Sanjoy Kumar Mazumder :
(From previous issue)
All participants report that the school examination regimes affect teacher’s everyday classroom practices. They all think that the implementation of CLT based secondary curriculum is closely linked to the secondary school certificate (SSC) examination which occurs at the end of grade 10. As exam-questions are set on the basis of reading and writing skills, teachers concentrate on teaching mostly these exam-oriented items and skills rather than speaking and listening skills. They add that teachers are under pressure by the school authorities and by the guardians of the students to make students prepared for exams and to do well in the exams. As Ananda explains, “[the] exam system is placed as barrier to implement CLT because exams are based on only reading and writing skills”. This is why there is a reluctance to adopt a CLT approach and particularly the speaking and listening components of CLT. Robin states that, “as the curriculum focuses mainly on exams, teachers are also interested to finishing the syllabus in time, at any cost.” According to the participants, a teacher will be accountable to the authority for not completing the syllabus within the limited time frame available. Sabuz adds that, “guardians also concern about their student’s getting good score in the exams, rather than developing their English competence,” which leads to a negative impact on implementing CLT at secondary level.
All of the participants are agreed that almost all secondary teachers go back to their traditional way of teaching as they did before their training, thinking that there is no regular monitoring of their classes in relation to whether they are enacting the approaches from the pre-service or in-service trainings. They also declare that simply rraining teachers about CLT cannor ensure CLT practice in the classroom. They favour the idea that teacher-educators should go to visit secondary schools to monitor or supervise the English teachers in relation to whether they are teaching students using communicative approaches.
They identify a lack of English teacher educators to visit a large number of schools as a problem; “Suppose, among fifty teaching staffs, only two or three are English teacher educators who are not enough to run a lot of programs held in our college, including regular classes” (Robin). In a similar vein, Ananda explains that teacher-educators with no English background visit English classes and that with their “limited understanding of CLT knowledge, English teachers do not get useful feedback from them what they need really.” In relation to this, Ananda states that in the TIC where he teaches, there is no specific rule that English teacher educator must visit English classes. Robin, in contrast, notes that, “it was introduced in our college that if there is even a single English teacher-educator available, he will observe all English students and will observe the English classes of the schools he assigned.” From the opposite experiences of the two participants, they explain there is no hard and fast rule in TICs about monitoring secondary English classes.
In relation to this issue of monitoring, Ananda is quite different from the others’ point of view. He thinks that monitoring should come from inside of school administration, rather than from outside observers, believing that if the teachers are informed earlier about the schedule of class-visit by the teacher educator or by government officials, this would be “artificial monitoring” as teachers would be well prepared with CLT activities to show their best performances, which is not the reflection of their everyday classroom practices. He claims, if the monitoring is done by the school authority including the head teacher, there would be continuous observation of the teachers of how they are exploring their pedagogical knowledge gained from CLT training, which would result in teachers more actively implementing CLT.
He emphasises regular monitoring of the teachers from school management itself, rather than occasional supervision of teachers, by the authority beyond school. The participants’ experiences are that without monitoring secondary English classes, it is difficult to implement CLT and to have change in the traditional classroom practices.
The participants highlight insufficient instructional time and class size as barriers to effective CLT implementation. They report that the contact time for a class is not enough to focus on individual student’s needs in a large class (more than 50 students). For example, Sabuz notes;
From my experiences in visiting schools, every class-period is only forty minutes, except for the first period, which is forty five minutes, might be the biggest session in a day. Most English classes are held as beginning session in secondary school schools. Attendance of the students is taken in the first session by the teacher, which takes more than ten minutes if it is a large class consisting of about seventy students. Another five to ten minutes are taken as ‘warm-up’ to go into the text.
He wants to know how it is possible for teachers to teach all the students in this limited (30 minutes approximately) time via a CLT approach. All participants make similar criticisms about class time and size.
However, while secondary teachers may be seen to suffer from limited time to conduct CLT activities, the participants’ experiences differ from those they are exposed to as teachers in a B.Ed. programme. They feel that they have sufficient contact time for every English session, which consists of 90 minutes, giving many opportunities to teach in a communicative manner. For example, Sabuz explains that he can do “a lot of activities such as, group work or pair work, language games, puzzles, acting, dramatization, role-playing etc, as offered by CLT, to make the English classroom more interesting, more enjoyable.” In a similar way, Ananda reports that the “B.Ed English class size is good enough for limited number of students, class time is 90 minutes per session, and the physical environment is supportive enough to involve trainee teachers into different activities, though there are some limitations.” Participants recognise a disjunction between TIC and secondary schooling contexts.
Robin claims that there should be a requirement for extended class time in English classes. He argues that “as a foreign or second language, more time should be allotted for practicing English, rather than Bangla as mother tongue, though same time has been allotted (class period) for both Bangla and English in the curriculum”. He puts forward examples from his experience showing that a few schools have been joining two 35 or 40 minute classes together, though this is a very isolated scenario in secondary schools in Bangladesh. Robin raises questions about having the same contact time allotted for both English and Bangla for language teaching in the secondary school curriculum in Bangladesh.
