Teachers Viewpoints and Prospects Regarding Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) In EFL Context (An Iranian Case Study)

This article explores how Communicative language Teaching is manifested in teaching English in Iran. As the field of foreign language pedagogy has developed over the past few years, we have observed the reactions and counter-reactions in CLT. As Jack C. Richards (2014 ) perceived CLT procedures often require a focus on fluency and comprehensibly and it may cause anxiety for teachers accustomed to seeing error suppression and correction as the major instructional responsibility, and who consider preparing learners to take standardized or other kinds of tests as their primary function . This study investigates the Iranian teachers perception and practice regarding CLT through a survey of 80 English teachers. The data for this study was collected through a questionnaire of 38items. The results suggest that although teachers mainly have solid understanding of theoretical foundation of CLT,they perceived difficulties had their source in previous viewpoints and habits underlying educational theory of audio lingual and grammar translation method in practical context. This suggests that while most teachers did like to involve their students in the communicative activities but they still believe in controlling their students and be authority in their classrooms. Thus, based on the findings of the study, Iranian EFL teachers must be equipped with teaching English communicatively and they need to develop their proficiency.