VIETNAMESE EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF CLT AND THEIR REPORTED CLASSROOM PRACTICE: A REVISITING

The common conception of Communicative language teaching (CLT) as a panacea, leading to its widespread unquestioning adoption in Asia in the 1980s has been criticised harshly. This is compounded by numerous sociocultural obstacles that classroom practitioners encountered when applying CLT in specific contexts, resulting in teachers’ and students’ rejection. Regardless of the criticism, CLT continues to be dominating approach Vietnamese teachers across levels claimed to have employed till present. Given the accelerating changes in the Vietnamese sociocultural context and innovations in language teaching recently, it is overdue for a revisiting investigation into how Vietnamese EFL teachers define CLT and how CLT’s principles are realised in classroom contexts. This qualitative study responds to this pressing need by drawing on the perceptions held by 10 EFL teachers working in two language institutions in the Mekong Delta, employing in-depth interviews. Findings from the study indicated that misconceptions about CLT are still common. Also, although teachers confidently claimed that they aligned with CLT’s principles in teaching practice, evidence from their reported lessons signalled that there were important divergences between their beliefs and classroom teaching. These provide important foundations for institutions and administrators to plan for appropriate training, aiming for effective teaching and learning practice.