ELTWeekly Vol. 3 Issue#100 | October 10 | ISSN 0975-3036

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GM Zulfiquer Haider works with the Department of Applied Linguistics and ELT, Eastern University.

This research tried to investigate both teacher and student perceptions of the reasons for not attaining proficiency in oracy skills of English from the point of view of a teacher.  The study focussed on teachers’ perceptions of their classroom practices, their students, the existing national curriculum and the system of both school and national examination.  The subjects employed were 10 part – time ESL teachers from MENTORS’, the largest private English  language school of Bangladesh (4 from Renowned Private Schools, Dhaka + 3 from Renowned Boys’ Private Colleges, Dhaka + 3 from Renowned Girls’ Private Colleges, Dhaka). Data were collected by administering attitudes towards different skills questionnaires and interviews. It researched ways of helping them deal with the situation so that they could raise their students’ performance on the development of oracy skills. Based on the findings, conclusions and recommendations were made. Hopefully, insights from this research can assist in more successful adoption of learner-centered, communicative competence-focused teaching approaches suitable within our native language learning contexts while also focusing on the needs of teachers and teacher training in our higher secondary education settings.

Introduction

The issue of English language in schools has been one of the hottest topics in the country lately. Our society is constantly regaled with opinions about the falling standards of English but falling where and in what way, is seldom mentioned.  Nevertheless, the declining standard of English in terms of oracy skills development among school children and the younger citizens in general has undoubtedly worried many quarters, so much so that the Ministry of Education has taken some drastic measures to train the primary and secondary level English teachers to provide them with updated teaching tools and techniques as well to reform the national curriculum to help students  master all sorts of skills whenever it comes to English as an Second Language.

When addressing the deteriorating standards of English, it is important for us to study the contributing variables to this issue. Perhaps, one of the reasons is our teaching and another one is the existing national curriculum with the examination. The last salient factor in our classroom practice is the examination-oriented lesson. It is common for teachers to focus entirely on the examination especially for learners who are sitting for national examinations such as the HSC and SSC.  One of the main reasons given is that at the end of the day, the school, parents and learners want good grades.  Everybody and all schools compete for better grades each year. Even if there is a change in teachers’ attitude and they accept any changes in the curriculum employed, they are still compelled by the examination and will teach according to what will be tested. Not much emphasis is given to oracy skills — listening and speaking in both classroom teaching and national examinations rather they focus mainly on literacy skills – writing and reading with major focus is on grammar. Apart from this, self-disclosure and oral presentations are important components of oracy skills development, which requires a proactive learning style. However, certain perceptual learning preferences, such as non-disclosure and authority-centeredness, make it difficult for Bangladeshi secondary and higher secondary students to engage in class discussions, oral presentations, and oral argumentation, which are essential elements of oracy skills development. That’s why, oracy skills development in Bangladeshi schools is a challenge as many students are reluctant to talk or say anything due to shyness or cultural background. (more…)