Grounded Theory Approach to Beginning Teachers’ Perspectives of Communicative Language Teaching Practice

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach has become the prevailing language teaching methodology across the world. However, beginning language teachers’ application of CLT in foreign language teaching has yet to be explored in past research. This paper reports the use of CLT from the perspective of beginning Mandarin teachers. A grounded theory approach is employed as research methodology. Data were collected from interviews with eight beginning Mandarin teachers. Major findings suggest a three-dimensional explication for beginning teachers’ practice of CLT in teaching Mandarin as a foreign language. The epistemic dimension indicates the beginning Mandarin teachers’ concepts of CLT; the perceptual dimension reveals the teachers’ concerns about CLT as being opposed to their preferences, teaching objectives and surroundings; and the situational dimension explicates the teachers’ adaptation of CLT in their particular teaching situations. It argues that the integral, emergent process of the three dimensions demonstrates the process underlying beginning teachers’ application of CLT theory to practice.