scholarly journals Chasms of Communicative Language Teaching: Perils of Pupils in Primary Schools of Bangladesh

Author(s):  
Mohammed Shamsul Hoque ◽  
J Karthikeyan ◽  
Md Monjurul Islam ◽  
Md Kabirul Islam

The success of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach at primary schools of Bangladesh has recently been questioned seriously. No measures have yet been taken to remedy the apprehended failure of CLT programs in the country. This inquiry focuses on the perils of pupils in the forms of shaming, failure, and fear for the tyranny of the current CLT curriculum. A mixed research method was used to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the learners’ situation through a questionnaire survey with participation of 211 CLT practitioners, an FGD with 12 participants and semi-structured interviews with 15 English learners. Along with lack of teacher empowerment mechanisms, other challenges for young learners (YLs) included problem of enduring class rules, their inability to cope with difficult texts, fear of failure in lessons, tests, and physical and psychological sufferings inflicted on them during, before and after the delivery of the lessons. The findings reveal the need of a modified CLT curriculum with provisions for innovative pedagogy, learner care and learner empowerment. Provisions for use of L1 Bangla in lesson delivery, inclusion of learner culture and local context in the teaching-learning of English are recommended to ensure expected outcomes.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 360
Author(s):  
Kwong Tung Chan

The fast global spread of COVID-19 has resulted in the mass disruption of teaching, learning, as well as assessment, in mainstream schools in Singapore. Teachers were caught unprepared and this jeopardised the quality of classroom delivery and assessment. The Ministry of Education has since shifted to an online asynchronous mode of teaching whilst attempting to keep the face-to-face method of lesson delivery, to which it is called ‘blended learning’ (BL) in the local context. Besides being propelled to learn and use new technology tools for online lessons, teachers also need to quickly explore to embed formative assessment (FA) in the new BL environment to substitute traditional classroom assessment. In this context, I argue that teachers’ language assessment literacy (LAL), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and e-pedagogy are vital to the success of embedding FA in BL. Following, I also describe some tentative predictions for future challenges and opportunities of embedding FA in the BL environment of secondary Chinese Language (CL) teaching in Singapore. On this basis, I discuss the ways in which current conceptualisations of language assessment literacy will need to shift in response to these challenges. Finally, I make some recommendations for practice based on this argument.


2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Chang ◽  
Jaya S. Goswami

Foreign language teaching in many Asian-Pacific countries in recent decades has shifted toward communicative-focused instruction. However, researchers have reported a gap between policy and practice. To incorporate teachers’ voices in adopting the communicative approach in the curriculum, this study explores factors that promote or hinder EFL teachers’ implementation of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in Taiwanese college English classes. The findings indicated that the factors that impacted implementation of CLT related to teachers, students, the educational system, and suitability of CLT in the local context. Also, certain situational constraints were found to hinder the implementation of CTL. The article provides practical recommendations for teachers, educators, and policy makers to further improve teacher training, curriculum design, and situational constraints to ensure success in implementing the CLT approach.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Zelda Elisifa Sam

The current study explored EFL secondary school learners’ beliefs about language teaching, learning and testing in Tanzania. Specifically, it sought to find out the EFL learners’ beliefs about language assessment, explore the EFL learners’ beliefs about language learning and establish degree of EFL learner variability in their beliefs about language teaching. The study involved 48 secondary school learners, 36 (75%) males and 12 (25%) females. From these 20 (all boys) (50%) were from a private secondary school in Temeke and the rest (16 boys and all 12 girls) from another secondary school in Kinondoni District, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Data were collected via a questionnaire, which was one and only tool for data gathering and it consisted of 25 items, five on language assessment, 9 on language teaching and 11 on language learning to which the respondents were asked to react and register their level of agreement about pre –developed assertions. Findings showed that while the learners differed in their beliefs about language teaching, a grand majority shared a belief about primacy of grammar teaching and on role of teacher in error correction and disfavoured communicative language teaching. The same was the case for language assessment where the most shared belief was testing grammar and correcting errors. It is concluded that these set of beliefs are hinged upon years of grammar-focussed teaching in Tanzania which still characterize language teaching in Tanzania despite the introduction of communicative language teaching approach in the national language curriculum more than ten years ago.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shijun Chen ◽  
Jing Wang

