Communicative English in Bangladesh: Where are the Communicative Elements?

Abstract

This study investigates the conflict between the demand for communicative English language skills in employment and education and the lack of effective resources to develop such skills in Bangladesh. It offers a discursive analysis of vital issues in implementing effective communicative language teaching (CLT) by surveying 216 teachers about their views on the current English curriculum, their classroom practices, and the barriers they encountered in teaching. A significant gap was revealed between participants’ understanding of curriculum expectations and their actual practice. An extended qualitative investigation followed and it was found that there is a demand for acquiring English language competency both within the country and for the purposes of trade, work, and study overseas. Unfortunately, teachers face a shortage in training courses in CLT. Furthermore, implementation of the curriculum in classrooms is affected by the availability of resources for creating communicative and real-life English language contexts, qualifications, knowledge, and experience of teachers, and especially, by the way learning is examined. The study concludes that a full range of inhibiting factors needs to be addressed to improve English language teaching (ELT). It further recommends the development of local and thorough theorisations of ELT rather than undue reliance on overseas trends and experts.