Communicative Language Teaching: Misconstructions and Misunderstandings in the Malaysian Context.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has changed the pedagogy of English language instruction around the globe for 30 years. CLT is now accepted as the best way to teach learners in ESL and EFL classrooms. Nevertheless, the approach is not without problems and this has led to different critiques of CLT. Many believe that the troubles now facing CLT are caused mainly by misconstructions and misunderstandings on how best to implement it. Perhaps due to our own inaccurate and unrealistic expectations of CLT, the approach as a whole is being blamed. Through a series of focus group discussions with senior English teachers in Malaysian secondary schools, our research presents the collective views of these expert instructors to critically evaluate if indeed the criticisms directed towards CLT is because of its weaknesses, or perhaps the problems that we are seeing now is caused by misconstructions and misunderstandings of CLT by local English language teachers. Results from the group discussion sessions can be categorised into four major misconstructions and misunderstandings and these are presented and discussed together with critical reflections of CLT based on our own professional experience in teaching English at both secondary and tertiary levels in Malaysia.