Task-based language teaching on the purpose of enhancing students’ communicative skills and involving them actively in the authentic context has long been highlighted in recent years in tertiary English language teaching. This paper proposes a framework of task-based teaching approach and language assessment in intensive reading class based on the researcher’s own teaching practice to explore positive impacts on students’ competences. This is done in the context of both oral presentation and written reports of first undergraduate English major students. The research method consists of semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire with 18 questions pointing to different aspects in the learning and teaching processes, aiming to explore what impacts it has on students’ competence in both second language acquisition and at cognitive level. In this empirical study, all the findings indicate that TBLT applied in Chinese English teaching class is very effective and beneficial for the enhancement of Chinese English learners.


Author(s):  
Abdolmajid Goljani Amirkhiz ◽  
Ahmad Moinzadeh ◽  
Abbas Eslami-Rasekh

This study aimed at inspiring EFL teachers to take a new attitude towards using teaching techniques as well as instructing cultural notes making them aware of the principles of critical pedagogy (CP) through instruction. In the same line, it tried to find out different techniques applied by teachers before and after the instruction. On the account of the dichotomy by which IRF (initiation, response and feedback) architecture is in contrast with the tenets of critical pedagogy encouraging multivocality of a classroom discourse, the teaching steps which can distinct these two architectures are still underexplored. To cover the purposes of the research, 20 EFL teachers teaching at institutes and universities were purposefully sampled to be interviewed and trained. Four sessions before and four sessions after instruction were video-recorded and taking benefit of conversation analysis methods, they were transcribed and the visible changes were dialogically discussed with the teachers using semi-structured interviews and stimulated recall sessions to find out the rationale. Adopting new techniques regarding both cultural notes and teaching techniques after instruction such as strategies in “turn taking”, “latched turns”, “more chances to create dialogue”, “fewer teacher echo and interruption”, “using L1”, “educational feedback”, applying referential questions”, promoting self-initiation”, “glocalizing cultural notes” and “less dependability on the coursebook” indicated that raising awareness among teachers considering the principles of CP, they can change both their attitudes and abilities from transmission-based pedagogy to place-based responsive pedagogy in which learners as a whole play an active role.


Author(s):  
Yoyok Febrijanto ◽  
Sandy Kurniajati

ESP nursing materials is an important component in the success of educational programs, especially in the field of nursing. The development of English learning is now more emphasis on the authenticity of the material that is contextual activities or work involved, one of which is in nursing profession. Communicative language teaching (CLT) sets principles about the teaching of communicative competence not confined to verbal communication but also includes written communication, consists of four skills especially on ESP nursing based on nursing care (assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning(intervention & implementation, and evaluation) as the main source of objective achievement in teaching learning process. The development method used is adapted from Borg and Gall's model involved 24 students, 1 expert in English education, 2 experts in nursing education, and 1 practitioner of hospital. Researchers developed materials (4 chapters) based needs analysis (students’ need and reviewing existing syllabus) with four language skills. Result of expert validation (materials evaluation based on contents, exercises, communication, and general elements) was very good (average score 3.5) and result of students’ try out to give the decision of the product quality, the average score was 3.2, it meant the materials was acceptable  and eligible to be used by the nursing students as autonomous learning. In conclusion, the final product can be used as a model of instructional materials to teach English nursing as ESP materials. Keywords: ESP Nursing, CLT, Material Development


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Mildred Shingirirai Nyamayedenga ◽  
Lizette de Jager

