English Teacher’s Methodological Competence in Implementing Communicative Language Teaching in Teaching Speaking

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English Teacher’s Methodological Competence in
Implementing Communicative Language Teaching in
Teaching Speaking
Sopian Saupi Irawan
English Graduate Department, Post Graduate Program
Mataram University
Mataram, Indonesia
piansirawan@gmail.com
Abstract—Teachers’ ability to implement Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT) affects the students’ communicative
competence. CLT was designed to improve the students’
communicative competence characterized by authenticity, real-
world simulation, and meaningful task. English teacher.
However, a little attention has been addressed on how CLT
improves students’ communicative competence that students
show varied response in learning English particularly speaking.
This qualitative study examines the methodological competence
of English teachers in implementing CLT in teaching speaking.
The goal to be achieved is to describe the implementation of CLT
by two English Teachers at sixth female class of Special
Education Program, Nurul Hakim Islamic Boarding School,
Lombok. The data were obtained by conducting classroom
observation and an interview with both of the English Teachers.
The data obtained were analyzed by using Miles and Huberman
Model. The result of this study indicates that English teachers
did not implement CLT appropriately. More specifically, the
classroom activities did not suitable with the classroom that best
facilitate learning in CLT. However, some students showed a
passive attitude in the classroom during teaching and learning
process. This study recommends that English teachers has to
implement CLT appropriately in order that students’
communicative competence can be developed well.
Keywords—English teacher’s methodological competence;
ICT; teaching speaking; NurulHhakim Islamic boarding school
I. INTRODUCTION
Developing students’ ability to speak fluently and
accurately is not an easy work. Teachers must possess various
methods of teaching English. Sacrifice and patience are needed
in order to manage the classroom. In that way, English teachers
can manage the English Language Teaching classroom easily.
There are many methodologies to facilitate students to be able
to speak fluently and accurately. One of them is
Communicative Language Teaching. As the name suggest, the
main purpose of this method is that to build the students’
communicative competence. Communicative competence
enables the students to communicate in real situation with
native speakers as well as foreigners. As the result, the
communication’s purpose can be reached. Besides,
communicative competence possessed by the students lead
them to the gate of success. For instance, there are many
exchanges programs offered by government to empower the
students. As the requirement, the applicants must have ability
to communicate in English actively. Meaning that, mastering
English will ease them to get involved in such program.
Therefore, to prepare the students become globally
competitive, the government has included English as a primary
subject taught in formal school. Furthermore, communicative
competence can be gained by the students if teachers
implement CLT well. In this case, methodological competence
is crucial.
Regarding the ability of using English, students believe that
their competency in using English must be developed.
Nowadays, numerous people desire to develop their command
of English or to ensure that their children achieve good
command of English [1]. Consequently, English language
teaching has developed rapidly. The demand for ability to
communicate with English is grown significantly. It obviously
can be seen as the impact of English is one of communication
tool used globally. As the result, English language teaching has
to adapt with such situation. Furthermore, the growing need for
communication skills in English has created a huge demand for
English teaching around the world. English language teaching
keeps growing. Learners set the goal to be able to master
English to a high level of accuracy and fluency. This situation
gives impact to the English language teaching itself in many
aspects such as the quality of language teaching, teaching
materials and teaching resources. The demand for English
globally has created a huge demand for quality language
teaching and language teaching materials and resources. In
addition to English language teaching in Indonesia, the
qualification of English teacher is significantly affected the
teaching and learning process. The teaching material as well as
teaching methodology implemented will also affect the
students’ performance. The students’ performance was affected
by lack of English teachers and absence of teaching and
learning materials [2]. Therefore, the qualified teacher is one of
the key factors in learning English.
In relation to the implementation of teaching method in
classroom, teachers still implement teacher-centered method
[3]. As the consequence, the opportunities given to students are
3rd Asian Education Symposium (AES 2018)
Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 253
518

not significant. As the result, the competence of students is not
adequate. The problem of was that the role of individual
accountability in CL implementation in Indonesian secondary
school EFL classroom? Therefore, to answer the problem the
study was expected to take out and explore a role that
individual accountability in CL plays in Indonesian EFL
Classroom, i.e. giving the learning opportunities to use the
target language. In EFL context, students only learn English as
a part of school curriculum meaning that there are many
restrictions such as teachers’ language ability, the accessibility
of teaching properties and material, and governments’ policy
[4].
