Abstract This study presents “An Evaluation of Communicative

Language Teaching (CLT) in Bangladesh”. English has got a long legacy since the British rule in India. In 1835 Lord Macaulay, through a Royal decree, launched the teaching of English in the undivided British India. Since its introduction as a colonial language, English has got different status at different phases of history of Bangladesh. Now English is being taught as an international language using Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approaches in 1995. But there have been always some questions how much of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach is actually applied in teaching English and what out put it brings. (a). What are the perceptions of the participating Post Secondary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers about the principles of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)? (b). Are they able to come out from the traditional view? (c). What do they identify as training needs for the successful implementation of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in Bangladesh? This study will use a mixed methodology, explores the state of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in teaching English at secondary level. This study will use two questionnaires to survey on students and teachers of English classes at secondary level and also interview the teachers. This survey will be conducted in two specific urban schools with good reputation. This paper will be able to indicate the teacher development initiatives, redefining the entry and exit levels of the learners, providing alternative and supplementary instructional materials, the participants between teachers, students and reforming the assessment system.

Introduction:

The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach

to the teaching of second and foreign languages which emphasizes

communication or interaction and the ultimate goal of learning a

language. The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was the

product of educators and linguistics who had grown dissatisfied with

earlier Grammar Translation and Audio Lingual methods, because

the both of methods were not able to fulfill the demand of

communicative competence of learners perfectly. Communicative

Language Teaching (CLT) sets the goal of creating

‘Communicative Competence’ in the learners.

The origin of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is to be

found in the changes in British language teaching tradition dating

back from the late 1960s. Brumfit, Kith Johnson and other British

applied linguistics found the theatrical basis for communicative or

functional approach to language teaching. Although the movement

began as a largely British innovation, focusing on alternative

conception of syllabus, since the mid 1970s the scope of

communicative language teaching has expanded.

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The main purpose of teaching English is to make learners acquire

language skills. Unlike most of the other subjects in the curriculum,

English is a skill based subject and not content based one. National

Curriculum and Text Book Board (NCTB) has taken a courageous

step by introducing communicative syllabus and text book at

primary, secondary and higher secondary levels of education.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is still a challenge for the

teachers and students of Bangladesh. Because it requires expertise

in many aspects such as first and second language acquisition,

theories of language learning, communicative competence, syllabus

design, material production and evaluation. Most of the subjects are

studied in Bengali now, but since more than 80% of the books in the

higher education are in English. English still enjoys a special status

not only among teaching but also among students.

English is an official language in Bangladesh and knowledge of

English broadens access to economic and educational opportunity

but the graduates will be in the fore-front of linking Bangladesh to

the global economic, technological, intellectual, political, cultural and

social advancement.

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Problem of the StudyIn the opinion of Gibson, “A problem is really a spring board

for a leap into the unknown.” We understand of the existence of a

problem, then identifying the causes of the problem, analyzing the

linkage among the course, extracting the minor causes and

selecting the major causes; and finally suggesting the possible

remedial measures for solving the problem. The researchers face

some problems in completing the research work. First of all, the

researchers went to a school and they could not find the scope to

collect the data. Then they went another school and faced some

problems. The major problems are-

1) Shortage of time in conducting of the research.

2) Incapability of student to capture the questions.

3) Students took long time for answer the questions.

4) Non-cooperation from some sources.

5) Insufficient source to collect related information.

6) To draw descriptive or inferential conclusions from sample

data about a larger group.

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Research Objectives

This study will analyze the role played by the learners in schools

in Bangladesh. The researchers discussed about Communicative

Language Teaching with the teachers and students. The researches

closely observed the teacher-student relationship, teaching systems,

teaching materials and also the classroom environment. This

Research will find out the limitations of the CLT in Bangladeshi

contexts. This study moves forward with the objectives are mention

below.

(a) To improve the present condition of English Teaching.

(b) To observe measures taken by the teachers.

(c) To observe measures taken by the students.

(d) To observe teachers role.

