Teachers' understanding and practice of CLT in higher secondary level of Bangladesh

Abstract

Recently, English plays a unique role as an international lingua franca over the world. The fact that English is mostly used worldwide among people for whom it is a second or foreign language is an indicator of such uniqueness. This distinctiveness does not only refer to the language itself, but also to the ways it is taught as a foreign language. Some of the pedagogical principles especially in Bangladesh that have informed foreign language teaching in the last few decades need to be reconsidered when that language is taught in English. Some questions need to be addressed, such as to what extent is the CLT framework working in Bangladesh? What beliefs or concepts do teachers have of CLT? What are the teachers’ attitudes toward CLT techniques? What is the role of grammar in the CLT class? What are the teachers’ attitudes toward the prescribed materials designed by national Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) based on the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach for the Higher Second Colleges in Bangladesh? To what extent are CLT activities used in the classrooms? The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which such issues were part of the belief system of teachers in Bangladesh and what impact they had on actual classroom practice. The findings indicated that the majority of the respondents believed CLT is not working properly in Bangladesh. As a result, we should reconsider the practical implication of CLT in the classrooms. However, the pattern was more complex and variegated than this brief summary might suggest, especially when the teachers’ beliefs were compared to their classroom practice.