English teachers as the facilitator in the classroom need to
be examined in term of the methodological competence in
implementing CLT principles. It is because the English teacher
has already possessed huge capability in teaching English as
Foreign Language. Furthermore, experiences are also has been
acknowledged by them during the English language teaching.
So that, It is important that methodological competence in
implementing Communicative Language Teaching principles
needs to be examined as well as the importance of developing
students’ communicative competence particularly speaking.
Methodological competence was determined through the sub
competences that foreign language teachers should have in
order to be considered competent from the methodological
stands point [5]. Therefore, this research needs to be
conducted. The central phenomenon of this research is the
students have different response in learning English
particularly speaking. So that it is important to be investigated.
This part presents the identification of the research problems.
There is a major issue stated in the background above that is
English teacher’s methodological competence in implementing
communicative language teaching principles in teaching
speaking. Therefore, the question of this research is that how is
the implementation of CLT in teaching speaking? The next
parts of this paper presents about the methodology of this
research.
II. METHOD
This study used a descriptive qualitative research
describing the English teachers’ methodological competence in
implementing Communicative Language Teaching in teaching
speaking. This study was conducted at the sixth grade female
classroom of Special Education Program, Nurul Hakim
Lombok. There were two English teachers as the participants.
The data obtained by conducting classroom observation and an
interview. The data obtained was analyzed by using Miles and
Huberman Model including data collection, data reduction,
data display and drawing conclusion [6].
Fig. 1. Miles and Huberman analysis model.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This research was completely done at the sixth grade
students of Special Education Program of Nurul Hakim
Boarding School. There were two English teachers observed.
TABLE I. CLASSROOM OBSERVATION RESULT
No.
Items
ET.1
ET.2
1.
Learning
topic
Narrative story
Showing direction
2
Classroom
activity
Presenting narrative
story
Dialogue in pairs,
games
3
Students’
accountability
Listen to their friends
with no interaction
Listen to their
friends with
interaction
4
Teachers role
Sitting on the chair
Standing in the
front of classroom
A. The Implementation of CLT
This part presents about some aspects were investigated
including the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a
language, the kinds of classroom activities, and the roles of
teachers and students in the classroom.
1) The goal of language teaching: The basic principle of
CLT is that setting the goals of language teaching. As a
mandatory of the curriculum that the outcome of language
learning must develop the students’ communicative
competence, English teachers were set the goals as it was
stated. Communicative competence is a basic tenet of
sociolinguistics defined as what a speaker needs to know to
communicate appropriately within a particular language
community [7]. Communicative competence includes four
aspects of language, including knowing how to use language
for a range of different purposes and functions, how to vary
our use of language according to the setting and the
participants, how to produce and understand different types of
texts, and how to maintain communication despite having
limitations in one’s language knowledge. Every time the
teachers come into the classroom, the teachers always deliver
the goals of the teaching. Teachers invited the students to get
involved in the learning to be active.
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2) How learners learn a language: Earlier views of
language learning focused primarily on the mastery of
grammatical competence. The language was viewed as habit
and therefore, any error must not be produced. Language
learning was viewed as process of mechanical habit formation
[8]. Good habits are formed by having students produce
correct sentences and not through making mistakes. In contrast
to the statement, CLT did not suggest such claim. Principles of
CLT concern on the learners produce language throughout
trial and error. In this study, English teachers gave the students
freedom to produce the language without any interference. It
did not mean teachers gave the errors went away without any
correction.
In relation to how learners learn a language, this study
investigated the process of teaching and learning. The teachers
triggered the students practicing English in turn by giving them
a task. As suggested by CLT principles, CLT gives the learners
more responsibility and involvement in the process of learning.
In other words, learner-centeredness takes precedence over
teacher-centeredness [9]. During the process of teaching and
learning, the students frequently produce some errors. Besides,
lack of vocabulary was being a problem faced by the students.
