Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions towards the Use of Communicative Language Teaching to Develop Students’ Speaking Proficiency:

Abstract

The present study intends to investigate the teachers’ and the students’ attitudes and beliefs about the use of communicative language teaching to develop students’ speaking proficiency at the institution of letters and languages, Abdelhafid Boussouf University Center. The problem underlying this work is that many students are unable to communicate successfully in the target language mainly because teachers give more priority to the teaching of grammar rules at the expense of developing students’ communicative ability. Hence, it was suggested that the use of the communicative approach as a method to overcome students’ difficulties in communicating in English. The hypothesis of this research is that both teachers and students who participated in this study have positive attitudes towards the use of communicative language approach to enhance students’ communicative proficiency. To test the researchhypothesis, it was opted for a Teachers’ Questionnaire and a Students’ Questionnaire. The findings obtained allow validating the hypothesis in that the participants showed positive attitudes towards the use of CLT in the Oral Expression class to improve students’ communicative skills. However, a large number of teachers and students who answered the questionnaires have been found unaware of most of the features of CLT and the purpose of using it in the language class.At the end, there were some suggestions about some strategies and procedures that may help teachers to teach the speaking skill in a communicative classroom.