come from an environment where Sinhala other than English is dominant. Therefore, they had a significant amount of difficulty in speaking, reading, writing and understanding the English language. However, the background knowledge of the learners may differ according to their interests and different personalities.
A mixed method research framework was used in the study. It is generally understood that, in a mixed method research, quantitative research involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, whilst qualitative research considers narrative or experiential data [18]. Direct observations, semi- structured interviews with the teachers and questionnaires for students were used to collect data for this research. The interviews for the teachers were used in this study because the teachers are free to explain their points when interviewing rather than the questionnaires. The data gathered from those data collection tools were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to answer the research questions posed in this study. The quantitative data were obtained from the questionnaires and qualitative data were obtained through classroom observations and through structured interviews with the language teacher. The qualitative data were analyzed through Thematic Analysis in order to identify whether CLT approach is using in those schools and how it is being used. The quantitative data were analysed through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) which “enables to obtain statistics ranging from simple descriptive numbers to complex analysis of multivariate matrices” and it helped the researcher to plot the quantitative data obtained through SPSS in histograms, Graphs, Pie charts and other ways.
Ethical Considerations
The researcher obtained permission from the principals of all four schools by explaining the purpose of the study. Then met the English language teachers of grade 10 classes and explained the purpose of the research. Especially the researcher got the written consents from the principal and the English language teacher. The participants took part in this research only on their own consent. The teachers and the students were informed that the data collected from them will be used only for the purposes of the study.
The findings are presented according to the three research questions posed in the study. The results found from all the research instruments are presented under each research question as follows.
How CLT approach is used in the selected schools in Rathnapura district and the outcomes of it
It is found that the English classroom of secondary level in Sri Lanka is more teacher centered. The results found out by analyzing the data collected through classroom observations and students’ questionnaire reveals that only one school among four schools is completely student centered, two schools are student centered but the teacher talking time of those particular schools were also high even though it is less than student talking time. The other school is highly teacher centered. Therefore, it was found out that most of the English classrooms are teacher centered and if the teachers are using CLT approach effectively, the classroom should be student centered where the teacher only act as an instructor who provide advice and instruction when needed.
As well when considering the language used by the teacher in the classroom, the students’ questionnaire and classroom observation reveals that most of the teachers used Sinhala (L1) in the classroom. Except in one school, the teachers in the other three schools use considerable level of Sinhala in the classroom. In such classrooms the students speak in Sinhala in the English classroom and they are shy to speak in English. However, the students who are in the classrooms which used English language mostly by the teacher are active and students are much forward to speak in English. Even sometimes, if they do not know some words or expressions to say in English, they try their best to say them in English. Therefore, they have a good proficiency level in spoken English. Authentic communication requires use of language through four skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking). However, our teaching process is exam oriented, which does not include listening and speaking skills. When interviewing the teachers, they have mentioned that there is no separate practice session in classroom for listening and speaking except in one school. Instead, they encourage students to develop listening skills by their own effort, hearing the news, watching movies and games but most of the students do not do it practically. This finding is supported by Rahman [19]. He suggested that both trained and untrained teachers ignore the fact of enhancing all four language skills is very important in second language learning. However, among the four schools the language teachers in only one school has used separate speaking and listening test in the term test. From the students’ questionnaire, it was found out that majority of the students in that particular school scored the marks between the mark ranges of 75-100 for English and there were no any students who have scored below 50 marks. Therefore, it reveals that integrating communicative activities in the classroom and encouraging students to listen and speak in English along with reading and writing enhance the students’ all four language skills.
Moreover, it has found that fluency is still out of concern while accuracy judge the competency of the students. Through the data obtained from teachers’ interview reveals that most of the teachers think that accuracy needs to come first in terms of importance. Therefore, in the classroom there is no activity for developing fluency of listening or speaking. However, according to Richards [20] fluency may have to take on more importance than accuracy in order to keep the learners engaged in language use.
The direct observation of the classroom also reveals that most of the teachers just used the activities included in the textbook and there are no any activities, which they integrate to develop students’ language skills. However, only in one school, the language teachers integrate different kinds of activities like role-play activities, conversation activities, information activities, gaming activities etc. and therefore the students in those classrooms are very enthusiastic to learn English. The language teachers of the other three schools except one school used some activities but they were not in a satisfactory level. The other school do not use any activities except the role play activities mentioned in the textbook.