Overcoming these problems, the teachers listened and gave
correction. In term of lacking vocabulary, the teachers invited
the students to find out the words through guessing other words
that was similar. In addition, exploration outside classroom was
also done by the teacher. It was done to encourage the students
and to build the students’ confidence as what ET.2 stated in the
interview.
3) The kinds of classroom activities: The type of
classroom activities intended in CLT give implication to the
role of the teacher and students in classroom. Students have to
be involved in the classroom activities cooperatively rather
than individually. Students need to make themselves
comfortable in peers, group discussion or pair works. Besides,
students in CLT class are active participants in their own
learning process. Learner-centered, cooperative, collaborative
learning is emphasized, but not at the expanse of appropriate
teacher-centered activity. Furthermore, the role of teacher in
Communicative Language Teaching is primarily as a
facilitator and guide. By that means, the teaching and learning
process can be run well as it is required. Therefore, students
have to be encouraged to construct meaning through
linguistics interaction with teacher or other students genuinely.
There was a different kind of classroom activities done by
ET.1 and ET.2. ET.1 implemented narrative classroom
activity. Every student was asked to prepare a narrative story.
They were given some times to prepare their story after that
each student presented the story in front of the classroom. In
this case, the classroom activity was not appropriate with the
classroom activities that best facilitate learning in CLT.
Furthermore, the students’ communicative competence could
not be developed because the communication was not face-to-
face but closed to memorizing words.
On the other hands, ET.2 implemented map-reading
activities. Teacher asked the students to work in pairs. The
learning material was that giving direction. In this learning
activity, the students were also given a chance to practice the
dialogue. After all of the students finished the dialogue, the
teacher gave a game. The game was giving direction.
Interestingly, all of the students were enthusiast. Comparing to
the ET.1 classroom activity, ET.2 classroom activity could be
appropriate to the CLT classroom. Many other activity types in
CLT including Task-Completion activities such as puzzles,
games, map-reading, and other kinds of classroom tasks as
long as the focus is on using one’s language resources to
complete a task.
4) The roles of teachers and learners in the classroom: In
addition to the classroom activities, the roles of teacher is also
considering as the important thing in CLT. The type of
classroom activities put into practice affect the roles of
teachers and learners in the classroom. In relation to this, the
students have to take part in classroom activities in a
cooperative mode rather than individualistic mode of learning.
Students must become comfortable with listening to their
peers in group or pair work tasks, rather than relying on the
teacher for a model. Students are encouraged to construct
meaning through genuine linguistic interaction with other
students and with the teacher.
Based on the classroom observation, the teachers gave the
students chance to practice their English. At the same time,
teachers kept monitoring the situation of the classroom as well
as the language produced by the students. When there were any
errors were committed by the students, the teachers gave the
correction. In that way, the errors could be minimalized. The
role of teacher is that of facilitator and guide, not at all-known
font of knowledge that will fulfill the students’ inquiry
instantly. The teacher is an empathetic coach who values the
students’ linguistic development. As suggested by the principle
of CLT, teachers who had been investigated had played the
role as the guidance and facilitator in the classroom.
IV. CONCLUSION
As the conclusion, the English teachers should give more
attention on how to implement CLT in teaching speaking
including: 1) the goals of language teaching, 2) how learners
learn language, 3) classroom activities, and 4) the role of
teachers and learners in the classroom. The goal of learning is
that to improve the students’ communicative competence. It
can be achieved by giving chance to the students to
communicate with English in the real situation. Dialogue in
pairs was more suitable than narrative story. The teacher takes
a position as a facilitator in the classroom. In that way, the
teachers should give a proper situation of which students can
practice communicating with English. Therefore, for a
successful communication the students need not only to
increase the knowledge about the language but also to develop
communicative competence. As the impact, they can broadly
communicate with international friendship [10].
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Hereby I would like show my acknowledgment: Thank you
to Drs. Priyono, MA, Ph.D; Dr. Sudirman Wilian, MA; Drs.
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520

Kamaludin Yusra, Ph.D; Drs. Mahyuni, MA, Ph. D. Thank you
to the headmaster of MA DI Putri Nurul Hakim, Kediri,
Lombok Barat. Thank you to English teachers who helped me
in collecting the data
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