(e) To observe effectiveness of teaching methods.

(f) To observe adopted teaching ethics.

(g) To observe students performance and attainment.

(h) To explore students interest in English class.

In Communicative language teaching reading and writing are more

emphasized, but less emphasis is given on the listening and

speaking skills.

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So, the researchers think that this paper will give a fruitful solution of

those limitation. All of the teacher and students will capture the for

language mills in proper way.

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Review of the Literature

Actually, Review of the Literature is a statement is given by

the earliest researchers. It is the analysis of the prior research of the

earliest research and finding the problems. In Bangladesh the

English Language Teaching methods in the S.S.C and H.S.C. level

the Communicative Language Teaching is used significantly but

most of the students are not able to achieve communicative

competence. So, Communicative Language Teaching is a

prominent the theoretical model in English language Teaching and

CLT is accepted by many applied linguists and teachers as one of

the effective approaches. Different linguist, scientist, scholar and

teacher are given different opinion about CLT. This research paper

shows some opinion from the earliest research about CLT.

Richard and Rodgers (2001) state “The Communicative

approach in language teaching states from a theory of language as

communication.” CLT aims to make competence the goal of

language teaching and develop procedures to teach the four

language skills that allow the independence of language and

communication. Communicative Language Teaching thus

encourages learners to communicate in a meaningful way using the

target language from the very initial stage. While using the

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language, accuracy is important but communication precedes it. So,

it is advocated in CLT that if messages are understood, accuracy

may be achieved later. Richards and Rogers also illustrate that the

emphasis of communicative language teaching on the process of

communication, rather than mastery of language forms, leads to

different roles for learners from those found in more traditional

second language classrooms. Learners are considered as active

participants in the language learning process. As a result, CLT also

alters the role of the teacher.

According to Littlewood (1981), “One of the most characteristics

features of Communicative Teaching is that it pays systematic

attention of functional as well as structural aspects of language,

combining these into a more fully communicative view.” CLT

advocates to go beyond teaching grammatical rules of the target

language, and recommended that, by wing the target language in a

meaningful way, learners will develop communicative competence.

Canale and Swain (1980) referred communicative competence as

the interaction between grammatical competence, or the knowledge

of the rules of grammar and sociolinguistic competence, or

knowledge of the rules. Canale and Swain (1980) identified

grammatical sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic competence as

part of communicative competence.

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According to Canale (1983), “grammatical competence” focus

directly on the knowledge and skill required to understand and

express accurately the literal meaning of utterances”. Sociolinguistic

competence represents the learner’s ability to use the language

properly in different social contexts. Communicative competence

applies to both written and spoken language, as well as to many

other symbolic systems.

A discussion indicates that, Communicative Language Teaching

accuracy is essential to communicative competence. The focus of

the literature review was on the appropriateness of CLT in the

Bangladeshi and broader Asian contexts, and the strengths and

limitations of CLT as an approach to language teaching in these

contexts. The earliest research work has may gap, but this paper will

try to fulfill this gap and make a correct solution.

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Methodology of Research

Methodology is the analysis of the principles of methods, rules

and postulates employed by a discipline. Methodology may be

understood as a science of studying how research is done

scientifically. Methodology is the study of pedagogical practice in

general including theoretical underpinnings and related matters.

Methodology is a documented process for management of projects

that contains procedures, definitions, approach, method, syllabus,

design and explanations of techniques used to collect analysis and

evaluate data as part of a research process in a given discipline.

This part of the paper deals with the research methodology in order

to investigate the teachers and students perception towards CLT

approach. To conduct the research we used qualitative method.

This type of research analyzes data from direct field work

observations, in depth, open–ended interviews and written

questionnaire. The careful and detailed description is required in

terms of quantitative research rather than measurements, ratings

and scores. There are many ways to collect data in qualitative

method: interactive interviewing, written description by participants

and observation.

