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The Postmethod Pedagogy Issues of Learning and Teaching Volume 1 Number 1 October 2020 ISSN 2523-6237 Publisher Education and Development Research Council (EDRC) 192/1 East Kafrul Dhaka, Bangladesh Email:

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Phone: 88-01712661241, 88-01715785156, 01716432662 Website: www.edrcbd.org Printing: Krishibid Printing and Publication, Dhaka-1205 Phone: 88-01817078796 ii The Postmethod Pedagogy Issues of Learning and Teaching Volume 1 Number 1 October 2020 ISSN 2523-6237 Editor-in-Chief Professor Dr. M. Maniruzzaman Executive Editor Khandoker Montasir Hassan Editors Professor Dr. John Dewar Wilson Ranjit Podder Professor Md. Jahurul Islam Ayesha Siddiqua Dr. Md. Enamul Hoque Md. Niaz Alamgir Education and Development Research Council (EDRC) 192/1 East Kafrul Dhaka, Bangladesh Website: www.edrcbd.org Email:

88-01712661241, 88-01715785156, 01716432662 iii Editorial Policies The Postmethod Pedagogy published by Education and Development Research Council (EDRC) is an open access international journal embodying research papers, articles, book reviews and so forth rigorously peer-reviewed. The main objective of the Journal is to provide a platform for the international scholars, academicians, practitioners and researchers to share the contemporary original thoughts and research findings in all fields of education with special emphasis on classroom practices. The Journal quarterly publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual frameworks, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, technical notes, and book reviews. Selection of submissions for publication is based on relevance, clarity, topicality, individuality and interest to academics and practitioners. We firmly believe that ethical conduct is the most essential virtue of any academic activities. Hence, any act of plagiarism is a totally unacceptable academic misconduct. Upon receipt of a submission, the Board of Editors establishes a panel of reviewers for the purpose of reviewing the submission, and sends the submission to a Double-blind Peer-review Process. The Editorial Board then makes a decision on one of the following actions to be taken next:  If the standard of written English language contained in the submission is not acceptable, the Board will return the submission to the author(s) and request that the submission be edited/rewritten by a person very proficient in English. This service is also offered by the editorial staff of EDRC at an additional cost.  If the submission requires minor or major revisions as recommended by the reviewers, the editorial board will return the submission to the author(s). The author(s) must then modify the submission and return it to the board for final edit and publication.  If the submission is rejected, the author(s) will be notified by email. He/she/they will also receive the comments made by the reviewers. An Article initially rejected by the journal may be resubmitted after it has been modified/rewritten.  If the submission passes review and/or experiences any required rewrites, the Editorial Board conducts a final edit and then includes the article in the next issue of the journal. This action constitutes publication and endorsement of the submission in the journal, and the review process for that submission is completed. The author(s) is notified by email of the endorsement and publication of the submission.  The views expressed in a paper published in this journal are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views and perspectives of the publisher and/or the Board of Editors. iv Table of Contents Page Professor Dr. M. Maniruzzaman 1 The Postmethod Pedagogy: Critical Reviews and Contextual Reflections Dr. Md. Enamul Hoque 16 Ayesha Siddiqua The Power of YouTube Videos in Teaching EFL Listening Skills at the Secondary Level in Bangladesh Ranjit Podder 36 Rokshana Bilkis Amin Rahman Boot Camp to Develop English Speaking Skill of Secondary School Students Professor Dr. M. Shahidullah 53 Tanzila Shahid Md. Mahmudul Hasan ELT and the Empire: Writing/Talking Back Harun Or Rashid 70 Dr. Md. Abdur Rouf Technology Usage in Learning English: A Case Study at Tertiary Level Dr. Protiva Rani Karmaker 84 Ashim Kumar Paul Exploring Attitudes of Bangladeshi Private University Students and Teachers towards Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) Quazi Farzana Yesmin 96 Visual Strategies in Teaching English Vocabulary to Bengali-Speaking Special Children Shamsia Wahida Rahman 108 English Education in Bangladesh: A Historical Overview of Education Policies in the Post-independent Period Professor Babul Chandra Shil 121 Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman Developing English Writing Skills through Scaffolding and Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Khandoker Montasir Hassan 139 Md. Niaz Alamgir From Method to Postmethod: A Review of Kumaravadivelu’s Arguments for a Paradigm Shift in ELT Book Review 152 Rabita Rahman Breakfast of Champions: A Pastiche of Postmodern Humanity Call for Paper 156 v vi The Postmethod Pedagogy: Critical Reviews and Contextual Reflections Dr. M. Maniruzzaman1 Abstract Pedagogical experts, practitioners, applied linguists and researchers have been planning, proposing, prescribing and/or practicing varied second/foreign language (L2) teaching methods and approaches for more than a century. However, the methods and approaches have continually failed to meet all the needs and interests of heterogeneous learners in diverse milieus. Hence emerges the postmethod pedagogy assumed to address all the challenges encountered by L2 teachers in different settings having their idiosyncrasies. If the prevailing scenario of English language (an L2) teaching in the Bangladesh context and other comparable settings is minutely examined, most of the claims of the postmethod pedagogy are open to question. This paper then critically reviews four major postmethod frameworks put forward by Allwright, Stern, Kumaravadivelu, and Brown, presents the current author’s reflections on English language teaching in the Bangladesh context, and identifies the limitations of the postmethod pedagogy especially in English language teaching in Bangladesh and other identical settings. Keywords: L2 teaching, methods, approaches, postmethod pedagogy, critical reviews, contextual reflections, a ‘post-CLT’ approach 1. Introduction Since the middle of the 19th century, pedagogical experts, practitioners, applied linguists and researchers have been planning, proposing, prescribing and/or practicing diverse methods and approaches, particularly the Grammar-Translation Method, Direct Method, Audiolingual Method, Suggestopedia, Total Physical Response, Communicative Language Teaching Approach, the Silent Way, Communicative Language Teaching Approach, Task-Based Language Teaching, Content-Based Approach, Lexical Approach, Project-Based learning, Competency-Based Approach, Standard-Based Approach and the like so as to find the best one which would singly successfully address all the challenges posed by second/foreign language (L 2) teaching in 1 Professor, Department of English, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Email:

1 various contexts. Unfortunately, as the best method remains undiscovered, the methods and approaches have constantly failed to cater for heterogeneous learners in varied settings, thus frustrated the teachers and researchers involved, and led to the declaration of the entire replacement of the ideas of ‘method’ by a postmethod pedagogy propounded by a number of researchers, particularly Allwright’s (1991), Stern (1992), Kumaravadivelu’s (1992, 1994, 2003, 2006a, 2006b) and Brown (2002). The ineffectiveness of each language teaching method in meeting the needs of heterogeneous L2 learners has stimulated a number of researchers and practitioners to announce the “Death of Method” (Allwright, 2003). Clarke (1994, p. 18) advocates a “complete re-orientation of the profession”. Kumaravadivelu (1994) steps even further by introducing the concept of “post-method condition” to the field; and other scholars have passed similar comments and referred to the past history of methods as an “embarrassment” (Richards, 2001). In this way, the shift from the method- oriented pedagogy to the postmethod pedagogy has captured the attention of many practitioners and researchers concerned with L2 teaching and learning in different parts of the world. Kumaravadivelu (2006b) reviews two papers by Pennycook (1989) and Prabhu (1990) in order to clarify the shift from the methods to the postmethod era. Pennycook (1989) maintains that the concept of ‘method’ exhibits a stereotypical attitude consistent with the “interests of unequal power relationships” (pp. 589-590), and considers it as hampering our “understanding of language teaching” (P. 597). Similarly, Prabhu (1990) strongly rejects the idea of a best method and proposes “a teacher’s sense of plausibility” (Kumaravadivelu, 2006b, p. 66) implying their personal feelings and ideas that would direct “teaching to desired learning” (Prabhu, 1990, p. 172). Moreover, Kumaravadivelu summarizes Stern’s (1992, p. 277) “three-dimensional framework” encompassing the interalingual-crosslingual dimension, analytic-experiential dimension, and explicit-implicit dimension, and Allwright’s (1991) “exploratory practice” based on three central beliefs – the quality of life in the language classroom, ensuring our understanding of the quality of classroom life, and understanding such a quality of life as a social matter. In addition, Kumaravadivelu mentions some other researchers (Clarke, 1983; Stern, 1885; Nunan, 1989; Richards, 1990; Allwright, 1991; Jarvis, 1991; Brown, 2002) who seriously question the concept of ‘method’. Hence, he justifies the emergence of the postmethod pedagogy to remove the obsession with the idea of ‘method’ and establish an alternative to it. Brown (2002, p. 10) catalogs four possible causes of demise of our requiem for methods which being excessively prescriptive assume too much about a context before the context has even been identified; which are quite distinctive at the early, beginning stages of a language course and rather indistinguishable from each other at later stages; which cannot be 2 empirically tested by scientific quantification to determine a best one; and which are laden with the quasi-political or mercenary agendas of their proponents. Brown (2002, p. 11) holds that teachers need to "get on with the business of unifying our approach to language teaching and of designing effective tasks and techniques informed by that approach" and then proposes a principled approach. It is clear that an approach to language teaching is not just a number of principles “set in stone, but a dynamic composite of energies" within a teacher that changes with continued experience in learning and teaching in his/her context. It is assumed that the method-dominated time is over and entirely replaced by the postmethod era which would address all the challenges confronted by L2 teachers in different contexts having unique characteristics. However, if we closely observe and explore the prevailing scenario of English language (an L2) teaching in the Bangladesh context and other comparable settings, we cannot countenance most of the claims of the postmethod pedagogy. Hence, the present paper is devoted to: 1. critical reviews of four major postmethod frameworks proposed by Allwright, Stern, Kumaravadivelu, and Brown. 2. the present author’s reflections on English language (an L2) teaching in the Bangladesh context. 3. detection of the limitations of the postmethod pedagogy in English language (an L2) teaching in the Bangladesh context and other similar settings. 2. Allwright’s Exploratory Practice Exploratory Practice (EP) developed by Allwright (1991) and a number of collaborators has been exemplified in a series of research papers. It was originally designed for professional development of the teachers having little spare time to dedicate to classroom research, limited access to library resources, and a lack of training in academic research methods. It was also meant as an antidote to the sort-termism and burn-out typical of many practitioner research and professional development programs. The proponents of EP increasingly recognize that collaborative learner involvement in EP is essential to its success, and indeed that in EP teacher development is inseparable from learner development. To explore the concepts and assumptions EP incorporates, we can consider what Allwright (2005, p.361) contends “Exploratory Practice (EP) is an indefinitely sustainable way for classroom language teachers and learners, while getting on with their own learning and teaching, to develop their own understandings of life in the language classroom.” Firstly, EP is a form of teacher development which does not lay claim to finding generalizable truth, but to seeking localized understandings. In EP, 3 teachers as well as learners have to be involved together in seeking their own enhanced understandings shared amongst all participants. Hence, EP is a form of learner development as much as teacher development. Secondly, EP focuses on classroom ‘life’ which depends on what individual participants bring with them from their own lives. Classroom life eventually provides an environment which helps foster learning and in which EP practitioners utilize the act of mutual and collaborative engagement in seeking shared understanding having the effect of generating a more productive communal working condition and a better understood one as well. Finally, EP is devoted to ‘indefinitely sustainable’. That is, most teachers and learners keep together for relatively short periods, but their own experiences of teaching and learning have a continuing history. To sum up, EP has seven core principles (Allwright & Hanks, 2009, pp149-154): focus on quality of life as the main issue, work to understand it before thinking about improving it, involve everybody as practitioners developing their own understandings, work to bring people together in a common enterprise, work cooperatively for mutual development, make it a sustainable enterprise, and integrate the work for understanding into existing curricular practice to minimize the burden. Thus, Allwright’s (2005) framework more emphasizes understanding the quality of classroom life, as a social matter, rather than the instructional efficiency. This philosophy leads him derive some broad principles of language teaching that inform specific practices at the local level. 2.1 Contextual Reflections EP is basically a prescription of seven core principles putting more stress on classroom ‘life’, rather than effectiveness of teaching an L2. It is exclusively concerned with professional development of L2 teachers mostly isolated from classroom research. This approach inadequately and/or hardly focuses on the L2 to be taught, second language learning theories, learner factors, curriculums, language materials and the like. Although EP significantly contributes to the emergence of the postmethod pedagogy, most of the English teachers in the Bangladesh context are unfamiliar with it. Besides, no empirical evidence is available to prove that this approach is better than the communicative language teaching approach. Hence arises the question: Why should EP be adopted and used to teach English language in the Bangladesh context and other similar settings? 4 3. Stern’s Three-Dimensional Framework The Three-Dimensional Framework proposed by Stern (1992) does not favor the application of restricted ends of the continuum in its principles, but implies that one should find a middle path in the application of three dimensions. The first one is the intra-lingual and cross-lingual dimension. According to this principle, intra-lingual strategy keeps the two language systems (L1 and L2) entirely separate from each other, whereas cross- lingual strategy indicates that L2 is acquired and known through the use of L1. That is to say, this criterion brings no restrictions as to the use of L 1 in the classroom as is allowed by the Grammar-Translation Method. This principle also encourages teachers to make a decision about the degree of using L1 as per the level and needs of learners. It is indicative that cross- linguistic techniques are appropriate at the earlier stages of L 2 learning while intra-lingual techniques are appropriate at the later stages of learning an L2. The second principle includes the analytic-experiential dimension. The analytic strategy explicitly focuses on forms of language such as grammar, vocabulary, notions and functions with emphasis on accuracy. On the other hand, the experiential strategy is oriented to messages and covers interaction in communicative contexts with emphasis on fluency. In addition, the analytic strategy “abstracts, decontextualizes, and isolates language phenomena or skill aspects for scrutiny, diagnosis, and practice” (Stern, 1992, p. 310) through mechanical drills. Contrariwise, the experiential strategy stresses meaningful activities such as projects, games, problem-solving tasks, writing reports, discussion and giving talks. The third criterion comprises the explicit-implicit dimension. According to Stern (1992), L2 can be taught both explicitly through conscious learning and implicitly through subconscious acquisition. As opposed to the conventional methods, the explicit-implicit dimension does not strongly impose one end of the dimension and ignore the other end. The L2 topic, the course objectives, the characteristics of the students, the needs, students’ age, maturity, and previous experience affect the degree of using explicit and implicit strategies (Stern, 1992). That is, while some forms of L2 are of an appropriate complexity to be presented and taught explicitly, other forms are not easy to be introduced explicitly as “language can be much too complex to be fully described” (Stern, 1992, p. 339). 3.1 Contextual Reflections The Three-Dimensional Framework proposed by Stern (1992) being constituted of the intra-lingual and cross-lingual dimension, analytic-experiential dimension, and explicit-implicit dimension 5 encourages teacher autonomy and advocates practice of liberality in L 2 teaching. On the one hand, it seems to embody some characteristics of traditional methods such as the Grammar Translation Method, but on the other, it claims to be an alternative to methods and welcomes some basic features of the communicative language teaching approach. Thus, this framework compels teachers experience a lack of agreement between facts, thoughts, opinions, preparations and practices. If we plan to use the Three-Dimensional Framework in teaching English as an L2 in the Bangladesh context and other comparable settings, we have to have some questions answered: (a) How much are the English language teachers here aware of and trained in using this framework? (b) Is the framework not silent on the issue of culture to be incorporated into teaching English as an L2. (c) Like methods, does the framework not prescribe some principles, techniques and tasks under the labels of three dimensions? (d) Does the framework have sufficient empirical evidence of its effectiveness in L2 teaching in diverse contexts across the globe? (e) Although the framework was proposed almost three decades back, why has it failed to replace the communicative language teaching approach popularly used all over the world. (f) Above all, as the Three-Dimensional Framework neither treats an L2 holistically nor includes all the components of teaching including the curriculum, language materials, and assessment, how far is it pragmatic and effective in developing communicative competence of heterogeneous learners in various contexts? Therefore, the Three-Dimensional Framework is deemed to be seriously incomplete and should have adequate empirical evidence to substantiate its claim as an alternative to methods and other approaches. 