Taiwanese college English teachers' attitudes toward communicative language teaching

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) advocates teaching practices that develop learners' abilities to communicate in a second language. It represents a change of focus in language teaching from linguistic structure to learners' need for developing communication skills. In recent decades, many English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms have adopted CLT into their curricula. However, the concepts and practices of CLT have faced various challenges in EFL contexts. The study is motivated by the review of previous literature showing that although teachers' attitudes play a crucial role in revealing their thinking about CLT and their implementation of CLT in the classrooms, few studies have focused on teachers' attitudes toward CLT in a particular EFL setting, Taiwan. The study aimed at investigating Taiwanese college teachers' attitudes toward CLT and the reasons behind attitudes the teachers held toward CLT.;An explanatory mixed method was used in the study. It was a two-phase research design, starting with quantitative data collection and analysis, followed by qualitative data collection and analysis. The qualitative phase was used to explain the results of the quantitative phase. First, a two-part questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate Taiwanese college teachers' attitudes toward CLT. The first part consisted of an attitude scale and the second part asked for the participants' background information. The questionnaire survey was conducted in two selected Taiwanese colleges that implement CLT. Participants consisted of 55 English teachers from these two universities. Then, follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted to explain the quantitative results. Eight teachers who participated in the survey were invited to take part in the interviews.;The results of this study indicated that the teachers held favorable attitudes toward principles of CLT and displayed characteristics of CLT in their beliefs. Also, the results demonstrated that Taiwanese college English teachers believe CLT can make English teaching effective and meaningful. However, the findings suggest an inconsistency between teachers' attitudes toward CLT and their CLT practice. Certain situational constraints were found to hinder the implementation of CTL in Taiwan. Further, the results showed an inconsistency between teachers' attitudes toward CLT and their teaching experience. The findings suggest that experienced teachers modified their thinking and practice regarding CLT in order to fit CLT into local classroom conditions.