Zimbabwe's new primary school curriculum aims at enhancing knowledge-building through the use of communicative language teaching (CLT) to assist both the teachers and the learners to solve problems. In this qualitative case study, we investigated the extent of teachers' inclination to use the CLT approach. To do so, the study was guided by Socio-cultural Theory (SCT) and the Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). Five purposively selected participants in the Warren Park/Mabelreign District in Zimbabwe responded to semi-structured interviews and were observed while they were teaching. The analysis revealed that although teachers understood that knowledge-building can be enhanced by CLT they are ill prepared to implement it because they lack the skills and the knowledge, and they have to cope with inadequate resources. Consequently, teachers still follow traditional pedagogic practices that do not lead to knowledge-building in learners. We recommend that a number of workshops be offered to in-service teachers and stakeholders on how to employ CLT activities that enhance knowledge-building.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Makrina Zafiri ◽  
Vassiliki Vakalopoulou ◽  
Vassiliki Pliogou

In recent years, dyslexia has become an important issue in the field of foreign language teaching and learning. In this research we will explore dyslexia in connection to teaching and learning a foreign language. More particularly, in this research, we will be probing into the teaching of German as a foreign language. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of the application of Differential Instruction, the application of the Grammar –Translation Method, the Audio-Visual Method, the Communicative Approach to language teaching as well as the Multisensory Method to a Greek student with dyslexia. The girl is in the first year of junior high school and is being taught German as a foreign language at school. The research method, which was applied, focused on qualitative research through the use of semi - structured interviews. This research is also a case study. Action research was conducted, for the needs of this small-scale research, through ten differentiated instruction lessons which were taught to a student with dyslexia. The student and her mother were the major sources of data collection. More particularly, the semi - structured interviews were conducted before and after the implementation of differentiated instruction with the student and her mother. We initially attempted to collect information through semi-structured interviews, on the student's family profile, and after conducting the ten lessons, we tried to verify the effectiveness of the approaches and methods which were applied. The results of this research showed that the effectiveness of differentiated instruction was immense as the student’s performance improved in the foreign language.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Do Lan Phuong

As one of the main purposes of using English today is for international communication and globalisation, English has been mainly used among bilingual speakers of English who come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds (McKay, 2006; Sharifian, 2014). In such multinational and multicultural contexts, today English learners have to deal with not only linguistic barrier, but also cultural barrier. Therefore, it is crucially important that they are provided with multicultural knowledge and cross-cultural awareness. However, so far, there has been little research into the perceptions of English teachers towards culture used in ELT materials in EFL contexts. Therefore, the research aims to identify how seven Vietnamese teachers of English in two universities in Hanoi, Vietnam perceived culture and the role of culture in language teaching. This paper also seeks to explore how their perceptions influenced the way they taught culture in their English class and the way they adapted and developed ELT materials for their students with the hope that it will provide useful and practical suggestions for developing appropriate ELT materials for EFL teaching contexts. The research is based on a qualitative research which applies mostly in-depth, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The data of this research reveals that most participants recognized the close and interrelated relationship between language and culture and the crucial role of culture in language teaching. They also identified the important role of English as an international language and cultural differences in ELT materials. Realizing a cultural gap in most of the materials they taught, they tried to adapt the materials based on their students’ needs. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Sekiziyivu ◽  
Christopher B. Mugimu

The communicative language teaching (CLT) approach emphasizes the change in the role of the teacher from a transmitter of knowledge to a facilitator of language learning. Teachers must therefore, develop and utilize teaching strategies that enable learners to freely interact in a classroom environment to enhance the required communicative competences. However, in the Ugandan context where the curriculum is examination-driven, teacher competence is judged on the basis of students’ excellence in the final examinations. As such, teachers tend to focus on producing better grades, thereby neglecting learners’ acquisition of vital communicative competences. This paper spells out the teaching strategies teachers of German use to create a supportive environment for communicative language teaching and learning. A cross sectional survey research design was used in the study. Questionnaires, observations, and semi-structured interviews were used to gather data on teachers’ experiences regarding the teaching strategies used to support CLT approach. Findings revealed that the teaching strategies utilised by the teachers of German had very little bearing on the CLT approach. For instance, the classroom environment did not encourage free interaction among learners as required by the CLT approach. It was recommended that teachers be introduced to teaching strategies that are relevant to the CLT approach during their pre-and in-service training.


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