Communicative Environments in Ecuadorian EFL Classrooms: A teacher-centered literature review of CLT implementation Entornos comunicativos en las aulas de inglés como Lengua Extranjera en Ecuador: una revisión bibliográfica centrada en el profesor sobre la implementación del CLT

Resumen

The development of communicative competence in English is a priority within the Ecuadorian educational system; however, a documented gap persists between the curriculum grounded in the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach and classroom practices that continue to rely on traditional methods. To examine this discrepancy, an integrative literature review was conducted, analyzing peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025 in databases such as Scopus, ERIC, SciELO, and Google Scholar. The collected information was subjected to a thematic analysis focused on classroom interaction, the teacher’s role, and the development of communicative competence. The findings reveal that CLT implementation remains limited due to traditional pedagogical beliefs, insufficient methodological training to foster communicative practices, challenges in creating authentic communicative environments, and the predominance of teacher-centered methods that limit student participation and hinder the development of oral fluency. The implications of the study provide key evidence to inform educational policy decisions, strengthen the design of teacher-training programs, and encourage further research on classroom interaction in EFL contexts in the Ecuadorian setting