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Communicative‐based curriculum innovations between theory and practice: implications for EFL curriculum development and student cognitive and affective change
Author(s) -
Shawer Saad
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the curriculum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.843
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1469-3704
pISSN - 0958-5176
DOI - 10.1080/09585176.2010.506802
Subject(s) - nomothetic and idiographic , curriculum , psychology , qualitative research , pedagogy , cognition , mathematics education , qualitative property , sociology , social psychology , social science , neuroscience , machine learning , computer science
This qualitative study examines the influence of teacher conceptualisations of communicative language teaching on their actual classroom practice and student cognitive and affective change. The qualitative paradigm underpinned this research at the levels of ontology (multiple teacher realities), epistemology (interaction with, rather than detachment from, the respondents), and methodology through using an idiographic strategy (qualitative case study), instruments (qualitative interviews, participant observation and questionnaires), and data analysis technique (explanation‐building). The results indicated that teachers who understood CLT and managed to materialise its principles into action significantly improved student language learning (cognitive change) and motivation (affective change). Moreover, traditional, structural and didactic teaching as well as communicative knowledge that was not translated into practice had almost a typical negative impact on student learning and motivation. Recommendations for curriculum development, teacher development, teacher training and future research are made.