When considering the learner engagement in the class, it was found out that there is a high rate of student engagement in the classroom of students in one school other than the other three schools. In the other three schools except one school, the student engagement was up to some extent whereas the other school has very low student engagement in the classroom.
Hence, generally it can be claimed that the learner engagement in the classroom of all four schools is not in a satisfactory level. From classroom observation and students’ questionnaire, it was found that there are no good opportunities for the students to engage with the interactive activities in the classroom.
As well through the classroom observation it was found out that though the teacher integrates group work and pair work in the classroom most of the students did not try to speak even one word in English. They just discussed by using the first language. When the teacher was using role-play activities in the classroom most of the students were very shy to talk in English in the class. Hence, from the classroom observation and students’ questionnaire it was found out that except one school, the classes in the other three schools are mainly lecture based where learners have little scope to participate. When considering about the techniques used by the teachers in the classroom, it reveals from the students’ questionnaires and classroom observations that only the teachers in one school use all the following communicative techniques in the classroom.
Use authentic materials when teaching the lesson
Pair work and group work are used in the classroom
Taught by integrating all language skills and not by only one skill
Teacher monitors and offers advice if needed
The teacher creates situations, which help to promote communication
Target language is used mostly in the classroom
It was found out that the students were very active when the teacher was using these techniques. They engage with the lesson very enthusiastically. Thus, they get the chance to develop all four skills at the same time and so the output is more productive when the teacher use the above-mentioned techniques. However, some teachers do not use all these techniques and the students in those classes can be observed as inactive and less engagement with the lesson. From the other three schools, the teachers in two schools use some of these techniques and the other school use only two techniques; pair work and group work in the classroom and the teacher monitors and offers advice if needed. Therefore, from the students’ questionnaire it was revealed that most of the students in those three schools do not have any interest to learn English.
Reasons for not using CLT in those Schools and What Are the Teaching Approaches They Are Replacing
Reasons For Not Using CLT Approach
Classroom environment: It is observed that there are 40 to 45 students in every grade 10 classroom in selected four schools. It is very difficult for teachers to give individual attention to students, especially those who are sitting at the back. Sometimes teachers’ voices do not reach at the last row. From teachers’ interview, it is found that classrooms are equipped with movable tables and chairs but there is no enough space to arrange them for group or pair work. If they try, it annoys students and makes the class noisy. This factor is considered as one of the barriers that hinder CLT implementation in the classrooms in schools in Sri Lanka. This result is supported by Sharmeen [21] She identifies that large class is also a problem for students. Beside Rahman [19] shows setting arrangement is a great problem for implementing CLT in class.
Power of Exam
Most of the teachers in this research have noted that examination of our country does not include any listening and speaking skills. Therefore, they focus on reading and writing based on content of syllabi. Students also expose that they are motivated to develop their reading and writing skills for earning good grades in exam. This is proved from the question, which inquires the ranking of the most important language skill in the students’ questionnaire. The students in three schools responded that their first and second choices are reading and writing. Only the students in one school responded for speaking skills as their first choice and the students in all four schools responded for listening as the fourth choice. This is because most of the language classrooms just focus only on the reading and writing skills as there are examinations focus only on those two skills. Therefore, it is not surprising that the examination format is a barrier for CLT adaption. This finding has been echoed by the study that is conducted by Ullah. Ullah has investigated that teachers focus on reading and writing skills targeting testing procedure. Because of exam-oriented study true communicative competence is not developed.
Lack of Facilities to Support CLT
It is found that the schools lack appropriate facilities in the adoption of CLT. Among the four schools, only one school is equipped with “smart classrooms” which enables technological facilities to the classroom. By interviewing the English teachers, it is found that in the other three schools there is no technological teaching aids like projector, microphone, CD/VCD, tape recorder. Only board and marker/chalk is provided by authority. This finding is similar to Rahman [19] and Sharmeen [21]. They also find there is a lack of teaching aids.
Students’ English Phobia
Teachers in this study have reported that students have fear of English. Because of limited vocabulary, pronunciation problem, over consciousness of being criticized for making mistakes they hesitate to present or express their ideas in English. Their English phobia is one of the major challenges for teachers to conduct CLT based class. In addition, the research done by Karunarathna [21] showed the majority of the teachers in Sri Lanka have identified students’ low English proficiency as a difficulty in practicing CLT.