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To find out the teachers and students perception towards CLT we

were taking interview from two secondary schools in Dhaka city. All

of them are familiar with four language skills: reading, writing,

speaking and listening. The students have practiced different types

of communication activities in their class, such as role playing, group

activities, pair activities etc. As they know about, they have their own

perspective towards CLT that will help this study in finding of the

answer research question.

Generally, we used two methods these are questionnaire, survey

and interview. The first data collection instrument was a teacher

questionnaire to investigate the perception towards CLT. The

teachers gave their opinion and suggestion about CLT which has

more impact on our research. Then the second instrument was

students questionnaire to study the students perception towards

CLT. In students questionnaire we used the M.C.Q format where the

students showed their feelings and experience about C.L.T.

Otherwise, we also took the interview of the teachers and students.

They were very much interested in giving interview. They all were

co-operative in collecting the data. However, it was difficult in terms

of every school to find of all the English language teachers in one

time. First of all we collected students from different classes and sat

with them in a different room. Then we distributed them the

questionnaire and asked them to write their names, schools name

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and class on the top of the paper. As they were secondary English

language learner they might have faced problems in understanding

the questions. So, we explained all the questions thoroughly using

both Bengali and English language before they started to write.

They were given as much time as they needed to answer the

questions. All the students were excited and they felt happy to taken

part in this survey. After collecting the data, every interview and

questionnaire was analyzed and interpreted. We had to study every

script for several times in account to analyze the qualitative result

and then we had to interpret. As we are undertake in Bangladeshi

context, the data was collected from Bengali medium teachers and

students. We visited two schools to collect the result. Among them

one was a governmental and another was non-government school.

All the schools gave us permission and they help us very much and

they received us warmly.

In finding the results, we noticed that, all the students were

very poor in speaking and listening skill. They had just practiced in

the reading and writing skills. If the students do not follow the four

language skills, they can not improve their language competence. If

we want to develop CLT, first of all we should develop the speaking

and listening skills. Then CLT will be a successful approach in

English language teaching in Bangladesh context.

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Justification of the Rationale

The researcher has to clearly identify the knowledge gap

after the reviewing of literature. To fill-up this knowledge gap, this

section is very important. A researcher should also concern about

the necessity and national and international importance of research

in this section. Researcher can also mention the utility of the

research among the group of people in the society at large.

A group of researcher of AUB studied on “An Evaluation of

Communication language teaching in Bangladesh.” They were

very much concerned about the above aspect of research. At now

English is mandatory in the academic curriculum in Bangladesh and

carries have weight age in every level of education. But in

Bangladesh there are many problems in acquiring the English as a

communicative language. For this reason researchers selected this

topic and try to provide the proper treatment. In Bangladesh,

students do not get the proper guidance to improve their efficiency

in English, because they can not get the proper teaching from their

teachers. In our country has limited recourse and economic

constraints inevitable hamper the effort and motivation of CLT

practitioners. The teaching community in Bangladesh is on the

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whole relatively underpaid. The majority of the teachers at all levels

resort to extra teaching jobs, working either as private tutors or in

several institutions to remain financially solvent. To remove this all

unrespectable situation this research is more important. Through

this research, it may be helpful and provide the proper instruction for

the teachers who are the builder of any nation. Through this

research people can be able to use the correct English for their

communication with each other. And it may the one of the desire for

the people and should be justified. One the basis of above

statement researcher should fill-up their all purpose according to

their proper justification.

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Data AnalysisData Analysis is the most important factor for a research

project. Before collecting data, it is quite impossible to analyze data.

For this reason the researcher’s went to some schools in order to

collect data for their research work. So, researcher went to “Uttara

High School” and “Nowab Habibullah Model School and

College”. At first researcher went to “Uttara High School” and

then “Nawab Habibullah Model Model School and College” to

collect data. After going there we are able to collect data about our

research subject that is “An Evaluation of Communicative Language

Teaching in Bangladesh” from the teachers and the students also in

a very friendly atmosphere. Two questionnaire were prepared in a

MCQ style about “Communicative language Teachings”. One for the

teachers and another is for the students. The researchers provided

the questionnaire both of the teachers and the students. Both the

teachers and the students read the question paper very carefully,

and provide their answers of the questions.

