ESL Teachers' Attitudes and Competence on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Methodology

The English teaching curriculum imposed by the Department of Education in the Philippines is based on the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) methodology. However, the traditional method of teaching such as Grammar-Translation still dominates in ESL practices in the country. This study determined the profile of ESL teachers, their attitude towards CLT, their teaching competence and the difficulties they experienced in using CLT in the classroom. The descriptive-correlational research design aided by an actual classroom observation was used in this study. A questionnaire and the classroom observations served as the instruments for collecting data. There were 178 ESL teachers and 73 secondary school heads who served as respondents of the study. Results revealed that a majority of the teachers were holders of a bachelor’s degree; taught English subject for more or less four (4) years; finished college degree course in public schools; and had less trainings attended. It also revealed that a majority of the teachers had positive attitude toward CLT. As regards their teaching competence, they were rated “most competent” in their language skills while “more competent” in their teaching skills, classroom management, and evaluation skills. On the difficulties they experienced in using CLT in their classes, they considered the following challenges as “more difficult”: fewer opportunities to get CLT training; low level of students’ English proficiency; the big number of students in a class; and the lack of efficient and effective instruments to assess communicative competence.