The effect of teachers' attitudes on the effective implementation of the communicative approach in ESL classrooms

Abstract

This study is an attempt to determine the impact of teachers' attitudes on their classroom behaviour and therefore on their implementation of the Communicative Approach.

A descriptive case study was conducted at six secondary schools in Harare, Zimbabwe (as ESL environment) to determine the effect of 38 O-level English teachers' attitudes on their classroom practice. Quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection, including a questionnaire, an observation instrument and a semistructured interview were used to gauge teachers' attitudes, assessing the extent to which attitudes are reflected in their classroom behaviour, and eliciting teachers' verbalisation of how they conceive of their professional task.

The findings show that the effective implementation of the Communicative Approach was critically dependent on teachers' positive attitudes towards this approach in the five categories covered by this study.