4. Kumaravadivelu’s Macrostrategic Framework Due to fluctuations in language teaching methods throughout the history, Kumaravadivelu (1994) advocates an alternative to ‘method’ rather than an alternative method and maintains that the postmethod teachers should adjust their approaches to their own contexts in which their teaching happens. Kumaravadivelu (1992, 1994, 2003, 2006a, 2006b) proposes the “macrostrategic framework” that rests on the following hypothesis as its theoretical underpinning: We cannot prepare teachers to tackle so many unpredictable needs, wants and situations; we can only help them develop a capacity to generate varied and situation-specific ideas within a general framework that makes sense in terms of current pedagogical and theoretical knowledge. (1992, p.41) The macrostrategic framework is impacted by three operating parameters: particularity, practicality and possibility. Firstly, particularity improves a context-sensitive and location-specific pedagogy originating from the clear 6 knowledge of local linguistic, social, cultural and political factors. Next, practicality establishes an intimate “role relationship between theorizers and practitioners” (Kumaravadivelu, 2006b, p. 69) by preparing teachers for theorizing from their practice and for practicing from their theory. Finally, possibility makes use of students’ “sociopolitical consciousness” with which they enter the classroom “so that it can also function as a catalyst for identity formation and social transformation” (p. 69). Further, this framework involves a network of ten macrostrategies expressed with operational terms that convey no prescriptive quality: maximizing learning opportunities, facilitating negotiated interaction, minimizing perceptual mismatches, activating intuitive heuristics, fostering language awareness, contextualizing linguistic input, integrating language skills, promoting learner autonomy, ensuring social relevance and raising cultural consciousness. Kumaravadivelu claims that practicing teachers are in a position of adopting these macrostrategies as guidelines on planning their own microstrategies that they can use in their own teaching settings. 4.1 Contextual Reflections The postmethod framework proposed by Kumaravadivelu is firstly claimed to be an alternative to ‘method’ rather than an alternative method. This approach secondly supports teacher autonomy and empowers practitioners with the capability of theorizing from their own practice and practicing what they theorize. It thirdly ascribes principled pragmatism urging teachers not to be simple receivers of methods but encourages them to be analyzers of their immediate context and be informed decision makers at the time of practice. Thus, the macrostrategic framework initially convinces us to use it in teaching English language effectively in our local context, Bangladesh, possessing typical characteristics shaped by its socio-political system, culture, economy, learner factors, teacher perceptions and so on, and having its unique local and global needs in the 21st century. To successfully face the challenges posed by our setting, the macrostrategies need be adapted to our particular demands and adopted to employ. That is, to maximally enhance learning in the classroom, essential and appropriate microstrategies have to be constructed. However, the macrostrategic framework encounters a number of questions in the Bangladesh context: (a) Are all the English language teachers here adequately aware of this framework? (b) Do all the English language teachers here have sufficient training in analyzing their contexts and constructing their own microstrategies in order to successfully face the unique challenges of their respective contexts encompassing those resulted from, for example, nature of learner attitudes and motivation, learner needs and interests, learner ages, learner backgrounds, learner personality, 7 learner intelligence, contrasts between the learner’s mother tongueand L 2, parents’ desires, social values, employers’ demands, national policy and so forth? (c) As per the requirements of the framework, do all the English language teachers here have adequate command of the English language? (d) Are most of the English language teachers here not still dominated by the age-old grammar-translation method? (e) This framework claims to foster teacher autonomy and empowerment. How does it ensure learner autonomy, self-learning, and self-assessment? (f) Has the effectiveness of this framework already been confirmed through scientific and/or empirical investigations in diverse contexts across the globe? (g) Though this framework claims to replace the concept of ‘method’, why is it almost mute about the communicative language teaching approach, task-based language teaching or other approaches? Although the macrostrategic framework criticizes methods as over-prescriptive, it puts forward a prescription of three operating parameters and ten macrostrategies. Moreover, it theoretically sounds impressive, but pragmatically confronts many a question. Therefore, adequate investigation into the feasibility, plausibility and effectiveness of the framework in diverse contexts is clearly warranted. 5. Brown’s Principled Approach Brown (2002) rejects the need for any new method, and, instead, advocates the necessity to unify an approach to language teaching and design effective tasks and techniques informed by that approach. As he maintains, a teacher’s approach to language teaching is based on the theoretical rationale underlying everything happening in the classroom context. That is, an approach is the sum total of knowledge and principles that enables teachers, as "technicians" in the classroom to diagnose the needs of students, treat students with successful pedagogical techniques, and assess the outcome of those treatments. Hence, one teacher’s approach may differ from that of another teacher or even an expert because of two reasons at the approach level: an approach being by definition dynamic and therefore subject to some "tinkering" as an outcome of one's observation and experience; and research in second language acquisition and pedagogy almost always yielding findings subject to interpretation rather than giving conclusive evidence. The interaction between a teacher’s approach and his/her classroom practice is the key to dynamic teaching. According to Brown (2002), viable current approaches to language teaching are "principled" since classroom practice is grounded on a finite number of general research-based principles: automaticity, meaningful learning, the anticipation of reward, intrinsic motivation, strategic investment, language ego, self-confidence, risk taking, the 8 language-culture connection, the native language effect, interlanguage, and communicative competence. And a principled approach is constituted of three stages – (a) diagnosis basically concerned with curriculum planning and developing as well as monitoring the classroom, (b) treatment dealing with needs and interests of different learners in different contexts, and (c) assessment devoted to assessing students ' accomplishment of curricular objectives, especially through ongoing assessment of students' performance as a course progresses. Brown (2002, p.17) comments on methods and concludes his approach: "Methods," as we historically understand the term in the profession, are not a relevant issue in the sophisticated process of diagnosing, treating, and assessing learners of foreign languages. We have emerged well beyond the dark ages of language teaching when a handful of prepackaged elixirs filled up a small shelf of options. 5.1 Contextual Reflections Brown (2002) entirely rejects methods and proposes his principled approach which, in fact, prescribes three stages – diagnosis, treatment, and assessment. This framework exclusively focuses on an amalgamation of a teacher’s approach and his/her classroom practice and lacks empirical evidence of its effectiveness. Further, Brown is more concerned with the business of discovering the negative sides of methods than his project to develop the approach as a full-fledged one to be effectively used in L2 teaching in varied settings. In the Bangladesh context, the principled approach is unfamiliar to at least majority of English language teachers who are mostly used to using the communicative language teaching approach impacted by the grammar-translation method. Moreover, as this approach is less developed than the communicative language teaching approach, why should the English language teachers here replace the latter by the former? 6. Limitations of the Postmethod Pedagogy The four major frameworks and/or approaches reviewed above endeavor to lay the foundation for the construction of the postmethod pedagogy that solely prescribes a number of operating principles supposed to assist an L2 teacher to construct the actual postmethod pedagogy him/herself by taking into consideration the linguistic, educational, social, cultural, economic, and political particularities of his/her own context. Notwithstanding, there has recently been a mounting concern over the inadequacy of the postmethod pedagogy (Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Bell,2003) because most L2 teachers across the globe still perceive that methods are not at all dead as opposed to the announcement of many a 9 scholar in the last two decades or so (Prabhu, 1990; Brown, 2002; Richards, 1990; Stern, 1992; Liu, 2004; Kumaravadivelu, 1992, 1994, 2003, 2004, 2006a, 2006b). Based on the reviews and contextual reflections presented above, the current author is deeply concerned about certain limitations and constraints of the postmethod pedagogy as well as the claims of its proponents and profounder. 6.1 “Death of Method” The postmethod pedagogy commenced its journey with the declaration of the “Death of Method” (Allwright, 2003), and as a reaction to the constant failure of methods being stereotypical prescriptions for L2 teaching in different contexts. Isn’t the proposition “Death of Method” unrealistic and/or unscientific? Above all, as futurity is 50 percent true and 50 percent false, how are we sure of what – a new method or approach – is awaiting us in time to come? Bell (2007) explores Block’s (2001) claim: though insignificant to applied linguists, the concept of ‘method’ still has a significant impact upon L2 teachers. The findings of his investigation into teachers’ opinions on methods and the postmethod pedagogy reveal teachers’ pragmatic and optimistic attitudes toward methods. Then he maintains that today’s teaching approaches including the postmethod pedagogy directly or indirectly result from the prior methods and approaches. In the late 1990s, the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLTA) was adopted to teach English language to the Bengali speaking learners at the primary, secondary, higher secondary, and even tertiary level of education in Bangladesh. After more than two decades of the practice of the CLTA, it is evident that this approach is immensely impacted by the age-old grammar-translation method. That is, the grammar-translation method still exerts visible influence on the curriculum design, materials development, classroom tasks, and assessment system. 6.2 Principled or Prescriptive Are the postmethod pedagogy exclusively principled? Aren’t they also prescriptive in theory and practice? Methods are blamed on their prescriptive nature necessarily and unnecessarily controlling L2 teachers, passivizing the learning process, and entirely ignoring the culture and context where teaching and learning happen. However, a close examination of the frameworks and approaches constituting the postmethod pedagogy unfolds that they all are somehow prescriptive to some extent. That is, they provide L 2 teachers with certain 10 principles to follow and plan their own teaching approach suitable for their respective settings. 6.3 Previous Approaches The proponents and propounders of the postmethod pedagogy triumph over methods and rejoice over the “Death of Method”. Why are they almost silent about the previous approaches to L 2 teaching? It is then accepted and even visible that the approaches such as the Communicative Language Teaching Approach, Task-Based Language Teaching, Content- Based Approach, Lexical Approach, Project-Based learning, Competency- Based Approach, Standard-Based Approach are not dead but still in use in L2 teaching in many parts of the world. Is the postmethod pedagogy stronger, more effective, and more widely used than these approaches, especially the Communicative Language Teaching Approach and Task-Based Language Teaching? The answer is obviously ‘no’ if we consider the Bangladesh context and other identical settings in which the postmethod pedagogy is almost weird, whereas the Communicative Language Teaching Approach and/or Task-Based Language Teaching tremendously attracts the attention of L2 practitioners and enjoys maximal popularity. Moreover, the postmethod pedagogy is seen to have borrowed many an idea from the previous approaches and methods as well. It is evident that the weaknesses of the earlier methods and approaches stimulate the emergence of the postmethod pedagogy which still unfortunately suffers disinterest of L 2 teachers in particular owing to its ambitious claims inconsistent with pragmatic demands of various L2 teaching contexts and stakeholders. 6.4 Rise of Reflective Practice According to the postmethod pedagogy, L2 teachers with the help of self-observation, self-analysis, and self-evaluation can shape and reshape classroom learning and teaching (Kumaravadivelu, 1994). That is, one of the consequences of postmethod pedagogy is considered as the rise of reflective practice in language teaching. Should we straightaway take this claim for granted? In the early 1980s, reflective practice emerged independent of the postmethod pedagogy as a continuous process involving trainee teachers thoughtfully considering their own experience in applying knowledge to practice while being taught by professionals (Schon, 1983). Moreover, it implies that individual teachers develop analysis of feelings, evaluation of experience and so on. It enhances lifelong learning leading to the development of autonomous, qualified and self-directed professionals 11 (Jasper, 2003). In other words, reflective practice ensures the promotion of the quality of care, stimulating personal and professional growth and bridging the gap between theory and practice. Thus, it is conspicuous that the postmethod pedagogy is not solely responsible for the emergence of reflective practice in teaching an L2. 6.5 The Postmethod Pedagogy or ‘Post-CLT’ Approach Which label should we accept and use – the postmethod pedagogy or ‘post-CLT’ approach? In the 1970s in Europe, the CLTA was developed as a reaction to the weaknesses of the structural approach to language teaching, especially the grammar-translation method and audio-lingual method. This approach emphasizes that the goal of language learning is developing communicative competence in L2 learners. Although the approach experiences criticisms for its limitations, it still significantly impacts upon L2 teaching and learning locally and globally as well. Further, as an improvement upon the CLTA, task-based language teaching essentially highlights the importance of communicativeness, that is, the socio-cultural aspects of language in use. Thoroughly examined, the postmethod pedagogy may be considered as a consequent stage that has emerged as a result of the weaknesses of the CLTA and/or task-based language teaching. Therefore, the postmethod pedagogy should better be relabeled as a ‘post-CLT’ approach to L2 teaching. 6.6 Eclecticism Today’s L2 teachers gain information from different approaches, methods and procedures to examine if they work in their respective contexts or not (Brown, 2007), generally make use of diverse sources such as their own or others’ experience, teacher training programs, conferences, seminars, workshops, relevant books and journals, the Internet sources and so forth, and thus create and bank on eclecticism entailing entire attention to and consideration of the contextual characteristics, substantially promoting their teaching expertise, and optimally facilitating the learning process. Hence, the postmethod pedagogy prescribing some specific principles and parameters can hardly override, overshadow and/or beat the previous methods and approaches, especially eclecticism. 6.7 A Newly Born Infant of Globalization The postmethod pedagogy is a newly born infant of globalization and its ultimate product postmodernism. The frameworks and approaches covered by the postmethod pedagogy have not adequately been empirically tested yet to substantiate their claims. Moreover, most of the principles and parameters of this pedagogy appear to have been derived 12 from the previous methods and approaches. Thus, it is too early to reject all the prior methods and approaches and adopt the postmethod pedagogy as the best framework so far for L2 teaching in heterogeneous settings across the globe. 7. Conclusion Though the postmethod pedagogy claims to replace methods since the latter have continually failed to cater for diverse L 2 teaching contexts, the former appears to have some serious constraints and limitations. This paper first reviews four major postmethod frameworks advocated by Allwright, Stern, Kumaravadivelu, and Brown and then endeavors to examine them based on the present author’s reflections on his context comparable to many others across the globe. The reviews and reflections reveal a number of weaknesses of the postmethod pedagogy which can, at best, be deemed as one of the prevalent approaches to L2 teaching. Some claims of the postmethod pedagogy such as “Death of Method”, methods being only prescriptions, methods ignoring L 2 teaching contextual peculiarities, methods having insignificant effectiveness, methods allowing teachers little freedom, methods overlooking varied learner factors and so forth are not sufficiently grounded on reason, pragmatism and scientificness. The postmethod pedagogy is also conspicuously prescriptive as it proposes certain principles and/or strategies and behaves like already existing L2 teaching approaches including the CLTA. Hence, the postmethod pedagogy should best be relabeled as a ‘post-CLT’ approach, subject to further investigation, examination and substantiation. References Allwright, R. L. (1991). The death of the method (Working Paper No. 10). Lancaster, England: The University of Lancaster, The Exploratory Practice Centre. Allwright, R. L. (2003). Exploratory practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7(1), pp. 113-141. Allwright, D. (2005). Developing Principles for Practitioner Research: The Case of Exploratory Practice.The Modern Language Journal, 89(3), pp. 353-366. Allwright, D. and Hanks, J. (2009).The Developing Language Learner. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bell, D. (2007). Do teachers think that methods are dead? ELT Journal, 61(2), pp. 35-143. Bell, D. (2003). Method and post-method: Are they really so incompatible? TESOL Quarterly, 37(2), pp. 325-336. Bell, D. (2007). Do teachers think that methods are dead? ELT Journal, 61, pp.135–143. 13 Block, D. (2001). An exploration of the art and science debate in language education.In M. Bax & J.-W. Zwart (Eds.), Reflections on language and language learning: In honour of Arthur van Essen (pp. 63–74). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Brown, H. D. (2002). English language teaching in the “post-method” era: Towards better diagnosis, treatment, and assessment. In J. C. Richards & W. A. Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching (9–18). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching (5th Ed.), NY: Pearson Education. Clarke, M. A. (1983). The scope of approach, the importance of method, and the nature of technique. In J. E. Alatis, H. Stern, & P. Strevens (Eds.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1983: Applied linguistics and the preparation of second language teachers (pp. 106–115). