English as a foreign language in Romania : the implementation of the communicative approach

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the implementation of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Romanian schools. The ongoing process of implementation started in 1995, as part of the nationwide reform that followed some major changes in the political system, namely the Anticommunist Revolution of 1989. The reform is largely the result of the contact between Romanian intellectuals and Western methodologies that made the former acknowledge the need to change the old-fashioned approach to teaching employed in Romania.

As a student and later on as an EFL teacher, I witnessed the switch from the traditional Grammar-Translation Method to the Communicative Approach. In writing this thesis, I rely on the experience I gained during the three years I spend teaching EFL in Romania, and some of the data from this thesis is gathered in the form of interviews and a survey completed by Romanian EFL teachers. The teachers interviewed for this study regarded some of the communicative activities as incongruent with the Romanian schools due to certain factors ranging from the size of the student body to the teacher-controlled environment imposed by tradition. Although the Ministry guidelines and the textbooks used in Romania promote the Communicative Approach, teachers sometimes avoid the communicative activities and employ strategies and activities that are specific to the Grammar-Translation Method or the Audio-Lingual Approach, although they are not formally instructed to do so. Without specifically naming the Audio-Lingual approach as the preferred method used in the classroom, they implement some of its components.