Communicative Language Teaching and Assessment Strategies in Online English as Foreign Language (EFL) Tutoring Context

Abstract

Many Filipinos have found employment in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) online tutoring industry. The EFL online tutoring extends beyond the traditional academic mainstream, becoming a dynamic and personalized avenue for language learning. This paper aimed to fill the research gaps surfaced by the dearth of research in online learning, where there are limited known teaching and assessment strategies used to deliver EFL tutoring classes. It specifically sought to identify the effectiveness and adaptability of communicative language teaching strategies to cater to the language needs of EFL learners. The participants were tutors of Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese learners. Through a phenomenological qualitative inquiry, this study subsequently gathered data through a semi-structured interview with eight priori codes as a research instrument. On the other hand, tutoring class observations also corroborated the parallel validation of interview data. The data further analyzed using cool, warm, and thematic analyses. The directives of themes explicated in this study were delineated by the emerging Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach by Richards and Schmidt as conceptual framework, other prevalent strategies were also reiterated. In a nutshell, the participants’ perspectives highlighted the effective utilization of language activities in all instructional and evaluative aspects. These are the use of authentic materials as a push for authenticity, opinion sharing, role-playing, information gap activities, information transfer activities, mechanical practice in language familiarization, meaningful practice by giving prompt feedback, language task, and project work. Consequently, the constraints revolved around language barrier, technological barrier, short attention span, and validity of assessments involved. Also, essential suggestions for future researchers are accentuated in this study.