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University. Clarke, M. A. (1994). Mainstreaming" ESL students: Disturbing changes. College ESL, 4(1), pp. 1-19. Larsen-freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching, (2nd Ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jarvis, G. A. (1991). Research on teaching methodology: Its evolution and prospects. In B. Feed (Ed.), Foreign language acquisition research and the classroom (pp. 295-306). Lexington, MA.: D. C. Heath. Jasper, M. A. (2003).Nurses’ Perceptions of the Value of Written Reflection.Nurse Education Today, 19(6), pp. 452-463. Kumaravadivelu, B. (1992). Macrostrategies for the second/foreign language teacher. Modern Language Journal, 76, 41-49. Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The postmethod condition: (E)merging strategies for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 27-48. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching. NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006a). Understanding language teaching: From method to postmethod.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006b). TESOL methods: Changing tracks, changing trends. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 59-76. Liu, J. (2004). Methods in the post-methods era.Report on an international survey on language teaching methods. International journal of English Studies, 4(1). Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom.Cambridge, England:Cambridge University Press. Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, and the politics of language. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 589–618. 14 Prabhu, N. S. (1990). There is no best method—why? TESOL Quarterly, 24, 161-176. Richards, J. C. (1990). The language teaching matrix.Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C. (2001). Teaching, Appraoches and Methods in Language. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Stern, H. H. (1985). Review of J. W. Oller and P. A. Richard-Amato’s Methods that work [Book review].Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7, 249-251. Stern, H. H. (1992). Issues and options in language teaching.Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 15 The Power of YouTube Videos in Teaching EFL Listening Skills at the Secondary Level in Bangladesh Dr. Md. Enamul Hoque1 Ayesha Siddiqua2 Abstract The present study aimed to investigate how different YouTube videos would develop English listening skills of the students at the secondary level in Bangladesh. The study was conducted in the mixed-method approach. The study employed in-depth interviews, a pre-test a post-test, and a questionnaire survey to collect relevant data. The participants of the study were 12 secondary (EFL) teacher teaching English, and75students studying at the secondary level. The quantitative data of the questionnaire survey, pre-test, and post-test were analysed through descriptive and inferential statistical methods. On the other hand, the qualitative data were analysed through the constant comparative and inductive methods. The findings showed that both learners and teachers had a positive attitude towards the use of YouTube videos as a means of developing listening comprehension. It was explored that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the listening performance. The limitation of the study is the small sample size that can hardly be generalized to a greater population. The findings would be more dependable if classroom observation could be conducted as a tool. Keywords: YouTube, digital contents, listening skills, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), authentic materials 1. Introduction In the current post-method age, YouTube functions as one of the most popular digital resources for education, and a vast resource for educational contents. Videos have compelling power in the language classroom. The ELT classes have been using the videos for teaching English language since many years; but, it is still alien in Bangladesh education system. YouTube videos can be used to improve vocabulary, accents, pronunciations, listening, reading, writing, and speaking (Chhabra, 2012). In academic considerations, YouTube is considered very 1 Chief Instructor, Forestry Science and Technology Institute, Ministry of Environment and Forests, and Director, EDRC; Email:

2 Assistant Professor of English, Dhaka Mohanagar Mohila College, Dhaka. Bangladesh; Email:

16 useful tool because it can be used outside and inside of the classroom. It promotes a learning style that is more autonomous and students centre. It can be a strong source of motivation for the students and they can stay in the class for longer time. Using YouTube in the classrooms attracts students’ attentions significantly, and it makes classroom very interesting and interactive for language learning. It provides an opportunity for students to comment on the videos and ask questions about videos. YouTube is not only a source to learn but it also inspires the students. YouTube also provides an opportunity for students to present what they learned by making a video and sharing it with the class. When a student finds a particular video onYouTube that is interesting and useful in English language learning, he/she can find more similartypes ofvideos related to it easily. When students want to improve their listening, they are a little worried about understanding accents. Students can use YouTube to find lots of English Speakers with different accents. It is a good idea to find short videos that include closed captions (subtitles). The teachers can engage their students to watch videos on almost any subject. Teachers should keep them watching the video. The more they may listen to different accents, the easier it will be for them to understand them. Canning (2000) suggests that video should be projected in short periods as opposed to showing a full feature-length movie without intermediate comprehension activities. Students can spend hours watching videos in English, and quickly may improve their pronunciation, accent, and comprehension through mimicry and reputation. Currently, there are also hours of English learning videos provided by excellent teachers as well. Of course, this is the challenge in using and applying those videos. Learners can collectively enjoy watching these clips, but poor sound quality, incorrect pronunciation, and use of slang can make these short videos even more difficult to understand. YouTube videos can also stimulate two channels -visual and auditory- of the working memory in the brain which results in the increasing of the long memory content (Berk, 2009). When students watch videos, the information they learn will stay active in their memory and easy to recall. Concerning the listening skill, many studies (e.g.,Liang, 2013;Duffy, 2008) have proven that authentic videos are very effective in enhancing EFL learners' listening skills. Therefore, this current study provides sufficient insights for teachers in Bangladesh on the integration of YouTube videos in classroom instruction to provide more English real-life contexts and more motivated learning environment as well as developing students’ EFL listening skills. YouTube videos can also support students who are ready to explore topics that might not be explicitly covered in EFL curriculum for practicing listening. Since YouTube videos are most immediately observed through sight and sound simultaneously, creative 17 teachers can easily find new ways to use them in listening and speaking practices in English classes. In Bangladesh, EFL teachers need to be trained up to utilize the videos for educational purpose. 1.1 English Language Teaching at Secondary Level in Bangladesh Currently, English language enjoys a high status in Bangladesh. The role and status of English in Bangladesh is higher than ever before. For sensible reasons, its importance has grown manifold in the recent decades. It is compulsorily taught up to undergraduate levels. The Secondary English is based on the communicative approach, and it emphasises students’ communicative competence. With the ongoing increase of the importance of English language, a range of methods and approaches to teaching English language has been implemented at the secondary level schools to teach English language skills more effectively. The selections of the course contents have been determined in the light of students’ present and future academic, social, and professional needs. The text-books and curriculum are designed following the communicative approach. Though, officially, the Grammar Translation method has been replaced by the CLT in the nineties. But, not sufficient improvements in English language teaching and learning are observed. The EFL teachers at the secondary level cannot practically shift themselves from the traditional methods they had been applying for a longtime. Still, English language learners in Bangladesh face a lot of challenges for some reasons, especially for the teaching methods and teaching materials used in the class. Consequently, in spite of learning English as a foreign language for long 10 years from class I (one) to 10th grade, secondary level learners cannot speak fluently, and cannot attain listening comprehension ability adequately. In classrooms, the practices of listening skills seem to be inappropriate and inadequate. The teachers consider the teaching listening as a vibrant challenge. So, it is a crucial need to apply new teaching techniques and teaching materials in English language classroom especially for practicing listening skills. 1.2 Use of Digital Means It is a well-known fact that technology plays a positive role in enhancing teaching effect in Language classrooms; however, Bangladeshi EFL teachers teaching at the secondary level are still perplexed at the application of teaching methodology, and the use of digital contents in the English language classroom. In limitation, few teachers use PowerPoint presentations, use digital contents and internet resources to make the lesson interesting and effective. Gradually, the use of technology in the form of sound and visual instruments has displayed an upward growth is changing the way the teachers communicate with their learners. Thus, technology has started playing a role in English language teaching at 18 secondary level in Bangladesh, and is largely seen to have transformed the traditional teaching methods to post method pedagogy. The use of technology and digital contents, especially audio-visual aids are gradually becoming popular practice to impart teaching language skills in some schools. The satisfaction is that it provides with visual and auditory senses that have been instrumental in its gaining popularity in listening practices. Accurate accent and pronunciation are seen as great challenges for non- native speakers which become easy to learn and use through YouTube videos. Though some teachers have started using YouTube videos in their classes, the effectiveness of the use of YouTube videos for enhancing listening skills at secondary level have not been studied in Bangladesh context. 1.3 Research Questions This study aimed at investigating the potential effect of using YouTube as a teaching tool particularly to develop EFL students’ listening skills at the secondary level in Bangladesh. Specifically, the study set out to provide answers to the following research questions: 1. How often the EFL teachers at the secondary level use YouTube videos in their classroom for listening practices? 2. How much do YouTube videos provide EFL learners with new techniques that can help them practise on their listening skill? 3. How do YouTube videos improve EFL students’ listening comprehension skills of the experimental group compared to those of the control group? 2. Literature Review Listening is considered as the most important language skill that plays a significant role to empower learners’ communication skills. The YouTube has nearly endless potential for the English as a foreign language classroom. It is this educational value of YouTube that will be explored here with particular emphasis on foreign language teaching and learning. The YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos of different interests, and view them in MPEG-4 format. Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim founded YouTube in February of 2005 with the domain name http://www.youtube.com. The web-site was created as a forum for people to create and share short video- clips online. Berk (2009) examined the use of video clips in classrooms and provided a detailed rationale and conceptual framework for the practice. While Berk’s study was fairly extensive and widespread, its focus was across the field of education in general instead of EFL or SLA pedagogy; nonetheless, his list of learning outcome and review of 19 cognitive study were engaging and enlightening enough to merit consideration by EFL teachers interested in incorporating video in their classrooms. Çakir (2006) stated that it was a well-known fact that audio- visual materials were a great help in stimulating and facilitating learning of a foreign language. Liang (2013) indicated that the main benefit from videos was that students not only listen to the language but they could also saw it through video clues and gestures which consequently allowed students to go beyond of what they listened to. Safarali and Hamidi (2012) explored the effect of using videos presenting speakers’ gestures and facial expression clues on learners’ listening comprehension. According to Duffy (2008, YouTube videos were increasingly being used by educators as a pedagogic resource for everything to teach students within an ESL (English as a Second Language) course. Krashen (1985) suggested teachers had an obligation to provide learners with not only an abundance of interesting, meaningful and relevant learning materials, but additionally would create a learning environment that helped to lower their affective filter. Berk (2009) described a review of theoretical and research-based studies related to the use of videos and the brain. He focused that utilizing YouTube videos in informative manner was effective for generating a concept, presenting an alternative viewpoint, stimulating a learning activity, and motivating the students (Berk, 2009). Shrosbree (2008) provided underpins the notion for considering video over audio-only sources for listening activities. Another study by Subramaniam et al. (2013) showed that students understood the learning materials better with the use of YouTube videos. Students also enjoyed their learning process and admitted that they became creative in thinking when YouTube videos were used in the classroom. Chang and Chang (2014) also discovered that YouTube video- contents increased students’ listening comprehension. Indeed, even as native speakers, when people interact or converse with others, they usually see their faces. If we consider instances of interaction that are not face-to-face – such as in computer-mediated-communication –for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions, a huge range of emotion icons (i.e. emoticons) and other visual representations of paralinguistic cues are employed as a substitute for face-to-face contact, implying that paralinguistic (or body language) cues are an important part of communication (Oddone, 2011). Choi and Johnson (2005) found that there was a significant difference in learners’ motivation and retention compared to traditional text-based instruction. Similarly, Castro (2011) investigated the use of videos as an educational tool to increase student motivation at the School. Liang (2013) found that if the sound messages were closely correlated with the visual ones, pupil’s cognitive schema could be stimulated and enriched which would give concrete and vivid clues to their treatment of the sound materials, and would improve their level of listening comprehension. The 20 cognitive support provided by YouTube videos in language classrooms had been studied worldwide where some researchers found that it might help second language learners acquire vocabulary and grammar, improve spelling and develop the linguistic skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening (e.g., Graham, 2005).However, in contrast to these studies, Educause (2006) argued that it was unknown as to whether students learnt from what they heard or from what they saw. York (2011) argued that video alone did not provide sufficient impetus for language learning, however, when used with appropriate support material, would activate the passive knowledge of language learners in particular, and would assist with language assimilation and transfer, both in terms of that language presented as well as that which is implicitly suggested. Alimemaj (2010) found that students’ ability on the two skills improved after using YouTube. Liu (2010) reported that students’ analytical skills are developed from the learning process using YouTube videos. 3. Statement of the Problem Teaching listening is a very complex process, and it presents a series of challenges in learning process. The students feel frustrated with the traditional methods of teaching listening. In Bangladesh, EFL teachers usually face difficulties while teaching listening because they lack authentic materials and adequate training to create interest among the learners to practice listening in and out of classrooms. Unfortunately, many aspects of the traditional listening classrooms remain the same as it was in the past. Though the current view of listening is a many-sided interactive process, requires a more comprehensive approach to teaching listening to help learners meet the challenge of real-life listening comprehension. As per the spirit of National Education Policy 2010, the educators, curriculum experts, and ELT teachers have been looking for effective materials to be taught in the class for listening practice, and the methods of practicing listening. In this context, the use of YouTube can be an effective tool for language teaching, especially teaching listening. It is a relatively new field to explore and experiment. . In Bangladesh, the use of YouTube videos in EFL listening practice is almost rare. This might be attributed to the fact that some traditional educators might find it difficult or unnecessary to use video technology to achieve the goal of teaching a language. The use of YouTube videos can be effective digital contents for developing listening skills, and that should be investigated. Therefore, the present study will provide sufficient information for EFL teachers, learners, and educators on the inclusion of YouTube videos in EFL classroom to provide real-life contexts and effective learning environment for developing students’ EFL listening skills at the secondary level. 21 4. Methodology This study was conducted in mixed-method approach to achieve the research objectives. As a mixed-method approach, the study applied in- depth interviews with EFL teachers, student questionnaire survey, a pre- test, and a post-test to elicit data from the participants. The participants were 12EFL teachers and 75 students at secondary level. The students were about 15-16 years old. The students participated in the questionnaire survey, a pre-test, and a post-test as the control group and experimental group participants, while the teachers took part in the in-depth interviews. The instruments were validated by a panel of raters of ELT experts and researchers. To ensure the reliability of the instruments, the researcher used the test/retest method. The respondents of the study were selected through simple random sampling. 4.1 Data Analyses of In-depth Interviews The study interviewed 12 EFL teachers teaching English at the secondary schools. The teachers were randomly selected from a training session conducted by Sylhet Teachers’ Training College. The participants were from urban, suburban and rural schools. The present study employed a number of steps for data collection and data management, such as(i) recording the interview data and information; (ii) reading through all the data in order to get a general idea of emerging themes, issues and meanings;(iii) coding and categorizing the data; (iv) coding a system to establish themes throughout the transcriptions; (v) determining how to describe the themes in writing; and, finally, (vi) interpreting all data for the presentation. The analyses involved the use of the constant comparative method in which the data were classified into categories. This ensured that all steps and results were stated clearly and accurately. 