SYSTEMIC CHALLENGES IN ENHANCING COMMUNICATIVE BASIC SKILLS FOR ADULT LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
Abstract
This article examines the persistent challenges in improving the core communicative skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—for adults learning English as a Second Language (ESL). While the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach is widely adopted, its effective implementation is hampered by interconnected systemic, pedagogical, and psychological factors. Through a review of contemporary literature and qualitative synthesis, we identify key barriers: the affective filter (anxiety, motivation), insufficient comprehensible input and output opportunities, sociocultural gaps, and instructional mismatches. The article argues that moving beyond structural knowledge to true communicative competence requires a holistic strategy addressing these multidomain challenges.