The Research on Effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching in China

Abstract

Since China initiated Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) practice, it has enjoyed increasing popularity amongst educational practitioners as well as professional researchers. This paper undertakes an in-depth and all-around analysis of pedagogical practices of English class so as to ascertain the feasibility and effectiveness of CLT in China. Although China’s educational system is centrally-controlled, the top-down intervening policy of CLT fails to improve students’ interactive competence. Due to the contextual constraints including excessive class size, limited class hours, Confucian heritage culture, teacher equalizations as well as norm-referenced assessment, current situation of English Language Teaching (ELT) nevertheless is far from aligning with the tenet of CLT. This paper reveals that direct transfer of western–originated CLT practice is infeasible and ineffectual without considering the specific contextual factors in China and doomed to be a failure. Based on this argument, a combination of traditional pedagogy and CLT with an eclectic and dichotomous perspective is proposed and recommended to put into practice in the hope of adapting CLT paradigm to the particular Chinese contexts.

The Implementation of Communicative Language Teaching Approach in Selected Secondary School: Nepalese Teachers' Perspective

“…Besides these, the participants revealed several other problems such as: large class size, lack of curriculum dissemination, lack of teacher education, and students' willingness to communicate. Almost all the problems shared by the participants preventing them from implementing CLT principles are similar to the previous studies carried out by Alalwi (2021) in Saudi Arabian context, Hussein (2018) in Libyan context, Sunar (2018) in Nepalese context, Chang and Goswami (2011) in Taiwanese context, Rahman and Pandian (2018) in Bangladeshi context, Asmari (2015) in Saudi Arabian context, Panhwar et al (2017) in Pakistani context, Kwon (2017) in Thai context, Hattani (2018) in Moroccan context, Wei et al (2018) in Asian context, Song (2019) in Chinese context, Nayeen et al (2020) in Bangladeshi context, Sreehari (2012); ( in Indian context, Takal et al (2021) in Afghan context and Chamlagain (2004) in Nepalese context. The majority of the cited studies represent the Asian region except for some countries.…”

“…Similarly, the present study bears similarity with the study of Hattani (2018) in Moroccan context and Takal et al (2021) in Afghan context in which the teachers showed positive attitude towards CLT. From the studies mentioned above, it can be said that currently the Communicative Language teaching has become popular language teaching approach around the world (Song, 2019). Most of the teachers show positive perceptions and attitudes towards it, may it be the case of Nepal, Morocco, or Iran.…”

“…However, directly transferring the western-originated approach to other non-European countries face several challenges. Therefore, specific contextual factors should be considered before CLT is adopted in new EFL contexts (Holliday, 1994;Song, 2019).…”

Investigating the Effective Instructional Activities as well as Advising Students to use the Effective Study Strategies related to Their Academic Performance in Less Commonly Taught Language, Particularly Japanese

“…The studied showed improvement of students" communicative ability as well as their motivation for learning usingthe experimental study with high school students. However, several studies (Chang, 2011;Hu, 2005;Song, 2019;Wei, 2001;Wei, Lin, & Litton, 2018;Zhou & Yin, 2005) showed that the communicative approach might not be effective due to a cultural conflict such as Asian (e.g., China, Vietnam, Korea) and Middle Eastern culture.…”

Does Communicative Language Teaching Help Develop Students’ Competence in Thinking Critically?

“…CLT also originates in Anglo Saxon countries (Song, 2019) and is the most recent and frequently employed language teaching approach. The definition of CLT also lacks consensus in its meaning.…”