The investigation of secondary education English teachers' attitudes regarding communicative language teaching usage (Diyarbakır provincial sample)

The aim of this research is to investigate secondary education English teachers' attitudes regarding communicative language teaching usage. It was structured with a descriptive survey model, which is one of the quantitative research designs. The research population consists of 353 English teachers working in public high schools in the central districts of Diyarbakır province in the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample of the research consists of 184 English teachers who were included in the research by simple random sampling method. Research data were collected with the Communicative Language Teaching Attitude Scale developed by Eveyik (1999). 172 of these teachers expressed their opinions on an open-ended question in the data collection tool form regarding the problems related to the use of communicative language teaching in the course. Quantitative data of the research was analyzed with satistical techniques such as mean and standard deviation statistics, normality, skewness and kurtosis values, independent sample t test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Spearman correlation analysis, Bonferroni test, Cronbach's alpha and McDonald Omega reliability coefficient using SPSS program. The data regarding the open-ended survey question was examined using the content analysis method. As a result of the findings obtained in the research, it was concluded that the general attitudes of secondary education English teachers regarding communicative language teaching and their attitudes in terms of the sub-dimensions of group-pair work activities, the nature of peer-teacher correction, place of grammar, student-teacher roles are positive, despite some reservations. It was determined that the attitudes of female secondary education English teachers in terms of group-pair work activities regarding communicative language teaching were higher than those of male teachers'. It was determined that the attitudes regarding communicative language teaching of secondary education English teachers with 0-5 years and 16-20 years of professional seniority in terms of group-pair work activities, 0-5 years and 6-10 years in terms of the place of grammar, and 0-5 years, 6-10 years, 16-20 years in general terms were higher than those with 21 years and above of professional seniority. It was concluded that the attitudes of secondary education English teachers regarding communicative language teaching were similar according to their education status, faculty graduated from, the status of receiving English preparatory education during undergraduate education, the type of school served, the average number of students in the class at the school where they work, the status of taking courses on communicative language teaching during undergraduate education, participation in any training or scientific activity related to communicative language teaching after undergraduate education. It was determined that there was a positive, low-level significant relationship between the attitudes of secondary school English teachers in terms of the group-pair work activities sub-dimension regarding communicative language teaching and the frequency of using communicative language teaching in the course. It was observed that the opinions of secondary education English teachers regarding the problems related to communicative language teaching usage in the course were collected under four themes; teacher, student, educational program and learning environment related problems. As a result, it was concluded that English teachers' reservations despite their positive attitudes towards communicative language teaching and the low level of positive relationship between the frequency of use of communicative language teaching in the course are due to these problems. Key Words: Communicative Language Teaching, Communicative Approach, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Teacher Attitude