4.2 Data Analyses of Student Questionnaire Survey The current study conducted a questionnaire survey among the 25 students at the secondary level. The questionnaire consisted of 20 items on the listening comprehension, attitudes, teacher’s quality, environment, etc. The 5-point Likert Scale (Likert, 1932) was applied to receive responses from the students. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were ensured through test-retest methods. In this study, the internal consistency has been measured with Cronbach's alpha, and the reliability was estimated at 0 .79 out of 1.00. The data of the questionnaire survey were analysed through SPSS- 24 for Windows programme. 22 4.3 Data Analyses of Pre-test and Post-test A pre-test was given to control group and experimental group at the beginning of the study to make sure that they were comparable at the beginning of the study in listening comprehension. Each group consisted of 25 students irrespective of gender. The two groups were given a pre-test of 25 marks in which the students were asked to watch and listen to a 20- minute YouTube video to answer 25 short questions on the video contents. In order to compare the difference between the two groups, an independent t-test was performed. The t-test compared the mean scores of the two groups’ to decide whether there were any statistically significant differences between the two groups at the beginning. Afterwards, the experimental group was to practise listening for 04 weeks on everyday basis using about 20-minitue YouTube videos. On the other hand, the control group was instructed in existing traditional methods. At the end of 04 weeks of intervention to the experimental group, both the groups were given a post-test to compare the results of the two groups. The results of the post-test of both groups were analysed through another independent t- test using SPSS- 24 for windows. This compared the scores of the two groups’ to decide whether there were any statistically significant differences between the two groups after the intervention given to the experimental group. 5. Presentation of Findings and Discussion The findings based on the instruments are presented separately. First, the findings of in-depth interviews are presented. Second, the findings of pre-test and the post-test given to the control group and the experimental group are discussed. Finally, the findings of the questionnaire survey are detailed out. The findings mainly provide insight to the research hypothesis –“The EFL listening practice with YouTube videos is more effective than the practice with traditional materials and methods” and the objectives of the study. The findings are summarised in the following sections: 5.1 Findings from the In-depth Interviews The interviews were conducted with 12 secondary EFL teachers to obtain qualitative data. The interview participants were given pseudonym and were coded as T1, T2, T3…T12. Among the teachers, 5 were Bachelor of Arts in English; 6 were MA in English, and a teacher was M.A. M.Ed. from other discipline of humanities. Of the teachers, 6 obtained Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree; and 8 teachers received short-training from the government on ELT. The interviews were conducted one-to-one, and face-to-face; and they were asked 23 complementary and supplementary questions to obtain authentic related data. During interviews, the teachers gave mixed reactions on the use of YouTube videos in the EFL listening classes. It was explored that most of the teachers (75%) used this digital materials in the class to varied extent; and 25% teachers occasionally used YouTube in their classes. It was found that the teachers used it for a short period of time like 10- 25 minutes per class. Maximum of the teachers (60 %) confirmed that the school did not have technological and internet facilities to operate and use the YouTube videos. Furthermore, 50% of the teachers disclosed in the interview that they did not have proper knowledge, skills, and training on the use of modern devices and digital contents in the class. The study explored the lack of relevant YouTube resources, technological supports, internet facilities, teacher training, class time were the major shortcomings for the effectively use of the YouTube videos in the listening classes. It was found that the participants T1, T2, T5, T7, T8, T11 and T12 used YouTube videos in the listening class at least once a week covering 15-25 minutes in each class; T7, T9, and T10 confirmed that they used YouTube videos 2/3 times in a month covering maximum 60 minutes (1 hour); and T3, T4,and T6, informed that they used YouTube in the class very occasionally as a means of teaching materials. The table below (Table1) shows the overview: Table1: Use of YouTube in the class Participants Frequency of Time Used Technology YouTube Use (Mins=Minutes) used Day Week Month Day Week Month T1, T2, T5, - 1 4 - 15-20 60-80 Laptop/ T7, T8, time times mins mins desk top/ T11, T12 Multimedia and Mobile T7, T9, - - 2-3 - - 30-40 Desktop T10 times mins T3, T4, T6 - rarely rarely - - 20-30 Laptop/ mins desk top and Mobile It was discovered that teachers irregularly used the YouTube using their Laptop or mobile. A small number of teachers used multimedia projector to show the videos. The teachers used their personal devices because there were no Multimedia projectors in the 07 schools. However, 05 schools had the multimedia devices but there was no arrangement to use those devices. The interview found that 66% teachers used the YouTube using their own devices, such as laptop, Smart-phone, and internet connections. In this regard T5 informed: 24 Using YouTube videos in the class is a challenge for me; I do not have sufficient YouTube materials; and the school lacks technological support. The short class-hour/period is also another challenge for me. In addition, examination pressure also keeps me away to arrange listening practice through YouTube. However, all the participants commented that YouTube videos should be used in the EFL classroom regularly for listening practice. Regarding the use of YouTube, T1 said: I'm using it in my classes, it is really useful. I have tried some; I usually assign videos to my students; so, they practice their English skills. The participants T2, T5, T7 and T10 remarked that students would like to see videos in class that was made by native speakers while T1 and T7 informed that native accent was sometimes difficult to understand for the students. Regarding listening practice, T2 remarked: My students prefer to watch videos of British and American speakers; they sometimes request me to play the same videos repeatedly. Some students feel bored when played videos of foreign culture and unfamiliar maters. So, the videos of English native language speakers should be played in the classroom regularly. In this connection T2 told: I always play English videos of native speakers; and I have collected many videos from website. I myself watch the videos in leisure period. I downloaded and save the videos in my cell-phone. T10 claimed that: I like to use YouTube, which provides many accents and varieties, as well as transcripts, but I have been known to use YouTube as well. Authentic material for the win! During the interview, 03 teachers (T5, T8, and T10) remarked that students could remember the lessons for longtime when they would watch it in the videos. T1 and T8 confirmed that they also taught their students grammar and English vocabulary using YouTube videos. T4 and T5 informed that they collected a good number of YouTube videos to teach pronunciation, vocabulary and listening practices. All the interview participants disclosed that they were not well trained to arrange and operate the YouTube Videos in the Class. The interviewed teachers (T1, T3, T4, T6, T7, T9 and T10) informed the researcher that their school did not have internet facilities and multimedia projector; they sometimes operated and showed YouTube from personal collection using personal laptop, mobile phone, and school computers. The interviewees informed that the government or the school authority never encouraged or motivated them to use YouTube videos as teaching materials; they informed that they 25 did not received any training on the use of YouTube for language teaching. In this regard, T7 said: When I use the YouTube in the class, some of our colleagues of other subjects criticize us; they blame that we are wasting time. He adds that the government should encourage using YouTube as much as possible. The interview participants of the study commented that excellent educational contents tremendously could benefit the learners. Furthermore, students certainly gain knowledge as well as listening skills because YouTube videos makes the learning situation in the classroom more enjoyable, motivating, interesting, creative, cooperative and productive. The students tend to be excited to complete the task given by the teacher when YouTube is applied to their listening subjects. The teacher confirmed that a lot of students these days expect information to be presented in a flashy, entertaining way, so YouTube videos can help draw them in. 5.2 Findings from the Pre-test and Post-test The study investigated if the YouTube video lessons significantly contribute to develop the listening skills. A pre-test was given to both groups at the beginning of the study to make sure that they were equivalent or nearly in same condition. A total of 50 secondary students, 25 students in each group, were given the pre-test carrying 25 marks in which the students were asked to watch and listen to a 20-minute YouTube video for answering 25 short questions relating to the video contents. A pre-test was conducted to ensure the equalization of the groups involved in the study, and a post-test was given to evaluate the effectiveness of the experimental procedures. The scores of the pre-test of both the groups were examined and analyzed through independent sample test (t-test) and presented in the table 2and table 3. From the analyses of the findings, it was found that in the pre-test the mean score of control group (M=10.20), and experimental group (M=10.70) were very close to each other, and the Mean difference (Mean Diff.= -.50) was negligible. The Standard Deviations of the control group (SD=1.475) and experimental group (SD=1.059) were equally distributed around the respective Mean. The statistics indicated that the participants from the control group and the experimental group performed almost equally in the pre-test: 26 Table 2: Group Statistics- Independent Samples t-test (Pre-test) Independent Samples Test Levene's Test for Equality of Variances 95% Equal Confidence variance Interval of s not the assumed Difference Mean Std. Sig. Mean Group N (M) Dev. t(2-tailed) Diff Lower Upper Control Group 25 10.20 1.475 -1.706 .706 -.870 .397 -.50 Experimental 25 10.70 1.059 -1.715 .715 *Significant > 0.05 It was indicated that the t- value (t=-.870) was small indicating that the difference between the control and experimental groups was not significant. It is known that the larger the t-value, the larger the difference in the two samples. Here, the Means, Means Diff., t-value, and the significance level (sig.=.397) greater than 0.05 proved that the differences between the two groups was statistically insignificant. Therefore, the t-test suggested that at the beginning of this study, both the groups were equivalent in proficiency of EFL listening. After the pre-test was given, the experimental group was instructed EFL listening through YouTube videos for 04 weeks. The intervention was for20 minutes per day where the teachers arranged watching YouTube videos for students to practice listening exercises. On the other hand, the control group was instructed using the existing traditional methods without new intervention. At the end of the experiment for 04weeks, both the groups were given a post-test on their listening comprehension performance. The post-test was given to compare the achievement of the two groups. The post- test results of the groups was analysed through another independent t-test. The t-test analyses of the post-test findings were presented in the table-3. The study analysed the mean scores, standard deviations, t-values, significance level, etc. The study explored that there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group because of the intervention with the YouTube Videos. It was found that the Mean Score of the Experimental Group (M= 16.50) is significantly higher than the Mean Score of Control Group (M=10.70). The difference of Means (Mean Diff 5.80) was the key indicator of the difference. The Standard Deviation (SD=1.779) of the Experimental group determined that all the participants of the group steadily improved in the listening as the Standard Deviation closely distributed around the mean score. It shows the experimental group outperformed by 35.4% marks: 27 Table 3: Group Statistics- Independent Samples t-test (Post-test) Independent Samples Test Levene's Test for Equality of Variances 95% Confidence Equal Interval of the variances Difference not Mean Std. Sig. (2- Mean assumed Group N (M) Dev. t tailed) Diff Lower Upper Experimental 25 16.50 1.779 4.424 7.17 Control 8.85 .000 5.8 25 10.70 1.059 4.401 7.19 Group *Significant > 0.05 It was explored that the larger t-value (t=8.856) established the larger differences between the groups. In addition, the level of significance p>.0.000 clearly showed that the difference between the two groups was statistically significant at the level of p< .05. Since the current p-value (P<.000) is less than the alpha (p< .05), the null hypothesis (H0) is rejected. It showed that the significance level is below the cut-off value (p<0.05).So, the findings reject the null hypothesis (H0 ) and accept the alternative hypothesis(Ha ) and it is proved that the impact of YouTube use in the listening classes is statistically significant. Thus, the alternative hypothesis (Ha ) is tested and proved against the null hypothesis. The difference of listening comprehension scores between the two groups demonstrates the evidence of the significant impact of YouTube videos on the performance of the experimental group. The results implied that the use of YouTube videos provided an authentic native speaker setting that is beneficial to EFL learners at the secondary level in Bangladesh. It is also regarded as a motivating factor that encouraged EFL students to develop their listening comprehension skills, and gained a deeper understanding of the foreign language. Therefore, YouTube impacted statistically significant effect on the part of the experimental group’s listening. The study is in harmony with the study by Subramaniam et al. (2013) which shows that students understand the learning materials better with the use of YouTube videos. Students also enjoyed their learning process and admitted that they became creative in thinking when YouTube was used in the classroom. Jun Choi & Johnson (2005) found that YouTube videos on learners’ motivation and retention compared to traditional-based instruction. The students in the experimental group of this study considered YouTube videos as more enjoyable ways to learn EFL listening comprehension skills, they found them more motivational, beneficial and interesting. 28 5.3 Findings from the Questionnaire Survey The study conducted a questionnaire survey to look into how the students feel with the YouTube as a technique for listening practice. The student questionnaire comprises 10 questions on the use of YouTube in the classroom. The SPSS 24.0 for Windows was used for the statistical analysis. The questionnaire statements are reported as if they were questions. For instance, Q1 refers to Statement Number 1. Since the responses were actually on a binary scale, the two categories of ‘Strongly Agree’ and ‘Agree’ were collapsed into single category agreement. Similarly, ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’ are merged to disagreement. The findings of the questionnaire survey are presented in the following tables (Table 4, 5, and 6).In reply to the question Q1, Only16% students (Mean=3.28, STDV=1.061) claimed that their teachers used YouTube videos (Strongly agree’ and ‘agree’) for teaching English listening skills. It shows the huge number of the English teachers does not use the YouTube videos or digital contents for listening practice. In SQ2, the study discovered that 72% learners (Mean=4.16, STDV=.943) wanted to watch videos in the class indicating that they understood the importance of the use of YouTube videos for developing listening comprehension. In reply to the SQ3, another 68% secondary students (Mean=3.84, STDV=1.028) revealed YouTube was a good way of developing English listening. In reply to the question SQ4, 60% students (Mean=3.68, STDV=1.108) agreed that YouTube videos helped them improve their English listening rapidly. Furthermore, in question SQ5, the 68% learners (Mean=4.04, STDV=1.060) admitted the using YouTube motivated them to study English. The majority of the students considered YouTube to be an attractive learning tool that could help them develop English listening skills: Table 4: The findings of the questionnaire survey (SQ01-SQ05) No Statement Items The Responses Grading Strongly Agree=5, Agree=4, Neutral=3, Disagree=2, Strongly Disagree=1; SD= Standard Deviation Standard Disagree Deviatio Disagree Strongly Strongly Neutral Agree Agree Mean n . 5 4 3 2 1 1. Our English Teacher arranges 1 3 8 8 5 3.281.061 YouTube watching in English (4%) (12%) (32%)(20%) Class frequently. 16% (32%) 29 2. I want to watch YouTube 12 6 0 6 1 4.16.943 videos for learning English (48%) (24%) (0%) (24%) Listening. 72% 3. I think using YouTube is a 7 10 1 6 1 3.841.028 good way of developing (28%) (40%) (4%) (24%) (4%) English listening. 68% 4. Watching YouTube videos 7 8 0 5 5 3.681.108 helps me improve my English (28%) (32%) (0%) (20%)(20%) listening rapidly. 60% 5. Using YouTube motivates me 11 6 (24%) 1 7 0 4.041.060 to study English. (44%) (4%) (28%) (0%) 68% The study correlates the findings of Kelsen (2009) which revealed that students had perceptions that YouTube motivated them to learn listening. Besides, they think listening by using YouTube made the learning interesting. This result is similar to Silviyanti (2014) who found that students are motivated and interested in learning listening after YouTube videos are applied in listening classroom. Damronglaopahan and Stevenson (2013) investigated students’ attitude towards the implementation of YouTube videos. It showed that students have positive attitude of YouTube application. It also discovered that learners felt YouTube as helpful tool in developing their vocabulary understanding. The statistical analyses of the findings of the current study are as follow: Table 5: Descriptive statistics of the findings of the questionnaire survey Statistics SQ01 SQ02 SQ03 SQ04 SQ05 SQ06 SQ07 SQ08 SQ09 SQ10 N Valid 25 25 25 25 25 25 24 25 25 25 Missing 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 Mean 4.16 3.28 4.16 3.28 3.68 3.84 4.21 4.16 2.46 2.20 Std. .943 1.061 .943 1.061 1.108 1.434 .884 1.028 1.414 1.35 Deviation Variance .890 1.127 .890 1.127 1.227 2.057 .781 1.057 1.998 1.83 Skewness - -.666 -.161 -.666 -.161 -.297 -.894 -.855 .697 .920 1.596 Kurtosis - -.806 -.510 -.806 -.510 -.768 -.041 2.845 .918 -.452 1.201 In reply to the question SQ6 (Table 5), 72% students (Mean=3.84, STDV=1.434) disclosed they enjoyed YouTube videos used by the teachers. In question SQ7, 76% students (Mean=4.21, STDV=.884) claimed YouTube videos improved their pronunciation. It was also found that 84% students (Mean=4.16, STDV=1.028) preferred videos of native speakers. 30 Table 6: The findings of the questionnaire survey (SQ6-SQ10) Strongly Agree=5, Agree=4, Neutral=3, No Statement Items (SQ) Disagree=2, Strongly Disagree=1; SD= Standard Deviation Standard Deviation Strongly Agree Disagree Disagree Strongly Neutral Agree Mean . 5 4 3 2 1 6. We enjoy class when videos 12 6 0 2 5 3.84 14.34 are shown by the teacher (48%) (24%) (0%) (8%) (20%) 72% 7. The YouTube videos help 11 8 1 4 1 4.21 .884 me improve my English (44%) (32%) (4%) (16%) (4%) pronunciation. 