Impediments to teaching English

Masum Billah With a view to developing the communicative competence of our learners steps in various capacities have been taken, research has been conducted and different projects have been initiated both in the government and non-government sectors, but the expected results still seem to be not so encouraging. A report was prepared by a 16-member official committee headed by University Grants Commission member Professor Atful Hye Shibly. The report says that English is usually being taught through Bengali in classrooms and this practice hinders proficiency in English. The committee was assigned with the task of identifying the impediments to learning English and put forth recommendations to the government. The report also says, "Presently only reading and writing skills are exercised in our teaching and testing system. But it is of paramount importance to design an English education scheme, giving equal importance to all the four skills." It has become a serious concern for all of us in terms of English teaching in the country as only two skills are taught and tested. Teaching two skills means two legs of a table are already broken and the table cannot stand comfortably. The two skills namely reading and writing are tested which hardly see any touch of creativity of the learners and teachers. Teachers do not prepare the questions to really test the reading and individual writing abilities of the students but we give a certificate that students are excellent in English. Thousands of students are obtaining GPA-5 including high marks in English but their actual reading and writing skills are in question and another two important skills (speaking and listening) remain quite alien to them. So, changing the syllabus of English, way of teaching and changing the examination system are long overdue. The present English textbooks were developed ten or eleven years back. These books are not altercative, user friendly and the contents therein are not suitable for inclusive education. The questions are not creative enough and these are set from some particular chapters year after year. And the same kind of questions have been set years together without seeing a slightest change which encourages the students to find common questions. The government shows reluctance to change the English syllabus as it stands as a determinant to increase and decrease the pass percentage in the public examinations. The Chairman of Dhaka Education Board said that the board's pass percentage in this year's SSC examination was 84.63 while in English it was 96 per cent. Dhaka Board does not mean only the better schools of Dhaka city. It also means several thousand rural schools where makeshift English teachers conduct English classes. Students in those schools have very poor knowledge in English but the pass percentage remains 96 percent which tells us we have hardly anything to do for English. We are nearing the perfection of teaching and learning English. Chairman of Sylhet Education Board said, "Like the HSC and SSC, English has become the determinant factor of the percentage of pass for the newly-introduced Junior School Certificate (JSC) examinations. In the first ever exam results published in December 2010, the pass percentage Sylhet Board was 61.97 and the percentage of unsuccessful candidates was 19 in English." After the introduction of communicative English and developing the English textbooks accordingly, the ministry of education established English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP) which has so far imparted three week English training to 33,000 English teachers. But for the two years or more the project has been stammering due to financial crisis. The ministry clearly does not say whether it will run or see a complete closure. The ministry asked the boards to provide Tk 400 million for the three-year ELTIP Phase-IV. The Project Director blames the chairpersons of education boards for not providing fund for running the project. The boards do not give any importance to the request saying it is the responsibility of the ministry to fund the project from the revenue budget, not the responsibility of the boards though they provided funds earlier. The ELTIP trainers along with the project director have not been receiving any salary since June 2010. The committee headed by the University Grants Commission recommends establishing a National English Language Institute for improving communicative competence of teachers and students, including an appropriate English language teaching methodology for Bangladesh through a programme of in-service training of English teachers. It also recommends a class-wise monolingual (English) dictionary in the curriculum as supplementary study materials, reform of examination systems and development of an audio-visual English classroom in all institutions. But developing audio-lingual classroom will be a difficult task. Financed jointly by the World Bank and Bangladesh Government, a project entitled Secondary Education Quality and Access Enhancement Project (SEQAEP) in 2009 introduced extra classes for English and Mathematics in 1621 selected schools and madaras located in remote rural areas. However, the initiative came to an end in March this year as it was detected that the teachers pocketed a considerable sum of money without taking extra classes. This project has cost Tk 200 million since June 2009. There are more than 16 million students in 82,218 primary and equivalent institutions and over 8.7 million students in 28,140 secondary schools and madrasas. Still 20 million children passing through the school system prefer to memorise study materials in an effort to get through the examinations which have only helped in the steady decline of English learning. The success of a student learning a language to a large extent depends on the teacher's language proficiency, professional and academic qualifications, teachers' methods and their ability to cooperate and interact with students. The Ministry of Education carried out a survey in 2010 which found that over half of the 17,536 English teachers at secondary level possess bachelors and masters degrees in subjects other than English. Definitely their way of teaching English stands far from reality and fruition but effective and a good amount of training can make them stand on a strong footing on teaching English. The writer is Programme Manager: BRAC Education Programme. He can be reached at email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com