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After collecting data we are started to analyze tem to fulfill our

research ambition. And then we get the result of our research work.

We find that the “communicative language teaching” is a process

which is favourite everyone. As foreign language teachings the

teachers are following the “Communicative approach”. They think

that if the teaching system is improved they must be successfully

achieving communicative competence.

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Findings After data analysis the researcher have found that through the

Communicative Language Teaching the majority of the students

can’t attain the accepted result in speaking and listening. Though

Communicative Language Teaching focuses on the four learning

skills but it is not properly followed in the most of the schools

especially in the rural schools. It is because of the limited teaching

materials in the classrooms. Students get hardly the chance to

practice the English language in the classroom. Moreover the

teachers in the maximum schools especially in the rural areas are

not properly train up. It is one of the most important reasons for not

getting the accepted result from communicative language teaching.

The result of the survey is mentioned through the chart

consequently analyzing from primary data.

Topic Proficiency

Reading 43%

Writing 46%

Listening 7%

Speaking 4%

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Result

A Review of the Curriculum and Textbook:

In Bangladesh, the textbooks from primary to higher

secondary levels are centrally published and distributed by NCTB.

Generally the schools do not have any teaching materials other than

these textbooks. Ideally, the text books should come with teacher’s

guides but due to various reasons these are not available to

teachers. Though the curriculum documents suggest for additional

materials such as students’ workbooks and simplified readers, these

are non-existent in most of the schools. Both the textbooks and the

teacher’s guides are monocular, newspaper-printed materials with

unattractive, small sized, hazy drawings. Moreover, there is criticism

that the textbooks are too easy for some of the urban schools but

difficult for many rural schools. The textbooks are written following

communicative approach and, so, they emphasize communication

rather than teaching of literature.

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Assessment Strategies

The NCTB curriculum has recommended 3 types of tests for

evaluating learner’s achievement/proficiency level:

a) continuous assessment, b) internal examinations, and c) the

public examination. The three main functions of tests and

examinations as described in the syllabus are:

to ascertain the extent to which students have attained the stated

learning

outcomes;

to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses for the purpose of

guiding

subsequent teaching and learning;

to motivate students by giving them a regular sense of

achievement and to make

their parents aware of their progress. (NCTB, 1996: 146)

In order to carry out these functions properly it is necessary to test

students’ language skills, but unfortunately, the existing assessment

system is chiefly memory based. At the same time, in most of the

schools there is no

generally agreed system for continuous assessment. The test items

suggested in the sample papers in Teacher’s Guides do not often

relate to any of the four skills.

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Two important skills-speaking and listening are totally excluded from

the test format while the testing of the two other skills-reading and

writing has very little elements of validity and reliability. Some

problems of the test

items currently used to test students’ reading and writing skills are

as follows:

The test of Reading:

In the existing test format learners’ reading skills are tested by

asking candidates to read a text and then to answer various types of

questions based on the text. The question types are: multiple

choice,

true/false, filling in gaps with/without clues, cloze test, information

transfer, making sentences from substitution table, matching words,

and open ended questions. These test items are considered as fairly

good items to test reading skills. However, the problem is that the

test setters are not trained and experienced enough to design test

items which are based on testing andidate’s communicative

competences. In fact, many of the test items set by the test setters,

both for the school tests and public examinations such as the

Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination contain very little

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communicative content. For example, the multiple-choice or true

false questions (as found in the SSC questions) are often unrelated

to the nature of communicative language in use. Candidates facing

such items have a chance

of answering those questions not by comprehension but by using

some other strategies, like eliminating the ones that must be wrong.

