Secondary English Language Teacher Capacity: Insights From Bangladesh

Shakila Nur

Abstract


Like other developing, non-English speaking countries in Asia, Bangladesh has shown a phenomenal attention towards English education through the school curriculum. The attention is demonstrated by revisiting and revising pertinent curriculum, personnel, materials, methods, and assessment policies of English education. This paper, within an exploratory, qualitative case study paradigm offers a modest, interpretive inquiry into secondary English teacher capacity, in terms of their recruitment, training and class performance. The data were collected from semi-structured interviews with secondary English teachers, school principals and teacher trainers, and classroom observations of secondary English teachers. The findings identified a set of generic issues around secondary English teacher capacity. These included inadequate provision of teachers, stigmatised practice of teacher recruitment, limited attention to teacher training and their impacts on the overall quality of English education. Reflecting upon the findings, the paper concludes with a set of recommendations for secondary English personnel policy and practice, which could be a point of reference for Bangladesh and beyond.

Keywords


Bangladesh; English Language Education; English Language Teachers; ELT-INSET; Language-In-Education Planning; Secondary Education

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.6n.4p.163

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