Gohar Hovakimyan

The Roles of Teachers and Learners: the Change of Roles in the English Teaching Classrooms of Armenia Gohar Hovakimyan

Many teachers agree that teaching should be aimed at bringing about changes in methodology. The adoption of a learner-centered approach to language teaching has a number of implications for teachers and learners, the most evident of which is the allocation of more active and participatory role to learners,and a role of facilitator to teachers. The study sets out to investigate if the roles of teachers and learners in the English teaching classrooms of Armenia are affected by the tendency to shift from traditional teaching methods and teacher-centered classrooms to communicative language teaching (CLT), learner-centeredness and learner autonomy. The study aims to discover to what extent Armenian society is open to changes in foreign language teaching methodology by observing a number of English teaching classrooms and interviewing teachers and learners in different schools in Armenia. A research project was carried out at one of the English classrooms in Armenian. The subjects were exposed to the learning techniques as recommended by the literature on communicative language teaching.