(To be continued)
(Sanjoy Kumar Mazumder,
Govt. Teachers Training College, Feni )
(From previous issue)
All participants report that the school examination regimes affect teacher’s everyday classroom practices. They all think that the implementation of CLT based secondary curriculum is closely linked to the secondary school certificate (SSC) examination which occurs at the end of grade 10. As exam-questions are set on the basis of reading and writing skills, teachers concentrate on teaching mostly these exam-oriented items and skills rather than speaking and listening skills. They add that teachers are under pressure by the school authorities and by the guardians of the students to make students prepared for exams and to do well in the exams. As Ananda explains, “[the] exam system is placed as barrier to implement CLT because exams are based on only reading and writing skills”. This is why there is a reluctance to adopt a CLT approach and particularly the speaking and listening components of CLT. Robin states that, “as the curriculum focuses mainly on exams, teachers are also interested to finishing the syllabus in time, at any cost.” According to the participants, a teacher will be accountable to the authority for not completing the syllabus within the limited time frame available. Sabuz adds that, “guardians also concern about their student’s getting good score in the exams, rather than developing their English competence,” which leads to a negative impact on implementing CLT at secondary level.
All of the participants are agreed that almost all secondary teachers go back to their traditional way of teaching as they did before their training, thinking that there is no regular monitoring of their classes in relation to whether they are enacting the approaches from the pre-service or in-service trainings. They also declare that simply rraining teachers about CLT cannor ensure CLT practice in the classroom. They favour the idea that teacher-educators should go to visit secondary schools to monitor or supervise the English teachers in relation to whether they are teaching students using communicative approaches.
They identify a lack of English teacher educators to visit a large number of schools as a problem; “Suppose, among fifty teaching staffs, only two or three are English teacher educators who are not enough to run a lot of programs held in our college, including regular classes” (Robin). In a similar vein, Ananda explains that teacher-educators with no English background visit English classes and that with their “limited understanding of CLT knowledge, English teachers do not get useful feedback from them what they need really.” In relation to this, Ananda states that in the TIC where he teaches, there is no specific rule that English teacher educator must visit English classes. Robin, in contrast, notes that, “it was introduced in our college that if there is even a single English teacher-educator available, he will observe all English students and will observe the English classes of the schools he assigned.” From the opposite experiences of the two participants, they explain there is no hard and fast rule in TICs about monitoring secondary English classes.
In relation to this issue of monitoring, Ananda is quite different from the others’ point of view. He thinks that monitoring should come from inside of school administration, rather than from outside observers, believing that if the teachers are informed earlier about the schedule of class-visit by the teacher educator or by government officials, this would be “artificial monitoring” as teachers would be well prepared with CLT activities to show their best performances, which is not the reflection of their everyday classroom practices. He claims, if the monitoring is done by the school authority including the head teacher, there would be continuous observation of the teachers of how they are exploring their pedagogical knowledge gained from CLT training, which would result in teachers more actively implementing CLT.
He emphasises regular monitoring of the teachers from school management itself, rather than occasional supervision of teachers, by the authority beyond school. The participants’ experiences are that without monitoring secondary English classes, it is difficult to implement CLT and to have change in the traditional classroom practices.
The participants highlight insufficient instructional time and class size as barriers to effective CLT implementation. They report that the contact time for a class is not enough to focus on individual student’s needs in a large class (more than 50 students). For example, Sabuz notes;
From my experiences in visiting schools, every class-period is only forty minutes, except for the first period, which is forty five minutes, might be the biggest session in a day. Most English classes are held as beginning session in secondary school schools. Attendance of the students is taken in the first session by the teacher, which takes more than ten minutes if it is a large class consisting of about seventy students. Another five to ten minutes are taken as ‘warm-up’ to go into the text.
He wants to know how it is possible for teachers to teach all the students in this limited (30 minutes approximately) time via a CLT approach. All participants make similar criticisms about class time and size.
However, while secondary teachers may be seen to suffer from limited time to conduct CLT activities, the participants’ experiences differ from those they are exposed to as teachers in a B.Ed. programme. They feel that they have sufficient contact time for every English session, which consists of 90 minutes, giving many opportunities to teach in a communicative manner. For example, Sabuz explains that he can do “a lot of activities such as, group work or pair work, language games, puzzles, acting, dramatization, role-playing etc, as offered by CLT, to make the English classroom more interesting, more enjoyable.” In a similar way, Ananda reports that the “B.Ed English class size is good enough for limited number of students, class time is 90 minutes per session, and the physical environment is supportive enough to involve trainee teachers into different activities, though there are some limitations.” Participants recognise a disjunction between TIC and secondary schooling contexts.
Robin claims that there should be a requirement for extended class time in English classes. He argues that “as a foreign or second language, more time should be allotted for practicing English, rather than Bangla as mother tongue, though same time has been allotted (class period) for both Bangla and English in the curriculum”. He puts forward examples from his experience showing that a few schools have been joining two 35 or 40 minute classes together, though this is a very isolated scenario in secondary schools in Bangladesh. Robin raises questions about having the same contact time allotted for both English and Bangla for language teaching in the secondary school curriculum in Bangladesh.
(To be continued)
(Sanjoy Kumar Mazumder,
Govt. Teachers Training College, Feni )
