English Teachers’ Perception on Using Communicative Activities in EFL Classrooms

Communicative activities are meaningful activities under CLT that encourage the students to use the language in real condition within speak up or expressing their feeling and also enable them to interact with other students. This research aims to investigate teachers’ perceptions on the benefits of using communicative activities and find out the challenges faced by the teachers in applying communicative activities in EFL classrooms. In conducting this research, qualitative approach was adopted to gain more detailed information about the topic and the interview as a data-gathering method. It was applied to investigate the participants’ experience in using communicative activities. There were five English teachers in one state senior high school in Yogyakarta chosen as the research participants. The findings related to the benefits are increasing students’ learning engagement, increasing students’ vocabulary, supporting students in understanding the material, increasing students’ critical thinking, enhancing students’ communication ability. In addition, the findings about the challenges faced by teachers in applying communicative activities in EFL classrooms are having difficulties in presenting the material effectively, having low engaged students in classroom participation, having low English proficiency level of students, having students with lack of motivation. In conclusion, the researcher found that communicative activities are beneficial for students in learning English which the researcher mentioned above but also could cause challenges at the same time.