76% 8. I like to watch more videos 11 (44%) 10 1 2 1 4.16 1.028 in class that is made by (40%) (4%) (8%) (4%) native speaker. 84% 9. Our teacher is well trained to 3 4 1 7 9 2.46 1.414 arrange and operate the (12%) (16%) (4%) (28%) (36%) YouTube Videos in the 28% Class. 10. Our School is well equipped 2 4 1 10 8 2.20 1.354 and has facilities such as (8%) (16%) (4%) (40%) (32%) projector, electricity, sound system, and internet connection to watch the 24% videos uninterruptedly. Only 28% students (Mean=2.46, STDV=1.414) confirmed their teachers were well trained to arrange and operate the YouTube Videos in the class indicating that most of the English teachers (72%) were not well trained. In addition, only 24% students considered their school were well equipped and had facilities such as projector, electricity, sound system, and internet connection to watch the videos uninterruptedly. The big number of students (76%) reported the poor condition of the school facilities regarding YouTube use. The findings of this study correlates the findings of Luo (2004); Lin (2009); and Safarali and Hamidi (2012) who found that the video presentations using YouTube are more interesting, stimulating, and challenging than traditional audio-based language instruction. Using YouTube has some weaknesses. Those are poor sound quality, speakers’ unclear pronunciation and dialect. On the one hand, YouTube videos sometimes do not provide good videos either from the dialogues to the pictures taken (Beaudoin 2013). Thus, the videos have to 31 be selected in order to find the appropriate one for education learning. The findings of the study show that English language learners are interested in the use of YouTube videos developing listening skills. It represents a new way which they think it is going to help them in the educational setting and enrich their English language skills. The study showed that the majority of the students are interested in using YouTube videos made by the native English language speakers. The students think that YouTube videos can be a solution to many problems such as boredom and routine. However, the success of the use of this technology depends on the teachers; training, experience of using such tools, and the way they guide the students through the use of its features. 6. Recommendations On the basis of the findings, the study recommends that there should be a visible change in the national curriculum to provide a comprehensive look to English language education at the secondary level in Bangladesh. It can be said that in order to be able to integrate the use of technology in the process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language, some conditions need to be addressed: 1. Curriculum designers should be aware of the involvement of technology in the educational field and merge digital tools within the curriculum; 2. Laboratories should be setup in the schools for EFL learners to practise on their listening skills; YouTube videos should be used regularly for immediate outcome; 3. Teachers need special training concerning the use of YouTube videos; 4. The schools should be well equipped with the technological tools and supports; 5. The EFL teachers are recommended to provide learners with more motivating and innovative ways to develop their English listening comprehension skills; by using different techniques and activities since listening skills is the key opening to master a foreign language; 6. Students should experience the use of tools such as laptop multimedia, projectors and data shows more often; 7. The students should start using the appropriate and relevant videos from YouTube to learn English from the native speakers, inside and outside the classroom. 8. The students need to YouTube videos to encounter with more authentic English language setting. 9. It is also recommended to apply further study for better results. The same study can be applied on a different study sample like Primary, and higher secondary levels. 32 7. Conclusion The study investigates students’ attitudes concerning the use of YouTube videos in the academic setting and the outcomes of the YouTube use. The findings showed that the students seem to be very interested towards the use of YouTube videos inside the classroom for the reason to improve their listening comprehension. Teachers are aware of the importance of this tool in helping their students to overcome their anxiety and express their thoughts freely in much different and profound ways. Teachers also showed their interests towards the use of YouTube videos inside EFL classes, and they believe that YouTube videos can have a positive effect on the learners listening ability and can also be a good helping techniques for the teachers as well. It was found that the YouTube videos largely impacted on the outcomes of listening ability. The post-test showed the experimental group outperformed the control group in listening by big percentage. Thus, teachers need to apply YouTube videos more often, in which all students have the chance to participate in order to improve their oral performance. The selected YouTube videos for the use in English language classrooms should be based on certain criteria such as, proficiency level of the students, their cultural context, and the lesson’s objectives. In Bangladesh, the current study should be taken as a pioneer for other studies that need to be conducted for further validation and referencing. The present study can provide better ways for teaching and learning, and can create a new space for obtaining new experiences for both teachers and learners. However, there are some limitations to this study as the study did not cover the activities that happened in the classroom such as the process of negotiation and collaborative work. This limitation is due to the nature of the type of research that is being conducted and is not in control of the researcher. The findings would be more dependable if classroom observation could be conducted as a tool. Research should be conducted in the future to investigate the same experiment on a mixed gender population on a larger scale. References Alimemaj, Z. (2010). YouTube, Language Learning, and Teaching Techniques.Anglohigher: The Magazine of Global English Speaking Higher Education, 2(3), 10-12. Berk, R. A. (2009). Multimedia teaching with video clips: TV, movies, YouTube, and mtvU in the college classroom. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning,5(1), 1-21. Beaudoin, P. (2013). iTunes, YouTube and Me: Augmented Your Classroom with Web-BasedMedia. In T. Bastiaens & G. Marks 33 (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2013 (pp. 45-53). Chesapeake,VA: AACE. Canning-Wilson , C. (2000). 24. Practical Aspects of Using Video in The Foreign Language Classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, VI (11). ÇAKIR, İ. 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(1985).The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. Harlow: Longman. Liang, D. (2013). The Effects of English Audio-Visual Materials on Listening Comprehensionfrom the Perspective of Schema Theory.ICETIS, 2013, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. 34 Likert, R. (1932). A technique for measurement of attitudes.Archives of Psychology, 140, 5-55. Lin, Y. (2009). The effects of visual aids and text types on listening comprehension.UnpublishedM.A., Taiwan Normal University. Retrieved from http://www.google.com.sa/url On 5 March 2018. Liu, Y. (2010). Social Media Tools as a Learning Resource.Journal of Educational Technolog Development and Exchange, 3(1), 101- 114. Oddone, C. (2011). Using Videos from YouTube and Websites in the CLIL classroom.STUDIESABOUT LANGUAGES, 18, 105-110. Safarali, S., & Hamidi, H. (2012). The Impact of Videos Presenting Speakers’ Gestures and FacialClues on Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 1(6), 106-114. Shrosbree, M. (2008).Digital video in the language classroom.The JALT CALL Journal, 4(1), 75-84. Silviyanti, T.M. (2014). Looking into EFL Students’ Perceptions in Listening by UsingEnglishMovie Videos on YouTube.Studies in English Language and Education,1(1), 45-63. Subramaniam, G. K. J., Abdullah, F. P., & Raja Harun, R. N. S. (2013).Polytechnic Students’Perceptions of YouTube Usage in the English Oral Communication Classroom. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 3(9), 1962-1966. York, J. (2011). Reasons for Using YouTube in the Language Classroom Including PracticalUsage Examples.The JALT CALL Journal, 7(2), 207-215. 35 Boot Camp to Develop English Speaking Skill of Secondary School Students Ranjit Podder1 Rokshana Bilkis 2 Amin Rahman3 Abstract The current study tried to explore whether Boot Camp was implementable in Bangladesh secondary schools or not; if the Boot Camp activities had any positive impact on the development of students’ English speaking skill; and what, according to the student participants were the more effective activities used in the camp. The researchers employed mixed-method design and used pre-and-post-tests of speaking with 43 students; Focused Group Discussion (FGD) with all the 43 students in three groups and interviewed 9 randomly selected students with a semi-structured interview schedule. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data were analysed thematically. The major findings of the study included that Boot Camp was implementable with secondary students to develop English speaking skill; impact of Boot Camp was high on speaking; the more effective activities included listening to and singing songs; watching movies and answering questions; exchanging greetings; introducing self and others. If this concept of Boot Camp can be implemented in secondary schools of Bangladesh, English speaking skill of secondary level students is expected to improve. Keywords: Boot Camp, English speaking skill, secondary school, English language, students 1. Introduction English language plays a very prominent role in higher education, trade and commerce, or for any other international activities (Rao, 2019). Being aware of the importance of English, the government of Bangladesh has made English compulsory in primary and secondary institutions and beyond (Podder. 2011). However, the compulsory English cannot ensure 1 Associate Professor, Teachers’ Training College, Dhaka; Email:

2 Director, Research and Documentation, NAEM; Email:

3 Amin Rahman, Freelance Linguist and Researcher, Melbourne, Australia; Email:

36 the learning of English, especially listening and speaking, in Bangladesh. It is said that the language policy of a country plays a very important role to speed up the learning of a language (Hamid, 2010 & 2016). Bangladesh government, after independence in 1971, put much importance to Bangla but it also attached importance to English. The Qudrat-e-Khuda Education Commission (MoE, 1974) stated that English would enjoy equal status as was during the pre-liberation Bangladesh. But after the initial euphoria of using Bangla abated and the authorities realised that the country could not do without English, the government decided to take a pragmatic approach to English education and the National Curriculum (NCTB, 1995) introduced Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) with a view to developing the four skills of English language. Under different governments various Education Commissions were set up, which had the task of defining and preparing the Education Policy in which English always formed one of the major components. 1.1 Statement of the Problem As mentioned in the section-1 above, after independence, Bangladesh had adopted a policy favouring Bangla, teachers and students started to attach less importance to English language. Despite many education policies that came into force at different times over the last 50 years, and the introduction of long term donor funded and short term training interventions by the government agencies were not able to improve teaching and learning of English satisfactorily in the country (Imam, 2005). In order to get rid of the situation, the government of Bangladesh introduced Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach to teaching English from 1996 (NCTB, 1995). The poor situation in the field of English language teaching and learning has resulted in the people, particularly those living in the villages, missing out on many opportunities such as higher education, jobs and businesses, within and outside the country. Although English language was made compulsory at secondary level of education, students’ level of English studying at universities was equivalent to that which was set for the students of class seven by the government (Imam, 2005). 1.2 Rationale for the Study Bangladesh needs to raise the standard of English, especially speaking, at all levels if the country wants to take an active part in the globalised world. Studying English language for a long time in schools cannot provide students with the English listening and speaking skills. Therefore, the researchers wanted to experiment if alternative way of teaching and learning especially engaging students in Boot Camp could improve students’ speaking skill or not. As the Boot Camp provided positive result, especially in developing English speaking skill,the Boot 37 Camp ideas could be included in the curriculum so that students studying at secondary level can improve English speaking skill. 1.3 Objectives of the Study The objectives are mentioned below - 1. To implement the ideas of Boot Camp with secondary students in a rural school of Bangladesh 2. To study the impact of Boot Camp in developing English speaking skill 3. To identify the more effective activities, according to the students, in mastering English speaking skill. 1.4 Scope and Limitations of the Study It was totally a new approach in Bangladesh in the field of English language teaching and learning although this kind of a camp is organized in Australia to develop a certain area of students’ knowledge and skills (Collins dictionary.com). Mr Amin Rahman, one the researchers, organized some Boot Camps with a view to developing secondary students’ English speaking and pronunciation skills through the use of BPA or Bangla Phonetic Alphabet (Podder, 1015 &Rahman, 2016) in different parts of rural Bangladesh and found some positive results. Those experiences in organizing English Pronunciation Boot Camp in different parts of Bangladesh with secondary students and teachers showed that schools and students were eager to take part in activities that improved their English language, especially the rural students lacking English language listening and speaking opportunities were seen more interested. Although the mentioned were the scopes of the study, there were some limitations, too. The investigation was limited to only 43 studentsof a secondary school in Bandarban, Bangladesh. This study could not include primary, higher secondary schools, madrasas, vocational education, and higher education students. However, the study was rigorous. Therefore, the findings of the study could be generalized because of the honest and unbiased nature of data collection and data analysis. 1.5 Introduction to Boot Camp An English Boot Camp can be defined as a set of planned intensive exercises done on a regular basis and designed with a view to improving a particular skill or some skills together (Collins dictionary.com). Boot Camp is a kind of intensive training for learning various types of skills through the total immersion in practising that skill (Mill, 2017). The researchers followed the Boot Camp guidelines in organizing a camp. The current Boot Camp was meant to be an activity- based training program for teaching speaking skill to secondary students 38 although a Boot Camp can be organized with any level of students on any subjects and topics. It was eight-day residential camp in two slots with campers attending previously planned sessions with special focus on practising English speaking skill. The six-day intervention was provided first in November – December 2019 and then the 2-day second intervention was provided in March 2020. The camp activities ran from morning till evening followed and by a Social Gathering where students were allowed and encouraged to perform anything they liked including reflection on the day’s activities; singing songs in chorus and individually; introducing self and others in English; delivering a speech; and dancing, etc. 1.5.1 List of Activities Used in the Boot Camp Singing English songs in chorus and individually; watching English Films and answering questions; reciting English poems (and learning words, phrases, spelling, translating); listening to famous English speech and learning to recite the same (learning words, phrases, spelling, translating to Bangla); practising English sounds not present in the Bengali language (5 consonant sounds and 2 vowel sounds); Practising BPA - Bengali Phonetic Alphabet (Rahman, 2016); chatting together in English on any current topic (adda); speaking before others on a given topic; introducing self and others; asking for and giving directions; anchoring/presenting a cultural program; debating on a given topic; delivering a speech on an occasion; delivering extempore speech; asking and answering questions in pairs; acting in plays; interviewing someone, and so on. Participants were supposed to forget everything outside practising English speaking and concentrate and engage fully in all the camp activities. 1.5.2 How the Sessions Continued During the whole day from 8:30 to 5:00 the campers attended the sessions and practised speaking as per the trainers’ instruction. Each of these sessions followed a specific theme aimed at developing speaking skill although there were some listening practice activities. A session was of one-and-a-half hours of duration and was comprised of teaching by the researchers; practising by the participants in pairs and groups; demonstration of what the participants practised or learnt followed by positive feedback; practising again after feedback, if required. These practices and demonstration provided the researchers clues about what challenges the participants faced and where they required supports. 