What is Effective English Teaching? Investigating Teaching Practices In Secondary Schools In Bangladesh

Author(s):

Md Al Amin(presenting / submitting)Janinka Greenwood (supervisor)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES C 08, Secondary Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-07

11:00-12:30

Room:

326. [Main]

Chair:

Samuel Gento

Contribution

Over the last decades English teaching in Bangladesh has seen a massive change with an aim to better equip its citizens by increasing their communicative ability in English. Like many European countries, English in Bangladesh plays an important role in education, administration, judiciary, trade and foreign communication. English is also considered as a vehicle for better access in the wider world which in turn expected to contribute to the economic growth. This paper will report part of my doctoral study, where a group of English teachers in Bangladesh secondary school context are studied in depth.

The term ‘effective teacher’ is an open ended matter and in the literature different terms such as good teacher (Cruickshank & Haefele, 2001; Hopkins & Stern, 1996), Effective teacher (Duffy & Hoffman, 1991; Stronge, 2007), Influential teachers (Rudell, 1995), Successful teacher, Star teacher (Haberman,1995), Excellent teacher (Radebaugh & Johnson 1971) Exemplary teacher (Ladson-Billings, 1994), Caring teacher( Thompson, 2010), Qualified teacher (Ingersoll, 2001) have been used to refer to successful teacher. Numerous interpretations and controversies can be found in terms of definition, interpretations, and characteristics of such teachers in the effective teacher research around the world. Effective teachers across different discipline share some common characteristics, but some characteristics are unique to the language teacher. Similarly, teaching strategies that are considered essential in language teaching (e.g. group work and pair work), may not so desirable in other subjects (Borg, 2006; Hammadou & Bernhardt 1987).

Over many years, Grammar Translation Method (GTM) was the dominant method of teaching English at secondary and higher secondary levels in Bangladesh. Textbooks at the secondary and the higher secondary level were mainly comprised of the different literary texts such as prose, poetry, short story etc. Reading and writing were the main components of the language and only students’ reading and writing capability were tested in the exam. In the grammar-translation based English curriculum, emphasis was on content memorisation instead of acquiring different language skills. As a result, after twelve years of formal schooling, students find it difficult to communicate in English.

To change the entire situation and to improve English language teaching at secondary and higher secondary levels in Bangladesh, many initiatives have been taken. A ‘Communicative’ syllabus was introduced in 1996, which replaced the previous Grammar-Translation based syllabus. The English Language Teaching Improvement Project(ELTIP) is one of the major initiatives which aims at implementing CLT approach to language teaching at secondary and higher secondary levels. The curriculum policy further revised in 2010.

The Bangladesh national curriculum policy, 2010, also emphasises communicative use of English and put much emphasis on using English in real-life situation. The new curriculum put emphasis on the importance of properly trained teachers to implement the communicative goal.

Despite many initiatives and different large scale projects, it is generally accepted that little has been changed (Hamid & Baldauf, 2008) in teaching and learning English in Bangladesh, and to some extent the standard of teaching English has been deteriorated. Some of the reasons behind this deterioration are often identified as different institutional and infrastructural constrains like large classes, excessive teaching loads, limited resources, inadequate teacher training, test-driven teaching, discrepancy between curriculum goals and implementation policy.

However, despite many barriers and with limited resources, some English teachers show excellence in their teaching in secondary schools in Bangladesh. This study aims to understand these excellent teachers’ characteristics, beliefs, teaching philosophy, motivation and classroom practices? What makes their teaching effective and what can other teachers in similar context learn from them? This paper aligns with the conference theme by addressing the still evolving teaching practices of secondary English teachers in Bangladesh.

