Implementing Communicative Language Teaching with Adult Karen Learners

This study seeks to examine which aspects of Communicative Language Teaching adult Karen English language learners value and how they describe their experience of three typical CLT activities. The engagement of CLT methods with culture in general and Karen culture in particular is considered. Twelve Karen intermediate level participants completed a 25 question Karen-language values assessment as well as three questionnaires based on communicative activities they experienced in their classroom. While participants indicated strong agreement with CLT values of collaborative and functional learning they remain eager for a strong teacher role in the classroom and active error correction not emphasized in CLT. The findings of this study suggest that while CLT remains an effective and valuable instructional framework for these learners consideration must be given to the cultural and teaching/learning values of learners to ensure effective learning and prevent cultural mismatch from unnecessarily demotivating learners.