39 1.5.3 Social Gathering Each camp day ended with an evening Social Gathering where all together arranged an entertainment program demonstrating their existing entertaining skills as well as those language skills learnt at the Boot Camp. The participants themselves were given the responsibility for anchoring the program. The student participants prepared the announcement in black and white and got it checked by the researchersor the research assistants. Positive feedback and motivation was provided to the performers with deliberate huge applauses and comments such as‘Excellent!’, ‘Well done!’, ‘Well sung!’, ‘Better than the original singer!’, ‘Future TV presenter’, and so on. These appreciations on the first day made the participants friendlier with the researchers. Therefore, the participants started to open up their mouth from the second day. Gradually, the participants became brave and extrovert and all of them wanted to speak something or to perform whatever they were able to do; and to say something during or after the formal sessions were over. 2. Literature Review English is taught as a compulsory subject until class 12th and beyond but the use of English in everyday activities of the students is not satisfactory (Podder, 2011). Imam (2005) claimed from a study in Bangladesh that the standard of English of the university going students is equivalent to what has been set by the government for the students of class seven. Hamid (2014) discussed the politico history and the Language Policy in Bangladesh which revealed that some of the committees disfavoured the teaching and learning of English in Bangladesh. Chowdhury and Kabir (2014) looked at the different education committees or commissions from 1974 to 2010 and reviewed the reports produced by these committees to investigate how effective they were particularly where English Education at different levels was concerned and claimed that those reports contributed to the deterioration English language teaching and learning in Bangladesh. However, claimed Chowdhury and Kabir, a small number of self-motivated general education students and the students studying in English medium institutions following the British system of education, in most cases, served the needs of foreign countries (Hamid and Jahan, 2015). Alam (2013) had argued that the present teaching practices in Bangladesh, which involved rote learning in most cases and private coaching, reduced the social awareness which needed to motivate a desire to cultivate a critical and committed citizenry. In 2012, to improve the standard of education in the country the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) banned illegal private guide books (Billah, 2018), and decided to take legal action against school teachers who provide private tutoring and/or run paid 40 coaching centres outside school hours with their own school students. According to the government’s ruling, a teacher cannot provide private tutoring to students of his/her school. Nor can s/he have them in a coaching class or centre run by him/her. Since the verdict was announced, there have been daily debates in the media on this topic (Staff Correspondent, 2019). According to Billah (2019), many people think that teaching has moved from schools to coaching centres where most teachers work or like to work and earn some extra money for better daily livelihood. According to Ahmed and Williams (2019, p.3), “the education system in Bangladesh is not equitable and the quality and content of education do not effectively serve the goals of human development”. This is a serious state of affairs which needs to be addressed by the authorities for the country’s development. Ahmed and Williams (2019, p. 4) further state that “the number of institutions has grown at all levels but it is generally agreed that the quality of education has deteriorated and remained seriously deficient, especially in institutions where the children of the poor parents predominate”. An examination of the existing English teacher education facilities for primary and secondary teacher shows a big gap between what Bangladesh English access policy requires and what the country actually delivers in terms of English teacher education and training (Hamid, Jahan& Islam, 2013) English in Action (2008) funded by DFID (Department for International Development), before embarking on their nine-year long English intervention project looked at past ELT improvement projects in Bangladesh, had discussions with organisations like UCEP (Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs), BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) and the government officials who were involved in these projects to ascertain the current state of affairs and reported: [ ...] The Directors of UCEP, FIVDB (Friends in Village Development Bangladesh), PACE (Post-primary basic and continuing education), TQI-SEP (Teaching Quality Improvement in Secondary Education Project), and ELTIP (English Language Teaching Improvement Project) all emphasised the difficulty of accessing master trainers and trainers who had insufficient EL speaking skills in spite of being very well qualified in English academically [my emphasis]” (English in Action, 2009, p.2). Yasmin (2006) revealed that seventy per cent of the teacher trainees who were attending teacher training programmes at secondary teacher training colleges, only had enough proficiency to teach the materials up to the seventh grade, although these teachers were expected to teach up to the tenth grade. Professional Development Training courses for secondary English teachers of different durations, i.e., from one week to 41 several weeks, are organised for rural school teachers by TTCs (Teachers’ Training Colleges) and NAEM (National Academy for Educational Management) and NGOs (Non-government Organizations). But as there is no follow-up to these training programs, it is not known which courses have achieved how much. Besides, government and aid agencies arrange large intervention programs but most of them are not coordinated; sometimes their activities overlap. Currently, there are no benchmarks for teaching and there are no regulatory bodies to monitor teachers, assess their teachings, and check whether teachers are fulfilling their annual training requirements. This situation must change with the introduction of the Education Act, which is currently being drafted and will be available on the website for comments before finalisation (Billah, 2018, p.95). When all the efforts for developing students’ English listening and speaking skills in the educational institutions in Bangladesh go in vain, the successes of Boot Camp in an Australian university in developing Psychology research report writing (Skues& Wise, 2014) and the apparent successes in several rounds of English Pronunciation Boot Camps and the enthusiasm of the teachers as well as the students (Zaman, 2016) inspires the researchers to experiment Boot Camp to develop speaking skill of secondary students. Although Mr Amin Rahman organized Boot Camps were not organized research projects, Skues and Wise (2014) formally organised a Boot Camp with 42 second year university students in Australia in order to improve their research report writing skills. Majority of the students claimed that they were benefitted through the Psychology research report writing Boot Camp. The current researchers also believed that Boot Camp would benefit the secondary students in developing their English speaking skill. It was revealed from the literature review that English language teaching and learning, especially listening and speaking, situation in Bangladesh secondary level was not satisfactory (Imam, 2005; Yasmin, 2006; EiA, 2009; Podder, 2011; Alam, 2013; Chowdhury&Kabir, 2014). The teachers are not properly trained and the training they receive is not implemented in schools (Hamid, 2013). Therefore, the current study investigated if the Boot Camp worked in Bangladesh with secondary school students to improve their English speaking skill or not. 3. Research Methodology The researchers employed mixed method approach and employed pre-test and post-test design for quantitative data collection; and FGD (Focused Group Discussion) with the three groups of student participants separately to identify the most enjoyable and effective activities of the camp. In order to learn what the participants were thinking about the 42 English Boot Camp, 9 students (3 from each group) were interviewed with a semi-structured interview schedule. Quantitative data collected through pre-test and post-test of speaking skill were put in a table to compare the development; and the qualitative data collected through FGDs and semi- structured interviews with the students were transcribed and then coded based on the themes of the research objectives. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data were analysed thematically which included going through the transcribed data again and again and coding them based on similarity (Bogdan&Biklen, 2007). Then the coded data were categorised and put under the major themes of the research objectives. All the 43 students of class eight from Quantum Cosmo School and College, Lama, Bandarban were selected for the intervention. During the first intervention, the students just finished the JSC examinations; their results were not till then published. They were divided into three groups for the intervention. Initially, there was a plan to select equal number boys and girls for the study but class eight in the selected school had only boys; no girls were enrolled. 3.1 Research Assistants The researchers hired three research assistants to provide supports to the researchers during the two interventions. Those three research assistants were provided one-day training regarding what they would do and how they would act. The research assistants provided supports to the student participants during pair work, group work, and listening and speaking practices; and the researchers by conducting some sessions, providing technological supports during sessions, and in other areas such as composing the answer-sheets, marking the pre-and-post test scripts, etc. They provided supports to the researchers in three groups during the two interventions. However, they were allowed to work with any researchers in any sessions. The three groups were not fixed for the researchers and the research assistants; usually they changed their groups after every two sessions. That change after every two sessions was done to ensure that every group had supports from all the different resource persons. 3.2 Data Collection Procedure The quantitative data were collected through pre-and-post-tests of speaking in the first intervention; and then third time data collection was completed just at the end of the second intervention.Pre-and-post tests during the first intervention, and the third speaking test during the second intervention was conducted using a set of questions prepared earlier for this purpose and using a speaking marks sheet where some guidelines for marking just on the top of the marks sheetwere set for the interlocutors;and 43 those guidelines were discussed among the interviewers so that marking becomes justified. The researchers had to be careful in dealing with the students so that they were not emotionally hurt anyway. All the interviewers followed a previously set guidelines during interviewing and marking such as recording the interview with permission; not asking any family-related questions; and the criteria of marking. At the end of the six- day first intervention, FGD were conducted with the student participants in three groups using an FGD schedule. It needs to mention that during the second intervention, all the students were individually interviewed as was done two times at the beginning and at the end of the first intervention with the same set of interview questions; and 9 students from the three groups were exclusively interviewed with a semi-structured interview schedule. The following section described how the collected data were processed, analysed, and the findings were presented. 3.3 Data Processing, Analysis, and Findings Presentation The quantitative data, the results of pre-test and post-test and the second intervention, have been placed in a table and compared to see the progress caused by the influence of the two times interventions. The qualitative data were transcribed, developed after recurrent reading and edits, coded and then categorized. Then the coded data were placed under the themes of the research objectives. The findings emerged at the time of transcribing the qualitative data and analysing the quantitative data. The data collected from different sources and using different tools were triangulated because triangulation of data helps to achieve higher level of validity. The English students spoke during FGD and the semi-structured interviews was full of grammatical errors and mistakes. For example, a student uttered, “I am practise English with my sirs”. Another student, for example said, “I was learnt English by read book”. The researcher corrected this kind of a sentence while transcribing the data in order to make the meaning clear. Therefore, the quotations used in this report were modified by the researchers but the researchers did not deviate from the theme what the students expressed; themes were kept intact and only language was corrected for making the meaning clear; and later on, the transcribed FGD and interview data were exposed to the students in order to get their approval. The student participants were in two sections in their school. The students of one section were assigned with S and the students of the other section were assigned with T. Therefore, the participants in this study have been presented as S1, S2, S3, --- and T1, T2, T3, ---. The school authority provided roll numbers to the two sections of students in this way. Here S = Superb and T = Talented. Therefore, S1 stands for Superb roll 1; and T1 44 stands for Talented roll number 1. Throughout the reporting, the students have been presented as S1, S2, S3 --- and T1, T2, T3, ---. 4. Findings of the Study The major findings of the study included English Boot Camp is implementable at secondary level of education (4.1); impact of English Boot Camp on developing speaking is high (4.2); and activities students and teachers considered more effective (4.3). The findings have been presented and discussed below: 4.1 English Boot Camp is Implementable in Secondary Schools When the researchers started the speaking intervention, the participants were found taciturn; they did not speak out; they did not want to speak on the first one and a half days. When the researchers introduced themselves and asked the participants to introduce themselves in English one by one, none of the students spoke. The researchers wrote in the white board an example about how to introduce oneself [Example: Good morning everybody. My name is (I am) ---. I am a student of class 8 and my roll number is ---. Thank you.]; allowed them 10 minutes to practise individually first and in pairs later but nobody started to speak. The researchers and the research assistants went from student to student to encourage and activate them to speak. Those efforts did not go in vain; they started to speak with a lot of stammering and shyness. However, the friendly behaviours of the researchers and engaging them in practices for sometime in pairs and then to present what they have practised enabled them to speak out. After students’ presentation or performance, the researchers and the research assistants used to highly appreciate by saying well done; excellent; and by clapping to encourage the participants. That worked like energizer and the students started to speak from the second day. Finally on the 6th day, the participants presented the closing program where the head teacher, assistant head teacher, and some of their school teachers were present. Some of the student participants expressed their positive feelings about the Boot Camp. They claimed that the camp was so useful to learn to speak English. One of the participants asserted, “I am no more afraid of speaking English, the Boot Camp removed my shyness. Now, I am brave enough to speak English with anybody. I do not hesitate about my errors and mistakes”. In FGD, the participants claimed that Boot Camp gave them the knowledge, skills, and courage of speaking English. The students were no more seen to remain reserved; most of the student participants started to prattle on about anything and everything in English; everybody wanted to speak something with the researchers and in the closing ceremony; and sometimes, they could not express their feelings 45 in grammatically correct English but they did not fight shy. The researchers firmly believed that generating of students’ courage was the strength of the Boot Camp. Students alleged during FGD, “We are not allowed to watch any English films; our teachers sometimes show us some movies. We cannot watch or listen to any English movies or songs on our own”. When asked if their English teachers speak English with them in English classes, it was revealed that their teachers spoke Bangla in teaching English However, they liked the Boot Camp much as it benefitted them to speak English and to remove their inertia. In 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th days, the participants became so outspoken that they loved to come close to the researchers and the research assistants to speak English. The English the participants spoke was intelligible although there were tribal accents, accents of their hilly native languages. It is worth mentioning that, the students’ mother languages included Chakma, Marma, Tonchonga, Khasia, Monipuri, and so on. Although they had accent of their mother languages, they achieved tangible pronunciation and fluency in speaking English. At the beginning, the students were reserved. This might have happened because the researchers were new to them; the students had their head teacher, the assistant head teacher, and some other teachers in front of them; and there were two renowned professors from Dhaka University as guests to observe how the intervention functions. The presence of dignitaries who were new to the students might have put them under mental pressure. Besides, the tribal students are usually reserved. Moreover, in order to engage students in speaking and other language skills practices, teachers must teach English through using English. Finally, the Boot Camp intervention and successful completion proved that Boot Camp is implementable in secondary level educational institutions. 4.2 Impact of English Boot Camp on Speaking is High Speaking intervention was provided integrating listening with speaking such as listening to music and singing in chorus and individually; and watching movies and answering questions. However, there were some separate activities the focuses of which were exclusively speaking. The participants were immersed in language speaking and listening from morning till night. From the third day of the Boot Camp, the participants started to speak with the researchers as well as their classmates. The student participants in the FGD claimed that they were benefitted from the English Boot Camp in different ways. “We have been able to speak English; we have become brave enough to speak English; we can sing some English songs; we can introduce ourselves; we can present a cultural program, and we can do many other things”. 