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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2015

Modern Foreign Language teachers’ beliefs and practices in relation to Communicative Language Teaching

Résumé

"In England, the number of pupils studying modern foreign languages (MFL) beyond the compulsory period of three years at Key Stage 3 (KS 3) has decreased dramatically since 2003. Among a number of reasons for this decline, the dominant MFL teaching methodology has been accused of failing to motivate pupils (e.g. Macaro, 2008). This methodology is influenced by the guiding principles of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which were promoted since the introduction of the first National Curriculum (NC) in 1992. However, the NC’s version of CLT has been called ‘simplified’ and ‘partial’ earlier on (Block, 2002), and is now, we would argue, far removed from the original intentions of CLT. This is evident in the fact that many classroom activities do not even resemble meaningful communicative situations, but consist largely of the explicit teaching of unanalysed phrases (Mitchell & Martin, 1997). These classroom practices are partly linked to the pressures emanating from the inspection regime and public examination system, but they are also likely to be caused by weaknesses in teacher training and the resulting lack of understanding of CLT . To explore MFL teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and the related teaching practices, we carried out 20 observations of French, German and Spanish lessons at KS3, as well as interviews with the teachers of these lessons. The observations revealed a prevalence of ‘fun’ activities and practice/drill exercises with little opportunity for pupils to produce language or to think about language. Both interviews and observations showed how teachers’ practices do not aim at developing learners’ communicative competence. The teachers found it difficult to explain their own teaching principles, and did not refer to any specific teaching approaches and their underlying theories. "
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Dates et versions

hal-01451322 , version 1 (31-01-2017)

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  • HAL Id : hal-01451322 , version 1

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Emilie Kasazian. Modern Foreign Language teachers’ beliefs and practices in relation to Communicative Language Teaching . Contemporary Perspectives on Theory, Research, and Praxis in ELT and SLA, Language in Focus Mar 2015, Cappadoce Turkey. ⟨hal-01451322⟩
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