A case study of Turkish teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding Communicative Language Teaching in English

The aim of this study was to gain an insight into how teachers work practically with the Communicative Oriented Curriculum in English and what factors that could influence the teachers’ methodology. The investigation partially replicated a study by Kırkgöz (2008). The study was conducted at three state elementary schools in Turkey by using multidimensional qualitative research procedures, including classroom observations and interviews. Results demonstrated that all participants showed attributes identified to an Eclectic-Oriented teaching approach placing them in the middle of a continuum from Transmission to Interpretation-Oriented teachers. The results were later compared with the original study displaying both a satisfying and unsatisfying outcome depending on a qualitative or quantitative comparison. Findings also indicated that a holistic perspective must be considered in order to interpret and understand the results.