The test of writing:

In the second paper particularly, students are asked to write

letters, passages and essays. The writing tasks often do not clarify

the purpose, audience or genre of the writing. If students are

communicating,

there has to be a purpose of that communication. In order to have a

purpose they need to have a proper context, and for that, there

should be an audience, at least, some ideas. Composition topics:

Writing essays on topics like “Your Favorite Teacher”, “The Rainy

Season”, “The Post man” are kinds of very typical and

decontextualized essay topics. Moreover, teachers can easily guess

such traditional topics for their students who have got good memory,

and they are quite good at memorizing texts. Memory is an

important component of language learning but it’s not the same

thing as language use

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The marking of writing:

Another problem with the writing tasks given in the test

question is that they don’t explain the assessment criteria; students

are only asked to write but they have no idea about whether they

are going to be marked on content or on the accuracy. As a result,

some students put emphasis on the length of writing, whereas

others on accuracy; to yet another, argument may become more

important than the length or the accuracy. Same is the case with the

markers. They vary considerably in their notion of what makes a

good piece of writing. The problem is there is no clear guideline to

ensure inter-marker reliability.

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RecommendationsThe features of CLT and the criteria set for teaching and

learning in the curriculum documents provide the opportunities for

the teachers and learners to improve their practices and attitudes.

However, the present realities do not replicate the methodological

aspects suggested in the curriculum documents. In fact, the

implementation of the methodological underpinning of the

Communicative Approach is being impeded by many constraints

that exist in the present teaching-learning context. To overcome

those problems, teachers were asked to suggest ways for adjusting

the features of CLT within their classroom realities. The teachers

suggested measures for improving the teaching learning practices

especially in communicative teaching situation. They help identify a

number of opportunities offered by CLT to enhance the learners’

proficiency in English

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ConclusionThe Communicative Language Teaching is considered

approach rather than a method. The initiative of introducing

CLT at the secondary and higher secondary levels by revising

the ELT curriculum marked a paradigm shift of NCTB from

traditional teaching to a new approach. It refers to a diverse

set of principles that reflect a communicative view of language

and language learning and that can be used to support a wide

variety of classroom procedures. So, CLT sets the goal of

creating “communicative competence”, in the learners. The

communicative language teaching makes use of real-life

situations that facilitate communication.

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The Basic module of CLT

Fig: The basic module of CLT.

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Diagram: 01

Diagram: The result of CLT in Bangladesh.

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Speaking

(04%)

Listening (07%)

Reading (43%)

Writing (46%)

26

Diagram: 02

Fig: The increasing rate of foreign language

conversation in Bangladesh.

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Abbreviations and Acronyms 

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

 

ELT: English Language Teaching

 

NCTB: National Curriculum and Text Board

 

ELTIP: English Language Teaching Improvement Project

 

PERC: Primary Educational Research Council

 

HSERC: Higher Secondary Educational Research Council

  

EFT: English For Today

English as a Second Language (ESL):Referred to as "situations in which English is being taught and

learned in countries, contexts and cultures in which English is the

predominant language of communication" (Carter & Nunan, 200 1 ;

P- 2).

English as a Foreign Language (EFL):EFL is used in contexts where English is neither widely used in

communication, nor used as the medium of instruction (Carter &

Nunan, 200 1 ; p. 2).

Second language acquisition (SLA):

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SLA, according to Krashen (1 982), means that students are able to

interact in a meaningful and natural way of communication, in

which speakers are concerned with the meaning they are conveying and

understanding instead of the form of their utterances.

Approach: "Theoretically well-informed positions and beliefs about the nature

of language, the nature of language learning, and the applicability

of both to pedagogical settings" (Brown, 2001; p. 16).

Method:

" A generalized set of classroom specifications for accomplishing

linguistics objectives. Methods tend to be concerned primarily with

teacher and student roles and behaviors and secondarily with such

features as linguistic and subject-matter objectives, sequencing,

and materials. They are almost always thought of as being broadly

applicable to a variety of audiences in a variety of contexts"

(Brown, 2001 ; p. 16).

Competence: "Knowledge of the grammatical and other rules of a language

which enable a speaker to use and understand it" (Hubbard et al,

1983; p. 326).

¨ Bibliography ¨

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