Lack of Interest and Expertise in Material Development
It is found that teachers have to take 5-6 consecutive classes with a little break, which creates tiredness and disinterested in them. Therefore, they ignore the fact of developing materials for communicative classes. Besides, they do not have any training or instruction to develop materials, which are related to CLT approach.
Lack of training in CLT
As mentioned in the literature review chapter Gamal and Debra supported that most teachers in their study identified lack of CLT training as a barrier to successful implementation of CLT which is posing a problem in practicing Communicative Language Teaching in ESL settings. This study also proved that lack of training in CLT approach is a major barrier for not implementing CLT approach in government schools. In Sri Lanka, teachers lack professional development in order to improve their English proficiency and teaching skills. This causes language teachers to lack confidence to motivate their students to participate in CLT based activities.
The Other Teaching Approaches They Have Replaced
According to the responses of the English teachers in the interviews, all of them use different teaching approaches for their teaching. Those teaching methodologies are grammar translation method, Audio-lingual method, eclectic method and direct method. Among these methodologies, a combination of grammar translation method along with the eclectic method was the most common. When considering about eclectic method, it is an approach, which combines various approaches and methodologies to teach language, depending on the aims of the lesson and the abilities of the learners. This approach borrowed different teaching methods and adapted to suit the requirement of the learners. In grammar translation, method students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating sentences between English and Sinhala. As well, some of the teachers taught the language through grammar translation and direct method that teaches the target language in the target language while the grammar-translation method teaches the target language in the students’ mother tongue. Grammar Translation classes typically focus the knowledge about language, rather than the practical application of language as well as all the activities based on the translation of text between first and second language.
The Perspectives of Teachers and Students on The Current Teaching Methods Using in Those Schools
Perspectives of the Teachers: Through the teachers’ interviews, it was revealed that the teachers did not satisfy with the current teaching approaches they use in the classroom, as they do not focus on all four-language skills. However, the primary objective of the school English course is success in the English paper at the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level Examination4. This is a ‘reading and writing’ examination. The English syllabus, nevertheless, highlights the importance of preparing students for secondary goals beyond the GCE O/L examination. The syllabus and textbooks have designed this primary objective. Therefore, the classroom teaching in the sample schools was mostly textbook-based. Majority of the teachers observed in the present study, the textbook provided more than mere guidance. It was virtually the sole source of classroom activities, assessments, information, grammar and vocabulary. In other words, it was the only teaching material for teachers and the only source of information and of language practice for students. Accordingly, they have identified some weaknesses in the current teaching methods in the classroom. They are as follows:
Teacher dominant classroom
Students were not actively engage with the lesson
Mother tongue dependency
Textbook based teaching
Inability to integrate communicative activities
Moreover, students seem reluctant and shy to speak in English during English lessons due to their lack of English proficiency. This seems to obstruct group work, which would enhance their ability to communicate in English. Therefore, though the teachers integrate communicative activities in the classroom the students’ participation with those activities is very low. According to the students’ ranking of the most important language skill, it is clear that most of the students have given their priority for writing and reading skills. The reason for that is they only focus on passing exams.
The current teaching methods they use in the classroom do not encourage students to speak in English. There are some communicative activities like role-plays, conversation activities in the textbook. Those activities are not enough to improve the language skills of the students. Accordingly, most of the teachers’ perspective was that they should have to use the Communicative approach along with another approach in order to improve students’ four language skills.
The teachers who use the CLT approach in the class stated that it is very effective method to teach English language and it encourages students to speak in English. As well, it develops the students’ enthusiasm for learning English. Instead of boring language class there is very active and fresh language classroom where students engage with the classroom activities very interactively. They have mentioned that they do not use only the CLT approach in the classroom and they use other approaches. However, CLT approach is the teaching approach which is mostly used in those classrooms.
As the majority of the teachers have pointed out that the current teaching methods are not effective, they all willing to integrate CLT approach in the classroom. But they highlighted that they should have proper training on how to use CLT classroom and it will help them to integrate communicative activities very effectively in the classroom.
Perspectives of the Students
Most of the students have mentioned in the students’ questionnaire that they like to learn English but it is boring. Some of them have mentioned that they have scored high marks for English in the term test but they cannot speak in English. As well, some have mentioned that they cannot understand the grammatical form in English. Therefore, majority of the students have a negative perspective towards the current teaching methods prevailing in their schools. However, the students only in one school among selected four schools have mentioned that they are very enthusiastic in learning English. The teacher teaches the language very interactively.