Method

This is a qualitative multiple case study (Miles & Huberman, 1994) where participants are a group (approximately seven) of nominated ‘effective’ English teachers in secondary schools in Bangladesh. This is an in depth study to understand these nominated teachers’ background, characteristics, teaching philosophies, and classroom practices. Case study methodology is considered suitable for this research, as little is known about the central phenomenon (Yin, 2014) of this study, and the central phenomenon in this case is the characteristics of effective English teachers in Bangladesh secondary school context. Though there is substantial research in other national contexts, that examines the characteristics of effective teachers, and some specifically focuses on effective language teaching, no research has yet been found that studies effective teachers in Bangladeshi context. Case study methodology allows me to collect multiple forms of data, which can be triangulated to understand participant teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices. To select participants for the case studies, I have adopted Foster (1991) model of ‘Community nomination.’ In this case, possible nominations are sought from different teaching organisations. For further clarification with the nominations and to select information-rich (Patton,1990) cases, other criteria like relevant qualification, training, recognition of excellent teaching, and national test data have also been taken into account. In depth interviews, class observations, document analysis, interviewing students of the participants’ teachers, reflective journal and artefacts are the instruments of data collection of this research. For each case, data will be analysed inductively using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith et al.,2009). Different types of evidences from the data will be used to generate themes. Later cross case analysis (Stake, 2013) will be performed to look for common themes across the cases. To ensure the credibility and reliability of the study different procedures like triangulation, member checking & thick description (Geertz,1994) will be used.

Expected Outcomes

This study is expected to add new insights to the literature of effective teaching research both locally and globally. For better understanding of the local context, it will be interesting to see the teachers, who are seen to be effective English teachers in Bangladesh secondary school context, share common characteristics. What makes their teaching effective? What strategies do they employ to overcome constrains? The result of this research is expected to have insightful implication for providing valuable guidelines for future English teacher training program, and teacher professional development course in Bangladesh context, and possibly for other similar contexts. Globally, it might be significant for further research to investigate, to what extent characteristics of the teachers who are seen as effective English teachers, in Bangladesh, may be viewed in other contexts and techniques and strategies that successful English teachers employ in Bangladesh, equally effective in other contexts? Are the Effective language teachers’ characteristics universal, or do they change depending on variables like context, goal of teaching and learning, infrastructure and so on?

References

Borg, S. (2006). The distinctive characteristics of foreign language teachers. Language Teaching Research, 10(1), 3-31. Cruickshank, D. R., & Haefele, D. (2001). Good teachers, plural. Educational Leadership, 58(5), 26-30. Duffy, G. G., & Hoffman, J. V. (1991). In Pursuit of an Illusion: The Flawed Search for a Perfect Method. Reading Teacher, 53(1), 10-16. Foster, M. (1991). Constancy, connectedness, and constraints in the lives of African-American teachers. NWSA journal, 233-261. Geertz, C. (1994). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. Readings in the philosophy of social science, 213-231. Haberman, M. (1995). Selecting Star teachers for Children And Youth In Urban Poverty. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(10), 777-781. Hamid, M. O., & Baldauf Jr, R. B. (2008). Will CLT bail out the bogged down ELT in Bangladesh. English Today, 24(3), 16-24. Hammadou, J. A., & Bernhardt, E. B. (1987). On being and becoming a foreign language teacher. Theory into Practice, 26(4), 301–306. Hopkins, D., & Stern, D. (1996). Quality teachers, quality schools: International perspectives and policy implications. Teaching and teacher education, 12(5), 501-517. Ingersoll, R. M. (2001). The Realities of Out-of-Field Teaching. Educational Leadership, 58(8), 42-45. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children: John Wiley & Sons. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook: Sage. Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods: SAGE Publications, inc. Radebaugh, B. F., & Johnson, J. A. (1971). Phase II: Excellent Teachers: What Makes Them Outstanding? The Clearing House, 410-418. Ruddell, R. B. (1995). Those Influential Literacy Teachers: Meaning Negotiators and Motivation Builders. Reading Teacher, 48(6), 454-463. Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research: Sage. Stake, R. E. (2013). Multiple case study analysis: Guilford Press. Stronge, J. H. (2007). Qualities of effective teachers: ASCD. Thompson, S. W. (2010). The caring teacher: A multiple case study that looks at what teachers do and believe about their work with at-risk students(Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3412928) Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods: Sage publications.

Author Information

Md Al Amin (presenting / submitting)

University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Janinka Greenwood (supervisor)