Teachers' perceptions of communicative language teaching (CLT) in Turkish EFL setting theory vs. practices

Over the past three decades, The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) hasbeen one of the most dominant methods in ESL and EFL communities. Based on thisphenomenon, the purpose of this study was to evaluate teachers? perceptions andpractices of CLT in Turkish EFL setting. The study was conducted at five differentPublic Primary Schools in the province of Adana with twenty English teachers. Via themultiple data collection sources it was found that even though the teachers are aware ofCLT in terms of theoretical aspects, there is a discrepancy between their perceptions ofCLT and their in-class practices. Furthermore it was figured out that there are commonconstraints among teachers which prevent them implementing the CLT activitieseffectively.This significant research is consistent with existing research findings in the sametopic. In this context, most of the studies in the literature pointed out that the constraintswith teachers? lacking practical knowledge, in sufficient authentic material uses, largeclassroom sizes and grammar-based national syllabuses prevent the effectiveimplementation of CLT activities in classrooms. In addition, this research, like previousstudies in the literature, also reveals that English teachers in Turkey should require in-depth understanding for how to put practices into theories they learn at the ELTdepartments.Moreover, English teachers in Turkey ought to observe classes in which CLT isimplemented properly so that they can monitor themselves and figure out their failures.Key Words: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), CommunicativeCompetence (CC), Teachers? Perceptions, English as a Second Language (ESL),English as a Foreign Language (EFL).