Exploring Techniques of Addressing Grammar in CLT Classes: A Qualitative Study

Learners who have learned English through the audio-lingual method have a profound knowledge of grammar, but they cannot use it to communicate their knowledge and experience fluently. To solve this problem, there was a shift towards communicative language teaching (CLT). This shift towards CLT solved the fluency problem but created another unwanted effect since learners were communicatively competent but linguistically incompetent. While many teachers weed out form as irrelevant, some CLT teachers try to respond to this problem by addressing from in CLT classes. This study aims at conceptualizing these teachers’ perspectives and uncover the strategies they use in addressing grammar in communicative instruction. Following the constructivist grounded theory procedures, participants’ perspectives were theoretically sampled through in-depth, open-ended interviews. Abstraction and thematic analysis of participants’ experiences clearly revealed that the participants helped learners not only discover the target form but also connect it to their experience. It was also found that they used contrastive analysis, contextualization of input flood, and the integrated skill approach to address form in predominantly communicative classes. These findings have clear implications for teachers, teacher trainers and school policy makers.