• Rie Terunuma

  Author

It has been four years since the Revisions of the Courses of Study for Elementary and Secondary Schools was announced in 2008 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and accordingly, the new English curriculum in high schools in Japan will be implemented this year, in 2013. The curriculum change emphasises the increase of communication through English in the English lessons and cultivating ‘Japanese with English abilities’ (MEXT 2003b). This change affects the current situation surrounding Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in many ways. The aim of this study is to report on the perception and practices of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) by Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs). In spite of theoretical developments in CLT, little is known about teachers’ attitudes towards CLT and how they implement CLT in English language classrooms in the Japanese context. Using the data collected by surveys, this study explored the complex relationship between JTEs’ beliefs and practice and indicated how JTEs actually dealt with CLT in their English teaching classrooms and to what extent JTEs were willing to change their current teaching to meet the new English curriculum in high schools.

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