Teachers’ Beliefs and Teaching Practices about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in a Thai EFL Context

Sep 2, 2026

Upload by Quinn

The study investigates Thai EFL teachers’ beliefs about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and how those beliefs shape classroom teaching in General English (GE). Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and fieldnotes, involving 17 teachers for interviews and nine teachers for observed teaching in four public Rajabhat universities across four northeastern provinces. Purposive sampling guided participation, while interpretive methods and thematic analysis supported the findings. Results show strong, largely CLT-consistent beliefs, yet classroom practices adopted only some CLT principles.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages27

Reading Time1 h 8 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Research focus

Participants and data collection

Analysis approach

Key findings

| APA Citation:
Pitikornpuangpetch, C. & Suwanarak, K. Teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices about communicative language teaching (CLT) in a Thai EFL context. LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, 14(2), 1-27. | | | --- | --- | | Received 19/10/2020
Received in
revised form 5/1/2021
Accepted 5/2/2021 | Abstract
This study investigates Thai EFL teachers’ beliefs regarding Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and their teaching practices in General English (GE) classrooms. Data collection methods consist of semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and fieldnotes. Seventeen teachers participated in the interviews and nine teachers’ classroom teaching practices were observed in four public Rajabhat universities from four provinces of the lower northeastern area of Thailand. The selection of participants was conducted via purposive sampling technique and data were analyzed via an interpretive approach and thematic analysis. The findings reveal that the teachers had strong beliefs that were mostly consistent with the CLT principles because of the benefits derived in terms of developing students’ communicative competence. The teachers applied the CLT approach in their classrooms, but adopted only some CLT principles. The | | Keywords
Teachers’ Beliefs; Teaching Practices; Thai EFL teachers; Communicative Language Teaching (CLT); Communicative
Competence | | | | teachers’ teaching practices were not in line with their beliefs concerning CLT due to various reasons and factors that might be related to the local teaching contexts which have influenced teaching practices. | | --- | --- | | Demographics | Details | No. of
Participants
for Interview | No. of
Participants
for
Observation | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Gender | Male | 2 | 2 | | | Female | 15 | 7 | | 2. Age | 35-62 years old | 17 | 9 | | 3. Education Background | M.A. | 15 | 8 | | | Ph. D. | 2 | 1 | | 4. Academic Title | Instructor | 16 | 8 | | | Assistant Professor | 1 | 1 | | 5. English Teaching Experience | 3-42 years | 17 | 9 | | 6. GE Teaching Experience | 2-12 years | 17 | 9 | | 7. CLT Teaching Experience | 3-42 years | 17 | 9 |

FAQs

What is the study investigating about Thai EFL teachers and CLT?

It examines teachers’ beliefs regarding Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and how those beliefs relate to their teaching practices in General English (GE) classrooms.

How were data collected for the study?

The study used semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and fieldnotes, with 17 teachers interviewed and nine teachers observed in four public Rajabhat universities.

What do the findings indicate about beliefs versus teaching practices?

Teachers held strong beliefs that largely matched CLT principles, mainly due to benefits for developing students’ communicative competence, but their classroom practices were not fully aligned with those beliefs.

Sep 2, 2026

Upload by Quinn