Grounded theory approach to beginning teachers' perspectives of communicative language teaching practice

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach has become the prevailing language teaching methodol-ogy across the world. However, beginning language teachers' application of CLT in foreign language teach-ing has yet to be explored in past research. This paper reports the use of CLT from the perspective of begin-ning Mandarin teachers. A grounded theory approach is employed as research methodology. Data were col-lected from interviews with eight beginning Mandarin teachers. Major findings suggest a three-dimensional explication for beginning teachers' practice of CLT in teaching Mandarin as a foreign language. The epistem-ic dimension indicates the beginning Mandarin teachers' concepts of CLT; the perceptual dimension reveals the teachers' concerns about CLT as being opposed to their preferences, teaching objectives and surround-ings; and the situational dimension explicates the teachers' adaptation of CLT in their particular teaching situations. It argues that the integral, emergent process of the three dimensions demonstrates the process un-derlying beginning teachers' application of CLT theory to practice.