The current National Curriculum 2012 of Bangladesh for English (VI- X) incorporates both listening and speaking skills for its English language education. English for Today (EfT), the only textbook for the whole country for secondary level, has been developed accordingly in 2013 for grades 6 to 10 to help students attain competencies in all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, although the listening module is now in policy and classroom practice, it is neither assessed in school exams nor public exams at the secondary level. This study explores the perceptions of policy and practice of listening in secondary English education. This study is significant because little research has been done so far in Bangladesh on listening skill and its significance for language competence, let alone on the teaching of listening in the connection to language learning. This qualitative study is based on in-depth interview data. The interviews include pertinent participants of policymakers and secondary English teachers. The findings indicate that there is a disconnect in curriculum, classroom practice and assessment in secondary English education. 

Listening skill is supposed to be included as an integral part of the CLT approach that is mandated in Bangladesh for teaching and learning English. Bangladesh, nevertheless, has no dedicated listening instruction at any level of its mainstream education except the post-HSC students preparing for the IELTS exam as they have to face listening as one of the modules in the test. Listening poses an obstacle to the post higher secondary Bangladeshi learners as oral skills are not included in the academic assessment process, and they have to embrace it while taking the IELTS exam. According to the research by Shurovi in 2014, all the teachers pointed to the necessity of listening and speaking skills for the development of students’ English language competence. Abedin, Majlish, and Akter (2010) carried out a survey with post higher secondary learners in Bangladesh that showed 100% of participants agreed on the necessity of practising listening to understand real-life English and to communicate properly in their academic and non-academic settings. At the same time, 96.15% of participants who were teachers regarded listening skill as a significant channel of language learning and suggested that they should take special care to develop these skills for learner's overall English language proficiency (Abedin et al., 2010). Podder (2011) argued that listening and speaking should be properly practised as young learners were better learners of the language. If the students had proficiency in these skills, they would face fewer language-related problems when they went for higher education or job or immigration abroad. The Common European Framework in its educational context also identifies listening skill not only as a core skill for language learning but also highlights the risks of cultural misunderstanding in relations with others if anyone has a weak listening skill while communicating with each other (Jeffery & Beuningen, 2019).

The present study addresses the following research questions:

Research Question 1: What is the current policy and practice of listening skill at the                                                     secondary level in Bangladesh?

Research Question 2: How does any difference between curriculum policy and practice for                                        listening skill affect English language education at the secondary                                             level in Bangladesh? 

The theoretical framework of this study is a “grounded” one, as the contextual phenomenon was "grounded" in data, which can provide a better explanation than a theory borrowed "off the shelf" (Creswell, 2012). It does not limit the role of the research in the process-making but gives choices to make categories of interpretation, connects questions to the data, and interweaves personal values and experiences (Creswell & Poth, 2018).

This study is a qualitative one aiming to provide a detailed understanding of issues that underlie current practices (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2018). The data analysis phase investigates the curriculum policy and classroom practice and reports critically. Therefore, policymakers and secondary English teachers were interviewed to understand the perception of listening skill in policy and practice. The interview data were analysed using the Thematic Analysis (TA) method based on one of the approaches called – the semantic approach – coding and theme development reflect the explicit content of the data. After transcribing the data, the patterns of the data were identified through a rigorous process of data familiarisation, data coding, and theme development and revision This paper used Thematic Analysis (TA) method to interpret because it is a popular method for analysing qualitative data in many disciplines including ‘Education’. In the field of education, procedures for using TA as a qualitative technique only began to be published in the 1990s (Cohen et al., 2018). The purpose of TA is to identify patterns of meaning across a dataset that provide an answer to the research question being addressed. This method also gives flexibility according to the practical need of analysis of what was required to answer the specific research questions (Denzin, & Lincoln, 2011). This means it can be used within different frameworks, to answer quite different types of research questions. Therefore, in this research, TA suits to answer the relevant research question related to understanding and the perception of listening skill in policy and practice of English language education at the secondary level in Bangladesh. As the policymakers are major players in the planning and secondary teachers are the practitioners of English language education, they are the interview participants in this study. The ‘purposive’ selection procedure has been applied to conduct the interviews. Three participants were interviewed in total. The participants were selected based on mainly three criteria: (1) relevant expertise; (2) experience; and (3) willingness to participate. Pseudonyms are used for each of them. The participants were provided with the information necessary about the study through emails and their written consent was obtained back through emails before data collection. Due to the participants’ preferences, interviews were conducted in Bangla and were recorded using an audio recorder. Later on, the recorded interviews were transliterated in Roman Bangla and then translated into English.

The study reveals a significant gap between the participating teachers’ understanding of the expectations of the curriculum and their actual practice regarding oral skills and listening in particular. This study informs that English language learning without oral skills has weakened the communicative competence of secondary students in Bangladesh. The importance of listening is no longer questioned, and therefore efforts to improve listening skills must be made. We can no longer leave listening instruction to chance, it must be taught. Therefore, it is needless to say how intensively listening skill needs to be synced both at policy and practice levels in order to attain its effectiveness in English language competence for the secondary students in Bangladesh. The findings may be useful for other similar international contexts where policy and practice of L2 listening skill need to be aligned for the learners to achieve better English language competence. The findings may also be useful for other similar EFL contexts where the negligence of listening skill is found in both policy and practice of curriculum as well as if a lack of attention on listening skill in the curriculum concerned is responsible for the paltry performance of the English language competence of the learners.

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