TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND CHALLENGES IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Abstract

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is one of the fundamental teaching methods that focus on developing learners’ communicative competence. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions and challenges in Communicative language teaching as well as students’ communicative competences. The participants were 10 the teachers from the Language Centre and the Faculty of Languages and Communication teaching English as a foreign language and 27 students enrolled at their first year studying different levels of English (Basic English skills Levels 2,3 and 4 as well as 5 students studying English as their major at South East European University. Majority of the students were between 18-20 years old, coming from different ethnical groups: mostly Albanian, Turks and Macedonian, enrolled at International Communication studies, Business administration, Business and economics and Computer Sciences studies.  The questionnaire was held between both students and teachers and it covers (role of students/teachers, pair and group activities, the use of native language and error and correction). The results obtained throughout this study held positive beliefs towards CLT, especially taking in consideration the roles of teachers and students, pair and group work used by teachers as main strategies to help students develop communicative competencies.