Listen up or lose out! Policy and practice of listening skill in English language education in Bangladesh

Abstract

This thesis reports an investigation into the status of listening skill in English language education in secondary schools in Bangladesh. The study also touches upon speaking skill as both listening and speaking skills are symbiotic and can be considered together as the skills of oracy in language education. Although English is a mandatory subject for twelve years of schooling, the reality indicates that students are weak in mastering the subject. The students are taught and tested only for orthographic skills excluding listening and speaking skills, whereas it is already known that authentic listening inputs help students achieve their overall English language proficiency. Therefore, listening as a skill can facilitate the improvement of the other three basic skills of the English language: speaking, reading, and writing. This rationale gives rise to this study.

The conceptual framework of this study draws on literature from intersecting fields: research from Bangladesh about communicative approaches to English language teaching, the influence of successive colonisations, international research related to both theoretical understandings of listening skill and the practice of teaching and assessing the skill, and writings about the IELTS listening test.

The overall design of the research is based on grounded theory. The methodology predominantly uses a qualitative framework, with some supportive quantitative survey data. Thus, a pragmatic research approach is applied to this research project. The methods to collect data included semi-structured interviews, surveys, a review of the documents related to curriculum policy, several government gazettes, and artefacts. A corpus-based approach is used following the KWIC (keywords-in-context) technique for a thematic analysis of the data.

The learning of the English language with communicative competence has become a social and economic force in Bangladesh. So, in the current National Education Policy 2010 and the National Curriculum 2012 English is recognised as an essential tool for building a knowledge-based society to face the challenges of the 21st century, for jobs locally and globally, and for economic development. Policies argue that Bangladeshi students need to develop oral proficiency and that includes becoming a good listener and speaker. Therefore, the emphasis on communicative competence in English language education is on the increase.

This research explores the policies and practices of listening skill in English language education in Bangladesh. The research study finds multiple disconnections between the policies and practice of listening in secondary classrooms. It then discusses the challenges of implementing listening in classroom practice and assessment procedures. As the National Curriculum 2012 for secondary English education suggests a similar sort of assessment to that in IELTS, this research also investigates the experiences of post-secondary IELTS preparatory students and examines their listening difficulties and, from this basis, considers possible ways that listening could be practised in schools and assessed.

In conclusion, the implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed. A working model is provided that can be used by teachers in the classroom for the teaching of listening in secondary schools. A range of recommendations has been offered to the stakeholders in English language education in Bangladesh. The study also offers a platform for discussion and reflection on listening skill for English language education in Bangladesh and, by implication, other countries with similar ELT contexts. A direction for future research is also suggested.