Challenges of teaching english in rural areas: a study of BRAC Primary Schools in Jessore

Abstract

Language is one of the medium of expressing our ideas, feelings and emotions. If we think about language in present world, English is one of the most used languages in world and English is used to learn as a challenging language in the classroom. English is introduced here at the primary level and its inclusion continues until the tertiary level of Education. For this, in recent years, the government of Bangladesh has worked to implement a language policy to foster a communicative approach to English language teaching (ELT) at the primary level, where BRAC education program is trying to playing this role in BRAC primary school program for enhancing the student’s skill. For implementing it foster, the study has explored towards the challenges of teaching English language at the rural BRAC primary schools. Both the teachers and students are the target group of people for this study. This study investigated the factors affecting student’s performance in English language in rural BRAC primary schools. For this purpose, one set of questionnaire has been used to collect data from students to assess the situation of English teaching and learning in rural BRAC primary schools. English sessions has been observed using an observation checklist and interview as focus group discussion has been taken from the teachers in order to find out the real present scenario of teaching English language at the rural BRAC primary schools level. Both teachers and students were thought to play important role to ensure challenging English during the teaching and learning process in classrooms. The result of the study reveals that students were highly motivated to learn English for future expectations such as local and international communication, academic advancement and employment prospects. It also provides a scenario of English teaching system in rural areas of BRAC primary schools as well as the problems and prospects of English learning.