Iranian EFL Learners’ Attitude towards Communicative Language Teaching

Abstract

Communicative language teaching (CLT) aims at developing learners’ abilities to communicate in a second/foreign language. It represents a change of focus in language teaching from linguistic structure to communication skills. In recent decades, CLT has been accepted and used by many EFL teachers. In this regard, the attitudes of EFL learners play an influential role in their acceptance of the foreign language and the methodologies teachers use in academic contexts. The present study attempted to investigate the attitudes of Iranian EFL leaners toward communicative language teaching in schools; the participants were 80 female high school students learning English as a subject matter in their schools. The findings obtained from this study revealed that the dominant methodology in Iran high schools in English teaching is grammar-based method, but EFL leaners prefer communicative language teaching, they generally, agree on considering communicative aspect of the language equally as linguistic aspect. They desire interacting and communicating through English in classes.