Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the use of the Communicative Language Teaching approach in the English classroom and the strategies and resources used by the teachers to improve students’ oral skills. The participants were 6 English teachers and 105 students enrolled in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades at a public elementary school in the city of Loja, located at the southern part of Ecuador. A mixed method approach was applied in this study. In order to collect the data, a questionnaire was given to the English teachers and class observations were carried out. The results obtained throughout this study reveal that modeling, repetition, pair and group work are the main strategies used by teachers to help students develop communicative competences. These strategies were frequently used but still not enough to promote active participation during classes. It is important to highlight that there is a variety of strategies besides the ones previously mentioned that can be incorporated to offer students more opportunities to orally produce the language. Additionally, teachers provide different kinds of feedback such as metalinguistic feedback and elicitation as a way to help students improve their oral skills.

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