Given the significance of English in the global world, English language teaching in Bangladesh has become subject to a supreme concern in maintaining economic growth and developing a skilled workforce. In this article, several barriers have been discussed based on a critical analysis of published materials. This review article covers several key issues such as the status of English in the country; English in education policies; factors affecting the implementation of communicative language teaching curriculum, method, and materials in Bangladesh; validity of the current assessment and its washback effect on English language teaching in Bangladesh; and current situation of teachers' professional development. The article concluded with language policy and planning implications for policymakers, curriculum and material developers, public exams' test-setters, and future English teacher training programmes, keeping the overall development of ELT in Bangladesh in mind.
Although a good number of studies have been conducted on the problems EFL learners face to develop oral English communication skills, only a few studies tackled the problems EFL teachers face when teaching oral English communication skills at the tertiary level globally and in the Bangladeshi EFL context. Thus, the objectives of this study are to explore the problems faced by EFL teachers and the relationship between teachers' demographic factors and the problems of teaching oral English communication skills (OECSs) at the tertiary level in Bangladesh. To obtain these objectives, the researchers employed an explanatory sequential mixedmethod research design by distributing an adapted survey questionnaire and conducting a semi-structured interview. Data were collected from 46 EFL teachers who were teaching at the department of English at 15 different public and private universities in Bangladesh. The synthesized results from quantitative and qualitative data show that the most frequent problems that EFL teachers face are the use of mother tongue, inappropriate teaching method, learners' passiveness, and lack of motivation, lack of oral practice environment, lack of supporting tools, lack of authentic materials and large class size. Besides, there is no statistically significant relationship between teachers' demographic factors and the problems the teachers face while teaching oral skills at the tertiary level in Bangladesh. In light of the results, this paper recommends that empirical studies should be conducted to provide teachers with methods that would integrate features of the smartphone, such as WhatsApp, call recorder, voice recorder etc. for teaching oral English communication skills.
The use of mobile devices for English language teaching (ELT) is increasing rapidly all over the world. This review study surveys the empirical research on using mobile phones in ELT published in Scopus and Web of Science indexing journals from 2010 to 2020 in Bangladesh. Out of 103 studies, 11 studies met the criteria of this study to analyze the effects of mobile phones on ELT. The findings show that the major research trends of these studies aim at teachers’ professional development using mobile phones for teaching language. The findings also reveal that the use of mobile phones is effective in ELT through facilitating feasible, ubiquitous, and effective learning environments with some limitations, i.e., an issue with charging, a small screen, affection, and a lack of teacher confidence. Of the studies conducted, 83% have employed a qualitative research design for investigating learners’ readiness and concepts on the use of this device. In addition, there is a lack of empirical studies with the intention to observe and justify the effect of mobile phones on developing learners’ language skills. There is also a lack of evidence describing which mobile applications are effective for developing relevant language skills. Overall, the results of this systematic review might be applicable in the context of similarly developing countries, as well as triggering empirical research in the field of technology-enhanced ELT in these countries.
The objective of this systematic review is to present a critical overview of current studies to explore issues such as the factors causing EFL learners’ poor oral performance and the teaching and assessment methods of oral English communication skills (OECSs) for developing tertiary level learners’ OECSs in EFL contexts. For this purpose, 51 empirical studies of the 2907 retrieved from SpringerLink, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and the Google Scholar database that were published between 2010 and 2019 in different EFL contexts were analyzed. This study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and was analyzed thematically using NVIVO 12, followed by the Mendeley reference management software. Studies that were conducted in native English contexts and non-empirical studies were excluded from consideration for this study. The findings showed that the environmental factor was the primary factor for learners’ poor OECS performance in EFL contexts. For the method of teaching and assessment of learners’ OECSs, the use of technology is rapidly increasing in different EFL contexts. This study suggests some implications for both future researchers and academics for developing EFL learners’ oral English communication skills dealing with environmental, psychological, and linguistic factors along with teaching and learning resources at the tertiary level in EFL contexts.
This paper aims at exploring the issues related to implementing a formative assessment model namely School-Based Assessment (SBA) at secondary schools in Bangladesh. A qualitative study employing interviews with English teachers of grade 8 and the head teachers and FGDs with students from twelve secondary schools was conducted. Moreover, field notes and document analysis provided valuable data. The findings from the qualitative content analysis showed a dismal condition of implementing SBA in Bangladesh. Some distinct reasons posed challenges to implementing SBA. These are teachers’ insufficient orientation towards SBA, teachers’ negative attitude towards SBA, teachers’ heavy workloads, large class size, large contents of syllabus, no reflection of the marks of SBA in public examinations, lack of honesty and fairness in teachers, lack of validity and reliability of SBA as an assessment tool, poor socio-economic conditions of teachers, and the absence of monitoring and supervision by concerned authorities. This study also provides a comprehensive understanding of how teachers conceptualize and apply strategies of SBA in their classrooms, along with some recommendations and, hence, bears implications for the policy makers, teacher trainers, and other stakeholders involved in the Bangladeshi school education system and elsewhere.
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