The DOI matches its Crossref record.
The Communicative Orientation of English Language Teaching Classrooms in Moroccan Secondary Schools
Open accessAbstract
The present paper addresses the issue of theory and practice in the implementation of the communicative approach in the context of English as a foreign language teaching in Morocco. It set to evaluate the communicative orientation of English language teaching classrooms in Moroccan secondary schools. This evaluation incorporates the investigation of the constraints imposed on teaching English for communicative purposes in this context. The results reveal the dominance of non-communicatively oriented practices and classrooms over their communicatively oriented counterparts. However, the dominance of communicative features in forty-one of the classes observed (34.16%) is relatively high given the current state of communicative language teaching in Morocco and the constraints that were found to impede its implementation in this context. These constraints are related essentially to the foreign language context, the formal nature of the classroom environment, the traditional nature of students’ personality traits and their conceptions of classroom participation and role-relationships, the nature of assessment procedures, lack of adequate and varied teaching materials and equipment, and the large size of classes. These findings suggest that English language teaching in Moroccan secondary schools has undergone important changes from the dominance of traditional and teacher-centred classrooms towards more communicative language teaching. They would also imply that the implementation of the communicative approach in foreign language contexts is not impossible, but rather feasible. To this end, this article presents some suggestions to enhance communicatively oriented attitudes and practices in English as a foreign language teaching classrooms in Morocco.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Moroccan students face unique challenges, including limited access to digital tools and cultural factors influencing teacher-student dynamics, which may affect the implementation and effectiveness of GBL tools.
“Moroccan students face unique challenges, including limited access to digital tools and cultural factors influencing teacher -student dynamics, which may affect the implementation and effectiveness of GBL tools (El Karfa, 2019).”
From Digital Game-Based Vocabulary Learning Using Kahoot! Perceptions, Engagement, and Achievement Among Moroccan EFL Young Learners (2026) · cites this paper as El Karfa, 2019
Section 4.2 reports inadequate teaching materials, equipment and facilities, as well as students’ traditional conceptions, as constraints on communicative language teaching. Section 5.2 also discusses rigid teacher–student power relationships. The paper does not identify limited access to digital tools or assess the implementation or effectiveness of game-based learning (GBL) tools. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 27
- Allen, P., Fröhlich, M., & Spada, N. (1984). The communicative orientation of language teaching: An observation scheme. TESOL Quarterly, 83, 231-252.
- Bendouqui, N. (1996). Towards a more systematic teaching of vocabulary. In ELT in Morocco: Perspectives for the 21st Century. Proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference of MATE. Mohammadia: Moroccan Association of Teachers of English.
- Brindley, G. P. (1989). The role of needs analysis in adult ESL programme design. In R. K. Johnson (Ed.), The Second Language Curriculum. (PP. 63-78) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524520.007 · DOI
- Brown, H. D. (1987). Principles of language learning and teaching. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NY. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.44.1.181 · DOI
- Brumfit, C.J. and K. Johnson (Eds.). (1979). The communicative approach to language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586757 · DOI
- Brumfit, C. (1984). Communicative methodology in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190500000982 · DOI
- Brumfit, C. (1988). Applied linguistics and communicative language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 20(4), 709-17. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190500000982 · DOI
- Byrness, H. (1987). Getting a better reading: initiatives in foreign language reading instruction. In S. Savignon, & M. S. Berns (Eds.), Initiatives in communicative language teaching II. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
- Cohen, L., & Manion, L. (1980). Research methods in education. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.2307/1175227 · DOI
- Dumitrescu, V. (2000). Authentic materials: Selection and implementation in exercise language training. English Teaching Forum, 38(2), 20-23.
- Ellis, R. (1990). Instructed second language development. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Ellis, R. (1992). Second language acquisition and language pedagogy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100010512 · DOI
- Foster, P. (1998). A classroom perspective on the negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 19(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/19.1.1 · DOI · Paper page
- Fröhlich, M., Spada, N., & Allen, P. (1985). Differences in the communicative orientation of L2 classrooms. In TESOL Quarterly, 19(1), 27-57. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586771 · DOI
- Hatch, E. (1978). Discourse analysis and second language acquisition. In E. Hatch (Ed.). Second language acquisition. Rowley. Mass.: New bury House. https://doi: 10.12691/education-2-10-15. · DOI
- Holliday, A. (1994). Appropriate methodology and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Johnson, K. E. (1995). Understanding communication in second language classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Kharraf, M., & Messaoudi, S. (1993). The role of the teacher's guide in EFL Moroccan secondary schools. In Proceedings of the 13th MATE Annual Conference. Ouarzazate: Moroccan Association of Teachers of English (pp. 99-112).
- Lightbown, P. (2000). Classroom SLA research and second language teaching. Applied Linguistics, 21(4), 431-462. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/21.4.431 elt.ccsenet.org · DOI
- Littlewood. (1981). Communicative language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.38.4.720. · DOI
- Lynch. T. (1996). Communication in the language classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- McKay, P. (1994). Communicative orientation and language outcomes in Australian junior secondary foreign language classes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Queensland. Brisbane. Australia.
- Nunan, D. (1988). The learner-centred curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524506 · DOI
- Ouakrime, M. (1993). Evaluating classroom teaching: Focus on communication. In Proceedings of the 13th MATE Annual Conference (pp. 33-46). Ouarzazate.
- Swales, J. M. (1993). More discourse analysis in communicative language teaching: More felicity than breakdown? In Proceeding of the 13th MATE Annual Conference (pp. 57-74). Ouarzazate.
- Widdowson, H. G. (1978). Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Widdowson, H. G. (1990). Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0272263100010937 ………………………. In your opinion: 3. What are the characteristics of a "good" learner? …………….........................…………………………..……………………………………………………………. · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Baissane, O. (2026) · Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice · doi:10.28945/5704 · Cited by 1
Metadata
- Authors
- Karfa, A. E.
- Affiliations
- Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University (MA)
- Corresponding author
- Karfa, Abderrahim El
- ORCID
- Karfa, Abderrahim El
- Venue
- English Language Teaching
- Published
- 2019-10-31
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 97
- ISSN
- 1916-4742 (ISSN-L)
- 1916-4750
- OpenAlex
- W2982654382
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 4.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- English Language Teaching (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Second Language Learning and Teaching
- Social Sciences › Education › Foreign Language Teaching Methods
- Keywords
- communicative language teaching, English as a foreign language, teaching practice, teacher-centered instruction, student participation, assessment methods, teaching materials, class size, traditional language teaching
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
