English teacher's beliefs and practices in relation to EFL communicative competence: a case study

Abstract

This thesis attempts to analyse the relationships that exist between English teachers’ beliefs about the concept of communicative competence and their practices at a state University in la Guajira, Colombia. This study involved five English teachers from the English institute of Universidad de la Guajira (Extensión Maicao). I approached this research from a qualitative perspective. To access teachers’ beliefs, an ethnographic case-study methodology was used. The data for the study included participant classroom observations, semi-structured interview, questionnaire and documents (teacher’s lesson plan). A qualitative software program (ATLAS.ti 6.0) was used to process data. Data was coded and emerging categories derived to describe the beliefs teachers hold about communicative competence. The results revealed that English teachers have different beliefs related to the concept of communicative competence, their methodology and their practice. Some sources of those beliefs were confirmed with the theory and in the same way the coherence between what teachers said to believe and their teaching practice was contrasted. This thesis contributes to the general understanding of English teaching and learning. I suggest that by studying the beliefs of the teachers, I am somehow getting an understanding of how their practices are configured as well. The EFL academic community could benefit from approaching teachers’ beliefs and their practices. Some implications of this case study for language teacher education are also discussed.