Beyond methods in language teaching: A qualitative study of teachers' theoretical and practical knowledge of communicativeness in language teaching.

摘要

The growing dismissal of language teaching methods, specifically Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), is attributed to the gap between what teachers know in "theory" and what they do in ''practice''. Yet in fact, the current accounts of constructivist approach offer a dynamic and interactive way of understanding these superficially polarized looks at teacher cognition and language teaching methodology. This qualitative study, in this manner, examines the cases of six newly-graduated Turkish EFL teachers' theoretical and practical knowledge of communicativeness in language teaching. The data suggests that the postmethod era in language teaching, whether or not there is full agreement within the field, has always been there. Different factors, such as teachers' previous language learning/teaching experience, their current schooling and current interests come into playas teachers construct their ''theoretical'' knowledge about CLT, and in the manner they reflect on their "practical" understandings of Teaching Language Communicatively (TLC). While it is not a new discovery, it is becoming more widely acknowledged that teachers have always understood and applied different methods or approaches in their classrooms in their own unique ways. This study and hence the emerging term is evidence of this.