Research Trends in Communicative Language Teaching: A Bibliometric Analysis from 2014 to 2023

Abstract

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to language education that prioritizes communication as the core of language learning. Since its emergence in the 1970s, it has garnered significant attention from linguists and language educators. This study aims to reveal the current status and trends of CLT-related research, thereby contributing to its ongoing development. Through a bibliometric analysis using the RStudio Biblioshiny tool, 649 documents on CLT from the Web of Science Core Collection, spanning from 2013 to 2024 were examined. Various aspects such as the number of publications, publication venues, corresponding authors' countries, the most cited documents, and frequently explored topics were analyzed. The findings suggest avenues for further exploration, including the interdisciplinary development of CLT, its application in languages beyond English, and the exploration of more practical variants of the CLT method in the future.