TEACHERS’ DIFFICULTIES IN IMPLEMENTING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) AT HIGH SCHOOLS IN MEDAN

Abstract

This study was intended to find out whether high school English teachers are at ease when using CLT in their classes. That is, whether EFL teachers are capable of utilizing comprehensive approach named CLT in their classes to achieve its ultimate goal, communication in real context. 50 participant teachers teaching English at high schools were given a questionnaire to express their view points about the probable difficulties they might encounter when using CLT. In addition to the questionnaire, each teacher was interviewed for about 5 minutes so they might express their ideas live on the probable constraints in applying CLT in their genuine classes. Then the data collected by means of the interview and the questionnaires were analyzed.  It was concluded that the main sources of problems in CLT implementation by the English teachers are: problems caused by the teachers, difficulties coming from the students, pitfalls created by the educational system, and hurdles caused by the CLT approach itself.