Teaching \'English for Today\' at schools: Issues and challenges

English is taught in Bangladeshi schools as a foreign language with a view to developing skilled human resources to face the global challenges. Before 1996 the main methods of teaching English was grammar-translation which does not give much focus on language communication. Therefore the government took several initiatives in the late 1990s with the cooperation of the British government to introduce   major changes in English language education at the secondary and higher secondary levels. In 2000, the English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP) revised the traditional curriculum and introduced CLT-based curriculum and accordingly textbooks (6-12) were written, exam systems were modified and teachers were provided in-service training to prepare them about CLT-based teaching. This new curriculum was a complete departure from the previous teaching method and aimed at helping students acquire 'communicative competence' through interaction and practice of skills in the classroom. Textbooks for the first time were written by Bangladeshi teachers and those were culturally compatible and familiar.
My personal experience of working with the secondary school English teachers especially in the rural areas reveals that most of the English teachers are not trained enough to teach English effectively in the classroom situations. Most of these rural English teachers come from other subject background. Researchers say that teachers' academic background is one of the main reasons of their low proficiency in English. Moreover teachers with good academic background are reluctant to take up teaching as a profession in rural areas and this is also a reason for most teachers not being able to teach English. Few of them have studied English at their graduation level. They have just taken a course of 100 marks as a requirement of their BEd/BA/equivalent degree.
Moreover, they have got limited understanding about the current ELT curriculum, ELT curriculum goals and objectives, learning outcomes of the lessons. They have also limited understanding about the language skills and sub-skills. In order to compensate for such lack of proficiency in English, teachers resorted to using Bangla as a more convenient medium of instruction, both for themselves and for their students. Administrative politics in rural schools seemed to be another reason behind the insufficient English skills of some teachers since they received recommendation from local influential people.
NCTB (1996 & 2012) curriculum emphasises that English should be the language of instruction but students' and teachers' low proficiency in English language significantly works as the barrier to effective use of English as a medium of instruction in classrooms. Different training programmes organised by the government's development projects instruct teachers to use English as a medium of instruction. The data shows that the participant teachers in the urban areas used both Bangla and English while teaching whereas the teachers outside urban areas taught only in Bangla. Most of the teachers pointed out students' low proficiency in English as the reason for teachers' use of Bangla as a language of instruction. They claimed that if teachers taught in English, students would not be able to understand, so they did not use English while teaching.
The short training provided from different development projects of the government has little consistency with one another. Sometimes it is seen that some teachers attend training after teaching 10 to fifteen years or even more. So during the last ten to fifteen years these teachers have taught English in the class without any training. This is the overall scenario of the whole country. This is why the situation of teaching/learning English in the country is not standard enough to meet the national goals. Reading is done in the class in a traditional way; the similar case is there for writing and in most cases teachers and students are well motivated to practise listening and speaking in the class as these two skills are not included in the exam system. Though the present NCTB curriculum (2012) has included 20 marks for listening and speaking skills, still now these are not being implemented at the school level as the NCTB has failed to produce the related materials like audio CDs. As a result teachers cannot engage the students in real practice in the class.
As a part of teacher development and to ensure quality education some development projects of the governments have been operating in the field of secondary education. Teaching Quality Improvement Project (TQI_SEP, MoE), implemented in 2005, has organised many training programmes at the secondary level for the subject-based teachers, head teachers, educational administrators both in the country and abroad. Besides this, other development projects such as the English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP), Female Secondary School Assistance Project (FSSAP), Secondary Education Sector Improvement Project (SESIP), English in Action (EiA) and some other non-government organisations such as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) have been   providing English language training for the secondary level school teachers. At present some development projects such as TQI-SEP2, MoE, A2I, MoE, SESIP, MoE of the government have been working for teacher training, ICT-based training to ensure better quality in education.
In spite of formation of seven education commissions till date Bangladesh has not been able to have a realistic education policy after 44 years of its independence. In most cases these commissions failed to produce the expected result because of political crisis or political interest and over the years, emphasis has been laid on quantity by setting up unnecessary secondary education institutions to satisfy politicians and their constituencies. These schools don't have adequate facilities, qualified teachers and above all competent educational administrators. So, secondary education in Bangladesh has not been developed in a harmonious way; rather is based on social demand and which is not producing useful manpower for the country.  
To face the challenges of the new world  and to meet the current and future needs and challenges of the socio-economic developments of the country the education system of Bangladesh is continually undergoing reforms. In that process of change, secondary education has achieved a number of positive developments. The country has made significant progress in providing more young people with access to secondary education, increased enrolment, especially for girls; an increased number of schools and teachers, reduction of gender inequality in education, revision of curriculum, etc. In spite of remarkable achievements, the overall standard of secondary education has declined, which is reflected in public examination results, and this remains as a major concern. Bangladesh government is fully aware of the need to improve the quality of education creating equitable access for all in an integrated manner.
To bring effective changes in English language teaching, the government of Bangladesh revised the previous CLT-based curriculum in 2010 which was introduced in 1996. Accordingly, the new curriculum textbooks were revised and changed, the assessment system has been developed. The National Education Policy 2010 also emphasises the learning of English for communication purpose. This CLT-based curriculum has been developed to help prepare the country's young generation for the competitive globalised world of the 21st century.
One of the vital issues in English language teaching is that all the textbooks of English (English for Today) have been written based on CLT approaches. Reality is that very few teachers teach the text in CLT approaches; rather they teach the texts in traditional way. More interesting is that most teachers in schools prefer to teach guide books rather than the textbook. My experience and observation say this practice is also going on in big/famous schools in big cities.
The above discussion gives an overall picture of Bangladesh's education policy, the changing scenario of ELT policy from traditional grammar-translation method to more student-centred communicative language teaching. Therefore to bring an effective change in English language teaching, attention should be given to the EFT  textbooks, at least 30 per cent questions should be set from the textbooks, teacher training should be strengthened and teachers' recruitment policy should be developed and better salary should be provided to the English teachers.

The writer is an Associate Professor of English, currently working at Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of Education, and PhD Fellow at Jahangirnagar University. E-mail: [email protected]