46 The results of speaking pre-test and post-test during the first intervention and the speaking test at the end of the second intervention show that the speaking improvement is significant. Marks of participants who did not take part either in the pre-test or in the second post-test were not counted. The results of the tests have been given below: Roll Intervention 1 Intervention 2 Gain/increase No. Pre-test Post-test (Post-test 2) Marks Marks Marks S1 11 12 14 +3 S2 09 14 16 +7 S3 14 16 18 +4 A (Absent) NA (Not S4 12 12 Applicable) S5 10 14 15 +5 S6 06 10 12 +6 S7 14 16 18 +4 S8 06 16 17 +11 S9 06 15 16 +10 S10 08 11 11 +3 S11 04 14 16 +12 S12 06 14 16 +10 S13 11 11 13 +2 S14 10 13 15 +5 S15 13 15 18 +5 A NA (Not S16 14 13 Applicable) S17 13 18 18 +5 S18 13 18 18 +5 S19 A A A A(Not Applicable) S20 08 12 16 +8 S21 09 14 17 +8 S22 11 13 16 +5 S23 10 12 15 +5 S24 11 15 17 +6 S25 13 A 16 +3 T1 07 13 15 +8 T2 09 15 17 +8 T3 04 10 14 +10 T4 A A A A(Not Applicable) T5 12 14 17 +5 T6 04 13 16 +12 15 NA (Not T7 A 15 Applicable) T8 10 16 18 +8 T9 09 08 13 +4 T10 10 10 14 +4 47 T11 04 10 15 +11 T12 07 14 16 +09 T13 11 12 15 +4 T14 07 10 13 +6 T15 08 08 13 +5 T16 A 14 16 +2(Not Applicable) T17 10 15 18 +8 T18 10 10 13 +3 T19 10 10 14 +4 T20 08 10 14 +6 T21 A A A NA(Not Applicable) T22 03 10 16 +13 T23 06 14 15 +9 T24 07 13 16 +9 T25 09 05 12 +3 Note: Total 43 students participated in speaking pre-and post-tests & total gain in speaking is 277 The table placed above shows the development in terms of marks they obtained in three tests is significant. Although some of participants’ growth is lower in comparison to others, the average growth in speaking is 6.44 and if it is converted to percentage, the growth in speaking is 32%. The participants were divided into three groups and a researcher or a research assistant was given the responsibility to interview the participants. The interviewers were changed from pre-test to post test in the first intervention and in the second intervention. The interviewers did not have the marks of the pre-test while they were post-testing the participants. The interviews with randomly selected 9 students from three groups revealed that the participants’ experiences were pleasing and there were many things to learn. One of the 9 participants claimed: I felt very happy and excited joining this this Boot Camp. Through this camp, I got opportunities to speak English with others and developed my English speaking skill. I feel happy because, I have improved my speaking skill more through practices with my classmates and the teachers. Another participant added that before the camp, he did not use to speak English; he hesitated to speak English; and he never felt the necessity of speaking English. “After undergoing the training, I mean, the English Boot Camp activities, my fear has gone away; my hesitation has gone away. This camp is very important for me; I hope, I will never fear to communicate in English in future”, asserted a participant in the semi- structured interview organized at the end of the second intervention. Students in the semi-structured interviews claimed that the Boot Camp was very useful for the students to learn English listening and speaking. T2 claimed: 48 Our English language practices increase because of the Boot Camp. I never was so brave to speak English with my teachers and my classmates but now I speak with my English teachers; I am not afraid of them and they have also become more smiling than before. This might have happened because of attending the camp. Almost all other nine students who participated in the interviews expressed similar views. T10 added: I enjoyed the social gathering part of the English Boot Camp. I got courage when I performed in the social gathering. When everybody appreciated, I thought I did something good. I gained confidence and then I started to perform. English Boot Camp should be organized once a year. During FGD, the students also claimed that they learnt many things like greetings, introducing self and others, asking and answering questions, acting, and many other activities. Those activities helped them to improve their listening and speaking skills. “The good thing was that we were isolated and we had to concentrate only on speaking. That isolation and immersion was really helpful.” The stated data revealed that the impact of Boot Camp was highly positive on the participants. The results in the three speaking tests during the two interventions and the students’ reactions during the FGDs at the end of the first intervention and the semi-structured interview at the end of the second intervention also supported that the Boot Camp had positive impact on developing students’ English speaking skill. Some students’ high achievement and some students’ low achievement might be because the high achievers were immersed in the speaking activities and the low achievers might not be able to shake off their shyness and did not fully practise the activities; or, their previous knowledge and exposer to English language might be limited. However, students’ gradual increase in the marks and their practical performances indicated that if these kinds of speaking activities continued, the participants would improve more in English speaking. The school teachers can play a vital role in this regard; they can increase speaking and integrate speaking activities in teaching as per the NCTB guidelines and they can organize Boot Camp in schools. 4.3 Activities Participants Considered more Effective At the end of the six-day first intervention, the participants were asked in FGD which activities were more useful according to them. Most of the participants claimed that listening to music and singing in chorus; and watching English movies were most useful. They liked music and movies as the songs were good to listen and sing together in chorus; and the movies were enjoyable; they could know the pronunciation of the 49 native English speakers from the songs and the movies. When asked about feelings during the semi-structured interviews, one participant claimed that, all the Boot Camp activities were enjoyable but the music and the movies should have been more in number and for longer period of time. One student participant requested the researchers, “Sir, you stay for some more days; show us more movies and give us more songs to sing. We are learning English, if you go away, how we will practise?” Regarding the more effective speaking activities, the student participants in the FGD claimed that exchanging greetings; introducing self and others; describing a place, person, scene, etc.; asking for and giving directions; presenting a program; pronunciation practices; reciting poems; debating on topic of interest; acting out a drama; asking and answering questions in pairs; practising viva voce were very useful activities. The participants in the semi-structured interviews also mentioned the same activities and three participants in the semi-structured interviews mentioned that the social gathering was most useful as the participants could perform there whatever they liked. They further added that the performances in the social gathering helped students reduce shyness. Participant S8 asserted in the semi-structured interview: Speaking practices and the speaking tests are most important because I knew for the first time that I have speaking problem and I have pronunciation problem; and I know for the first time that I should practise speaking and that speaking is important for life. Another student claimed that the social gathering and the trainers’ (researchers) encouragement and welcoming attitudes gave him courage to start speaking in English; their (researchers) recurrent encouragements inspired him to take part in different activities which improved his speaking skill. While planning, we, the researchers did not prioritise music and movies; we thought language speaking activities such as exchanging greetings, introducing self and others, presenting a program, and other activities mentioned in the list (see 1.5.1 for details) would be liked by students. However, in reality, students liked most the music and the movies. Therefore, the researchers decided to include more songs and movies in future English Boot Camps. 5. Conclusion This study was an experimental type of research. The findings suggest that Boot Camp is implementable in secondary schools; and Boot Camp can be replicated for the improvement of English speaking skill of the learners. The most useful activities chosen by participants included music and movies. However, exchanging greetings; introducing self and others; asking for and giving directions; debating; anchoring a program; describing a man, a place, and others; asking and answering questions; 50 viva voce; etc. If this kind of English Boot Camp is organized by the researchers, the suggestions by the participants and the experiences of the researchers would be considered. References Ahmed, M., & Williams, J. H. (2011). Education Priorities for Human Resource Centred Development in Bangladesh. In S. S. Andaleeb, H. Khan, R., & M. Ahmed (Eds.), Education and National Development (pp. 1-48). Dhaka, Bangladesh: The University Press Limited. Alam, S. (2013). Operational Curriculum and Citizenship: An exploration of what happens in the Bangladesh secondary school classrooms. In J. Greenwood, J. Everatt, A. H. Kabir, & S. Alam (Eds.), Research and Educational Change in Bangladesh (pp. 17-34). Dhaka, Bangladesh: University of Dhaka. Alam, S. 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Globalisation, English for everyone and English teacher capacity: language policy discourses and realities in Bangladesh. Current Issues Imediun Language Planning, 11(4), Hamid, M. O. (2016). The linguistic market for English in Bangladesh.Current Issues in Language Planning, 17(1), 20. Hamid, M. O., and Jahan, I. (2015). Language, identity, and social divides: Medium of instruction debates in Bangladeshi print media. Comparative Education Review, V. 59(1), 28. Hamid, M. O., Jahan, I., & Islam, M. M. (2013). Medium of instruction policies and language practices, ideologies and institutional divides: voices of teachers and students in a private university in Bangladesh. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 20. 51 Hamid, M. O., & Jr., R. B. B. (2014). Public-private domain distinction as an aspect of LPP frameworks A case study of Bangladesh. Language Problems & Language Planning, 38(2), 10. Imam, S. R. (2005).English as a Global Language and the question of nation-building education in Bangladesh.Comparative Education, 41(4), 16.doi:10.1080/00050060500317588 Mill, D. (2017). The Boot Camp Education Model Works.Retrived from https://hackernoon. com/the-bootcamp-education-model-works- heres-why-fd25825f4c0a Ministry of Education, Bangladesh.(1974). TheQudrat-e-Khuda Education Commission. Dhaka: NCTB. National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB).(1995). Curriculum Report. Dhaka: NCTB. Podder, R. (2011).Barriers and enablers for teachers assessing listening and speaking skills at secondary level of education in Bangladesh. An unpublished Master of Education thesis submitted to the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Podder, R. (2015).Bangla Phonetic Alphabet for Better English Pronunciation. Dhaka: SulekhaProkashoni. Rahman, A. (2016). Engrejiuchharonerovidan (English Pronunciation Dictionary). Dhaka: ULAB. Rao, P. S. (2019). The role of English as global language, Research Journal of English, V. 4(1), pp. 65-79. Riad, S. S., &Podder, R. (2014). Secondary Class Routines : Expectations &Challanges. Dhaka, Bangladesh: PRK Publishers. Staff Correspondent. (2019, February 8). Teachers cannot take coaching classes, The Daily Star, p. 1. Yasmin, F. (2006).English language teaching in Bangladesh, The Dhaka University Studies. Zaman, J. (2016). Rural High Schools in Bangladesh: An Experiment on Quality Education. Bangladesh Educational Journal, V. 19. 52 ELT and the Empire: Writing/Talking Back Dr. M. Shahidullah1 Tanzila Shahid2 Md. Mahmudul Hasan3 Abstract English studies continue to work as a strong neo-colonial tool in the post- colonial period. `The British ruled the world, now English rules the world; the British Empire has given way to the empire of English’ (Philipson, 1992). In the guise of an apparently altruistic curriculum that professes disseminating scientific knowledge for developing and modernizing the periphery, the centre countries have been busy implementing a hidden agenda to acculturate the periphery subjects into the values, ideology, cultural and even behavioural patterns of the centre to `universalize the capital’ and produce a class of people in the periphery who would be ‘English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect’ (McCaulay 1835), promote a monoculture and perpetuate the western cultural and intellectual hegemony. With English, the periphery subjects acquire the `flavour’ of Anglo-American culture ....their ways of thinking and communicating. (Philipson, 1992). Ideology of the colonizers shapes the consciousness of the colonized. Western ideology has been transmitted with, in and through English language. `English brought intoxication, denationalization and mental slavery with it. (Gandhi, cited in Pennycook, 1994) The priority agenda of western organizations like The British Council and the American Cultural Centre has been to promote Anglo- American culture through English language and literature and big budgets were allocated for the purpose. Now it is time when the peripheries should examine these issues critically and promote a model of ELT that helps develop identity and agency and integrate it with national curriculum goals and basic educational objectives of the local contexts. Keywords: ELT, the Empire of English, Anglo-American culture, national curriculum goals, the local contexts 1 Professor, Department of English, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh ; Email:

2 Assistant Professor, Department of English; Islamic University, Kushtia Bangladesh; Email:

3 Lecturer, Department of English, Pabna University of Science & Technology, Pabna, Bangladesh; Email:

53 1. Introduction ELT developed as a global profession as English became a global language. The periphery saw prospects of development in it, and considered it the gateway to success, but the centre has been promoting it as part of its colonialist and afterwards, neocolonialist design. ELT became an international activity with deeper political and cultural implication. `English teaching is a bigger weapon in the armoury of English speaking peoples than star war’. (Philipson, 1992:8). English teaching, has been more a `creeping cancer of modernity’ than a `benevolent bonus’ (Philipson, 1992: 8). Like many other areas of study, ELT, it is rightly argued today, serves a political agenda of the West, specially the native English speaking countries, to promote a monoculture in learning, to universalize or globalize western learning styles and strategies. The imperial politico-cultural agenda is manifest in some of the major areas of ELT such as setting ‘Standard English’ and RP as the targets to attain, the ideas of integrative motivation, acculturation theory of learning, authentic materials, appropriate language use and in the theories and practices of ELT syllabus design, material production and classroom procedures. ELT theories and practices are of western origin, and western learning culture is embedded in them. So, implementing western pedagogical approaches in non-western teaching-learning cultures proves a superimposition, an act of cultural insensitivity, and a kind of neocolonialist activity. This paper critically examines the elements of imperialism in ELT theories and practices. Commonly considered as an apolitical activity, English studies, which includes the study of both English language and literature, has very much been a political activity and served as one of the most effective tools of the neocolonialist design of acculturating people of the periphery into the `elitist `ideology, values and norms of the centre countries. Whether English is a “benevolent bonus or a creeping cancer of modernity” is a reigning debate today in the intellectual circle of the periphery. It is necessary to examine how English studies have contributed to North-South inequalities and how western ideologies have been transmitted with, in and through English studies. The political agenda in ELT needs a close examination in the present context of post-colonial thinking and, like post- colonial literature, it is necessary to talk/write back to the centre, or resist the political agenda of the cultural capital embedded in ELT discourses. A growing awareness of the hidden political agenda in the periphery subjects can help fight and therefore is essential to resist cultural hegemony, and promote only what is culturally responsive for ELT in Bangladesh. This paper also proposes measures to resist it through cultural negotiation or hybrid approaches, as suggested by Post-methods (Kumaravadivelu, 2003) and Critical Pedagogies (Guiroux, 1992) and Critical Applied Linguistics (Pennycook, 2001). 54 Since the colonial days Education has been used as a major tool of Anglo-Americanisation of the powerless periphery by the powerful centre which enjoys power and has the biggest publishing industries and media at their disposal to shape and mould people’s views and attitudes. Knowledge is generated and controlled by the powerful centre as no knowledge is value or ideology free, it is imbued with western values and ideology, which are disseminated to the periphery “to box” the post colonial subjects of the periphery “into one-dimensional subject positions (Canagarajah 1999:182). What is knowledge today is mostly of western origin, and is imbued with western values and ideology, as no discourse is ideology free (Fairclough, 1998), and serves as an instrument of the hidden agenda of Anglo-Americanization or westernization behind the apparently philanthropic zeal of what comes to be known as westernization, and more euphemistically, modernization, to perpetuate cultural hegemony in an era when the political domination, at least outwardly, is over. In English teaching and learning, this purpose of transmitting or, more appropriately, imposing western norms and values are clearly manifest. Over the centuries, education worked as an instrument for transmitting the values and ideology of the centre (western) countries to promote a monoculture after the western model, considered superior (by the powerful centre) to the periphery cultures. English language and literature teaching and learning holds the centre stage of the imperialist design for promoting monoculture. That was why Britain and America set the spread of English studies as an important priority agenda as English is considered the gateway to the centrist discourses and through them to the western cultures and ideologies, and so an important instrument for perpetrating cultural hegemony. The study of English language and literature, directly and indirectly, disseminate western ideologies and values. Schiller (1976:9) considers English “as the key medium for Americanization or westernization.” In the present neocolonial times, people who are educated in the centre countries and their language or in their modes of discourses in different branches, even if locally, are the cultural ambassadors of the west. These “reclaimed”, a term used in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to mean people from within the local community serving as agents of the colonial forces and working against their own people, who are indigenous only in `blood and colour’ (McCaulay, 1835) but Western/European in their opinions, views and attitudes, are in control of social, political and economic power in the periphery countries, and they, in the name of modernizing, are working as advocates of western culture, norms and values. Thus the process of westernization, globalization, or Anglo- Americanization is at work, now both through the ‘reclaimed’ or local agents and the discourses produced by them, and directly through western agencies like the British Council, Ford Foundation and American Cultural 55 Centers, among others. Through dissemination of western ideas and values in books and materials produced by the western countries, the English language and literature teachers are also disseminating Anglo-American norms, values and culture. Schiller (1976: 9), holds that English education ‘is facilitating access to English films, media, and books in different disciplines and thus acculturating the periphery subjects into centre values. The English medium schools in Bangladesh are good examples of this dissociation. These schools are producing students who are becoming cultural alienists, people who take pride in crossing over to Anglo- American values, norms and culture; they take credit in not being able to speak Bangla like Bangla, but with an Anglicized pronunciation accent and intonation, and they try to speak English like the English or Americans, more often in a hybrid pronunciation, stress and intonation which is neither like the British nor the American variety of English, nor even like the subcontinent variety. What is more alarming is that students of these schools even speak their mother tongue Bangla pretentiously with English accent. These schools are producing a class of people who rarely or never read Bangla literature, do not listen to Tagore’s or Nazrul’s songs, or bhawaia, Bhatiali, jarigan, sarigan, folksong, or even the popular Bengali modern songs of Hemanta, Satinath, Mannadey, among others but are all for western literature, culture and music. Empire building and English studies moved hand in hand. Although passed on commonly as a civilizing or liberalizing tool, a close and critical analysis clearly reveals that English studies has been serving as an instrument of colonization to acculturate the periphery Subjects in the centre, Anglo-American Ideology, values, norms and culture though some of the English educated people also turned out to be great nationalists too. In recent times, however, some people claim that it is possible to ‘de- Anglo-Americanize English’, especially at the instrumental or functional- level, but that is doubtful, and at these levels teaching and learning English, according to them, are apolitical activities. However, these claims should also not be free from a close scrutiny. In the subcontinent, English has been viewed generally as the language of development, modernity and scientific and technological advancement. It is also believed to have held out a promise which has only been marginally fulfilled so far. English has been financed for purposes like the learning of English for science and technology, for higher education, for technology training, and for developmental goals. It is also argued that “naturally when people learn English, for whatever purpose and by whatever method, they acquire something of the flavour of our [English people’s] culture, our institutions, our ways of thinking, and communicating,” (Irendale, 1986: 44, cited in Philipson 1992). Many others, for example, Gandhi thought that “English brought an intoxication, 56 denationalization and mental slavery with it” (cited in Pennycook). Gandhi held English responsible for distorting indigenous education and holds that “ideology of the colonizers is transferred into the colonized consciousness of the Third World subjects.” Like English literature, English language teaching and learning has also been very much a political activity, though some people try to pass it for an apolitical activity. The discourse of ELT embodies values that are western in origin and nature and tries to impose classroom values of the West in TESL/TEFL contexts. The cultural capital of ELT is the Anglo-American classroom culture, specially the British grammar school classroom culture. A critical examination can show that ELT is an international activity with political, economic, military and cultural implications and ramifications. (Philipson, 1992: 8). Philipson holds that “English teaching is a bigger armoury of the English speaking peoples than star wars.” Fishman(1977:118) describes English as “ethnically and idelogically unencumbered.” Fishman (1987:8) argues that ELT contributes to “westernization, modernization, the spread of international youth culture, popular technology and consumerism all ideologically encumbered and have ideological as well as behavioural and econo-technical consequences” (cited in Phillipson, 1992: 10). Fishman (1976) wonders whether the spread of English. Phillipson (2009), similarly, wonders whether English is a ‘lingua franca or lingua frankensteinia’, and whether English in higher education is ‘panacca or pandemic’. 