A Study of Organizational Characteristics of English Language Education Departments in Public Upper Secondary Schools in Relation to Their Commitment to Communicative Language Teaching

Abstract

Since 1970, a predominant trend in the world of second language teaching, namely the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), has developed. CLT has had an enormous influence on the theoretical aspects of second language teaching, but there has not been much evidence of change on its practical application. In the academic area of English language education research, the major focus has been on the methods of instruction, the teaching content and political aspects in terms of CLT, but little attention has been paid to how English language education is carried out in an organized manner among the personnel of English language departments in schools. The aim of this study is to investigate the relations between the organizational characteristics of English language departments in public upper secondary schools and their commitment to CLT in order to understand the organizational characteristics appropriate to CLT practices. As a result, the following conclusions were reached: (1) there are six different organizational characteristics among schools; (2) the quality of CLT practiced in each school is different; (3) the organizational characteristics which seem to be effective to CLT practices are leadership by school managers, learning opportunities in schools and shared objectives and efforts towards its implementation.