Teachers’ Perception And Practices Of English Teaching Following CLT Approach In Cambodian Higher Education

This research has an overall aim to investigate teachers’perception of English teaching using communicative language teaching approach in Cambodian higher education. Many previous studies showed usefulness of using CLT to help students develop communicative skills in real social context. Besides, teachers have significant roles in facilitating teaching process related to CLT approach to help develop students’communication skills. Nevertheless, teachers faced some problems in English teaching following CLT Approach that’s why students fails to become communicative competent after graduation. Roger (1995) mentioned that teachers’ problems in the process of teaching using CLT Approach and their personal perceptions needed to be seriously considered to find effective solutions to upgrade teaching quality to help students master their language and communication skills. For that reason, this research was conducted with three objectives:to investigate teachers’knowledge of characteristics of English teaching with respect to CLT approach, to identify instructional strategies with respect to CLT in English teaching and to discover teachers’obstacles in teaching English following CLT approach.A case study design was applied and the mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approach was employed in this study. All40teachers from two language colleges of two universities in Cambodia participated in the study.18teachers are from one college, and other22teachers from another language college.4among40teachers were purposively selected to interview. Questionnaire and phone interview were the main data collection instrument and both quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from the participants. Quantitative data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Also, content analysis of qualitative approach was used to analyze the qualitative data obtained. SPSS was also used to analyze the data.The quantitative and qualitative findings of this study showed that the majority of teachers have positively perceived and better understood each characteristic of CLT approach very well, Also, they have frequently used the kinds of communicative activities like:group discussion, pair work, presentation to whole class, calling students to orally respond questions, problem solving activities in their teaching to improve students’communication skills. However, teachers also identified some facing problems which they perceived to be mainly difficult in practicing communicative activities are:large class size, lack of students active participation, little time to prepare teaching materials, students’low level of English proficiency and differences between CLT use in EFL and ESL countries. Teachers mentioned that these obstacles needed to be taken into considerations in order to successfully practice CLT approach.Several useful recommendations were made for successful implementation of CLT in English teaching. The university should limit the appropriate class size, so it is more convenient for students and teachers to practice communicative tasks. Teachers should not take students’ errors seriously as it may demotivate them from learning. Also, university should create a qualified assessment system in order to effectively assess students’language competency. Besides, the university ought to appropriately limit a number of class and hours of each language teachers to void teachers’ workload. At last, the university should initiate more training seminars relevant to CLT approach to develop teachers’ understanding and practice this communicative approach successfully.