A QUALITATIVE STUDY INTO TURKISH EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COMMUNICATIVE TASK EFFECTIVENESS IN A TERTIARY EDUCATION CONTEXT
A QUALITATIVE STUDY INTO TURKISH EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COMMUNICATIVE TASK EFFECTIVENESS IN A TERTIARY EDUCATION CONTEXT

Summary/Abstract: Communicative tasks have been integrated into mainstream English language teaching (ELT) curricula and ELT textbooks not only at K-12 but also at the tertiary level on a global scale for over two decades. Despite the widespread implementation of the communicative tasks in different educational institutions with diverse learner profiles, the observation of classroom practices and anecdotal evidence from teachers and students denoted that there were varied perceptions concerning the effectiveness of communicative tasks between both parties, which indicates a need for the exploration of these perceptions. This qualitative study set out to investigate the perceptions of the EFL teachers and students at an English preparatory school of a large state university in Turkey regarding the effectiveness of communicative tasks in relation to the effectiveness of the communicative tasks. The data were collected through the open-ended items on the student questionnaire, the standardized open-ended teacher interviews and the teacher journals. Eight tasks with a relatively high communicative potential from the coursebook called Language in use intermediate – classroom book by Doff and Jones (1994) were used in the study. The data in the study were analyzed via inductive content analysis. The findings revealed that both the EFL teachers and students at the preparatory school of the university held favourable perceptions regarding the effectiveness of the communicative tasks. They also indicated a general alignment between both parties’ perceptions of communicative tasks in the study. The study incorporates some implications for in-service teachers in the EFL contexts as well as some suggestions for further research.

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