The present study tried to investigate whether the CLT approach is being implemented in the selected schools in Rathnapura district and what are the reasons for not implementing CLT approach in the classroom. As discussed in chapter one, the National institute of education have mentioned that CLT approach should be integrated in the classroom and there will be speaking and listening tests for Ordinary level examination in the future. Therefore, the teachers should have to trained the students to speak in English well by integrating different varieties of communicative activities. Hence, it is clear through this study that majority of the teachers still do not use or implement CLT approach in the classroom and they have traditional teacher centered classrooms. Using CLT approach to teach language can be considered as a very effective method to teach language and this study proved that only school among four schools has implemented the CLT approach. Among the other three schools, two schools use CLT approach, but it is not in a satisfactory level. The other school do not use CLT approach at all. In the classroom observation it is clearly proved the difference of the performance of the students in each school. The students who were in the school which use CLT approach showed the best language performance in the classroom. It was measured through their interaction with the teacher was at best level, very active in group and pair work, use English language in the classroom and clarify the difficult words with the help of the teacher. Overall, such result yielded an evidence of the positive effect of the Communicative approach on students’ ability in speaking, listening, reading and writing in the target language effectively. In this regard, we can see that Communicative Approach has many progressive aspects which could be utilized for the development of four language skills; especially speaking skills of the students. Hence the schools in Sri Lanka should implement CLT approach in the classroom and the teachers must be given proper training on how to use Communicative Approach.
When considering about the limitations of the study, there are few aspects that can be overcome by the future researchers. The setting of the study can be considered as one of the limitations of this study. Since this study was carried out focusing on only four government schools in Rathnapura district the sample size was limited. Therefore, only six language teachers and 240 students were participated to represent the whole district. Further, as there is limited number of research available on Sri Lankan context, the researcher has utilized limited work found to address the issues relating to Sri Lanka.
Recommendations
Based on the findings some recommendations have been made below.
English Teachers need Training in CLT and Material Development
There has been a dying need for a well-structured training program for the English teachers in Sri Lankan government schools. Although some of the teachers who interviewed for this study have training to teach English as one of the compulsory subjects, only two teachers of them are trained in CLT. Some of them do not have a clear idea about CLT approach and how to apply it in the classroom to develop learners’ communicative competence. The students can pass the exam with the help of a teacher who has no idea about CLT but they will not be competent in four skills in English. Teachers need proper materials from the school authority to guide students properly. They should also make materials for communicative task. Proper training can teach them how to use CLT in their classrooms and how to create or use materials in class. For training, they can be motivated to overcome the difficulties.
Evaluation of Teaching Process
Teaching approaches and techniques should be regularly evaluated to see the achievement of students and the improvement in teaching.
Following Textbook Instruction
The current textbook includes some instructions related to communicative task. Teachers need to follow these instructions and tasks to make students more creative and communicative. If the activities are confined within gap-filling, matching, ticking and teach them grammatical structure, the learners will not able to acquire communicative competence. The teachers should arrange more activities, which will be helpful for learners to develop their listening and speaking skills. Whatever the lessons are related to the exam or not but teachers need to follow the textbook.
Arrangement of the Materials Regarding Communication
School authority should provide all the equipment related to increase the four skills among the students like- audio-video and visual materials, tape-recorder etc. So that teachers can use those materials in the class and students also be motivated and feel interested in English language class.
Changing the Classroom Environment
Large class is the core of all the problems. As there are too many students, teachers could not give emphasis on all four skills; specially listening and speaking skills. The students in last benches cannot listen to the teacher’s lecture. Schools should provide classrooms with enough space which enables the teacher to move all around the class easily.
Arrangement of Student-Centered Classroom
The traditional way of language teachers, teaching in the classroom is always standing in front of the blackboard, talk all the time and students listen to them. This kind of classroom setting is in favor of using Grammar-Translation Method. There is no interaction between teachers and students in these classes. In order to acquire communicative competence in English language; students need to participate in different activities. The students can role-play or present a topic after discussion with other students given by teachers. Teachers need to assign students in different types of group or pair work or group discussion and tell them to discuss in English.
Reducing Students’ Hesitation
As the exam format of Sri Lankan government schools are going to change, the teachers need to encourage their students to speak in English without any hesitation. The speaking and listening test will include for each term test and ordinary level examination. Therefore, teachers have to make students realize that learning through making mistakes is natural.
National Institute of Education. The World Through English: Teacher’s Guide Grade 9. Educational Publications Department, 2001.
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