2. Imperialism in ELT Imperialism in ELT has been functional through following areas/aspects: 2.1 Imperialism in the ideas of ‘Integrative Motivation and Acculturation theory of SLA’ According to these views, learning a language involves learning the target (native English speakers’) culture. Acculturation theory and integrative motivation consider learning of the target culture important for language learning/acquisition. According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), learners with integrative motivation i.e. learners who want to integrate with the native culture, learn English better than learners with instrumental motivation. Schumann’s (1992) ‘Acculturation theory’ emphasizes on switching over to Anglo-American culture for effective learning of English. The central argument of this theory is: “the degree to which a learner acculturates to the target language group will control the degree to which he acquires the second language (Schumann, 1978:34, quoted in Rod Elis, 1985:251).” 57 2.2 The Idea of ‘Cultural Imperialism’ Integrative Motivation and Cultural imperialism: According to Gardner (1972) and others if one tries to integrate with the native speakers, s/he loves and switches over to target culture, s/he can learn English faster. When the learner desires ‘to identify with the members of the other language [target language culture] cultural group and s/he wants to take on very subtle aspects of their language or even their style of speech’ (Prator 1968; p. 474), s/e will be a good language learner. The findings (e.g. Shaw 1984) show that the Gardnerian position is not right in ESL/EFL contexts today. Operational or instrumental motivation works equally-well or even better these days as it has been found in a UNESCO study with learners form three different countries --- India, Singapore and Thailand. Whatever was the intention, the idea may be interpreted as an attempt to acculturate the periphery subjects into the centre culture, and marginalize the periphery culture. The idea of ‘authentic English’ involved an element of cultural imperialism: Authentic English was defined as the English used by the native speakers and appropriate for the native English culture. But the concept has changed over time. Now all varieties of English has authentic use, when English is used by users of those varieties for a real communicative purpose and communicative function. Kramsch and Sullivan (1998) argues “ the notion of authentic language becomes problematic within a framework of English as an international language; whose words and whose culture comprise authentic language? Native speaker practices do not apply across multiple context of use.” What is authentic for the native speakers is not authentic for the non-native speakers. Authentic native speaker discourse in London or New York, for example, may be inauthentic to non-native speakers from Africa or India, and vice-versa. 2.3 The Concept of ‘Standard English’ and Imperialism’ English teaching and learning has been basically normative in nature. The native speaker norm has been set as the target in ELT. In trying to explain what the focus in ELT should be, Harmer (1986) argues that the reference point should be what the native speakers know, their level of fluency, accuracy, pronunciation, and discourse skills and the learning of standard English has been one such norm in English teaching and learning globally. The notion of Standard English, standard language in general, as it is well known, is very much related to power, domination and subordination. Standard English has been claimed to be an empowering force; it is believed that learning a standard version of English will bring about social and economic advantage. Forms of language are very much related to power, standard language is the language used by a tiny minority of users, the powerful ruling class. Forms 58 of language are very much related to forms of power. Williams (1992) says: “The emphasis on normative consensus as the guiding force of individual speech results in the legitimization of standard forms and the parallel marginalization of non-standard forms”. The standard, non- standard division is artificial and constructed, and also related to oppression. Unless one has a grasp of standard language, s/he is often considered deficient, and also denied access to government jobs. If someone does not have ‘standard English’ s/he will have difficulty finding the right job in the native speaking countries. Dialects are looked down upon. The promotion of Standard English marginalized the other varieties of English. Selection of materials, tastes and discourses were therefore selected from the standard variety and as a result the other varieties of English were largely neglected. That is why any variety of English, which does not conform to the notion of ‘standard English’ is considered bad English even in the peripheries. Texts and discourses used in ESL/EFL contexts need not follow the prescribed ‘standard’ forms of Anglo American tests and discourse norms. We should use our own rules of text and discourse. This should not and is not the case today with the emergence of global English/International English/World Englishes, which recognizes and respects all varieties but emphasizes on mutual intelligibility for communication without breakdown. 2.4 The concept of ‘teaching-learning pronunciation and Imperialism’ RP as the model of teaching-learning pronunciation and Imperialism: Until very recently, RP has been the target of teaching pronunciation all over the world, again with view to promoting standard British culture in the world. Until fairly recently, it has been deemed appropriate for both learners and teachers in EFL/ESL contexts that learners should endeavour to conform as closely as possible to a native like English accent. It was considered essential for a non-native speaker learner of English to produce the sounds, accents, stress and intonation of English as accurately or closely as those of the native speakers after the standard native speaker model of Britain, the RP or the standard American, after the VOA or CNN news casting model. This can be regarded as a process of Anglo-Americanization, the learners will speak English, but like the British or Americans; the varieties were not accepted or recognized. This position, luckily, has changed. Now RP or standard American English is not the target for EFL/ESL speaking or pronunciation teaching courses, rather the motto now is ‘mutually intelligible pronunciation.’ 59 2.5 The notion of ‘Communicative competence and Imperialism’ As it is well known today, components of communicative competence ---- linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse and strategic competence--- used to refer to those of the native speakers. The first of these four components, linguistic competence was used to refer to the ‘ideal native speakers’ knowledge of the underlying rules of language’ (Chomsky, 1957); the second component, sociolinguistic competence basically referred to appropriateness or socio- cultural norms of language use in interpersonal, intercultural, cross- cultural, cross-gender, cross-societal communication, but especially in Anglo-American societies. The reference point for judging the appropriateness has been ‘the native speaker norms of speech and behaviour, and culture. The non-natives were supposed to talk and behave the way the British and Americans or the speakers of native English speaking countries do. They say “good morning”, so we have to say good morning, though our convention is to say, ‘Assalamo-alaikum’, or ‘ namaskar’ or ‘adad’ etc. The third component, Discourse competence refers to the BANA (Holliday 1984) discourse style, which is also an attempt to impose the BANA discourse patterns on the periphery subaltern subjects, and also an attempt to marginalise the periphery discourse patterns. The fourth and last of the components, strategic competence also emphasized on the strategic norms of the native speaker/Anglo-American culture. Thus, all the four major components of communicative competence were attempts at acculturating the periphery subjects into Anglo-American life style, culture and values to promote a universal monoculture, the British – American culture, as part of cultural imperialism or neocolonialism 2.6 Imperialism in Syllabus and Materials ELT textbooks and materials present values, practices, situations, interactions and communicative norms of Anglo-American communities as models for foreign students to master in order to communicate appropriately with the native speakers of English. This poses a threat of cultural hegemony, and these are largely irrelevant for local students in their own communities. The process syllabus and learner-centred materials also were attempts to promote western teaching-learning culture. The materials used have been the mass produced British and American materials with a lot of staff insensitive to local contexts and culture, but were used to Anglo- Americanize the periphery subjects. The learning culture underpinning the materials, and the western cultural values of the texts used were incorporated deliberately to ‘Anglo-Americanize’ the periphery subjects. Centrally produced materials, i.e. materials produced by BANA countries 60 were used in most EFL/ESL contexts. Most of these materials deal with Anglo-America life, culture and context and includes, among other things, western living style, beach life, clubs and pubs, drinking, dating etc., with pictures and illustrations that are culturally insensitive to many EFL/ESL contexts of Asia and Africa. Many western idioms, humour and jokes are extremely culture specific, which may not be acceptable in many non- western contexts. 2.7 Imperialism in ELT Methodology There has been professional transfer in ELT, the transfer of centre institutions as model for those in the periphery. The organization of educational system from Kindergarten to research institute reflects western models. ELT has aimed at the diffusion of an occupational ideology, an accepted definition of what legitimate behavior, skills and knowledge characterize the profession at its various levels. Dependence on technology and professional training of centre ELT and the centre produced books serve to facilitate the reproduction in the periphery of the institutions and practices of the centre and militate against finding more appropriate local solutions. The efforts of the centre do not mesh in precisely with what the periphery needs are understood to be. ELT aid consists of transfer of a language, a preferred approach to teaching and learning the language, a certain type of training, know-how, and skills. It merges linguistic and educational imperialism and spans structure and culture. The centre provides the model which works as a norm, or an example for the periphery to follow, and involves the transfer of institutions, ideals of training and education, and occupational ideologies. In each area, the relationship between centre and periphery is asymmetrical, that is, it lacks reciprocity. The periphery ELT professionals are using centre professional norms in methodology and materials, textbooks or syllabus. Educational reforms in the periphery need to break off from the continued dependence on the centre. ELT classroom practices have been basically focusing on reproducing the classroom practices of the British grammar school tradition. The teachers’ roles as facilitators, guides and monitors and students’ roles as active participators, and the classroom process as being participatory involving students in learning by doing through individual, pair and group activities, role plays, drama techniques, simulation and the like have been western in nature, and removed far from the non-western learners classroom experiences, their beliefs and expectations about teaching and learning, and hence were considered cultural assaults on the teaching-learning cultures of ESL/EFL contexts. These clearly demonstrate that ELT has been working as a tool of imperialism or neocolonialism. 61 3. Talking/Writing Back ELT has largely worked as a colonial tool. It is now time to resist this trend. It is now very important to promote cultural fluency (LeBaron, 2008). There is no alternative to promoting agency or voice of periphery subjects, broaden awareness of power at play and its history. Opting for positive hybridity may prove powerful instruments for writing and talking back. Prodromou (1992) raises a question ‘what culture, which culture’— the local culture or the native English speakers should the ESL/EFL learners be exposed to? Maley (1989) says: “... which culture first of all? Upper, Middle or working class culture?London, Manchester or Edinburgh culture? Corporate or individual culture?Rural or urban culture?Pop or high culture? Teenage Yuppie or OAP culture? And it is true for U.K., How much more true it is for countries like India? ” This is an important issue today. The argument is more for using local culture and context today with a view to shaping learners’ distinct identity as required and promoting values education along with the main task to train their English language skills. It is important to negotiate between cultures and practices in the present realities of the world. Hybridity of discourses and cultures is the hallmark of post-colonial conditions. The process of negotiating multiple discourses and languages has a special resonance for postcolonial thinkers, for example Said (1993) and Bhaba (….) who celebrate ‘hybridity’, caught between colonizing influences of the west and the equally resilient indigenous traditions. The challenge for periphery subjects is to forbid such conflicting cultural sensibilities to disentangle these. A more constructive view is to accept this hybridity and negotiate with competing values and discourses to one`s advantage. It is important for periphery subjects to embrace this rich inherent hybridity that enables them to arbitrate between different cultures, communities and discourses. Said (1993: 336) says that both hybridity and the suppression of it are works of western colonialism. Imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities on a global scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that they were ‘exclusively, white or black, western or oriental’ (1993: 336). The radical potential of post-colonial subjects “lies therefore in resisting the pressure by colonizing forces... to box them in one dimensional ... subject position” (Canagarajah 1999: 182). Agency of subjects has to be developed to reconstruct their cultures and identities to their advantage, ‘... just as human beings make their own history, they also make their cultures and ethnic identities’ (Said 1993: 36). To stick stubbornly to one`s indigenous discourse or to surrender unconditionally to English are positions that offer post-colonial subjects only negative or stereotypical identities or absorb them into centre`s 62 cultural logic. Cangarajah(1999) asserts that probing the dynamics of one culture from the spectacles afforded by the other, the post-colonial subjects should be able to “ resist the tendency to uncritically absorb into a single cultural or discursive system (1999: 183). However, such discursive negotiation can not be achieved staying detached from one`s roots and non-commitally playing with plural discourses and identities” (said 1993 : 330 Or 336). To be a cultural hybrid is not to be ‘raceless’ or non-ethnic, nor does it mean that one can stand free of ideological commitments. Faced with dominant discourses which are hegemonic, post- colonial subjects should not run away from them, thy have to live amidst available discourses, but try to reposition themselves in such discourses. They need to challenge the negative subject positions offered by dominant discourses by appropriating them and infusing them with their own values to serve their own interests and aspirations. It is important to shift their position from ‘objects of this discourse to agents and the discourse critically and creatively. Although the available discourse may not always be favorable to one`s interests, still one must use these discourses as the starting point to discover oneself through the very process of resisting these discourses with a clear grounding in one`s values to construct favourable subject positions further (Alcolff, 1988, cited in canagarajah 1999 : 183). It is by resisting the dominant discourses that one creates a space for one`s voice within that discourse. In order to talk back, one must understand and engage with the rules of dominant discourses. This is in fact a process of bringing vernacular values to critically inform and reconfigure mainstream discourses”. While ensuring communication with the mainstream by using the conventions and linguistic rules valued by them, one should attempt to challenge, reform and expand their rhetoric by bringing in the vernacular discourses (Canagrajaj 1999: 183-4). Therefore in her book Talk Back, Bell Hook (1989) employs a novel discourse that infuses many of the features of vernacular discourses within the structure of academic test conventions. She accommodates everyday anecdotes, vernacular expressions and idioms of black street speech into her theoretical writing in a superb negotiation of languages and styles. We desire to speak instinctively, without conforming to any convention, or constraints whatsoever symbols or codes, but the irony is there is no speaking without conventions, symbols, or codes to represent our thought (like Rousseu`s Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains’). At the other extreme are the institutionalizing discourses which offer to represent us in the preconstructed conventions. We can channel our messages only according to the ideologies and rules permitted by these institutional discourses, or by abandoning them completely in the form of personal originality. It is by traversing these polarities that we find space 63 for ourselves. We have to struggle with prior denotation, historical connotation, and genre conventions embodied in language to create meaning. Certain meanings are enforced by dominant ideologies and institutions. Applied linguistics/ELT, like other forms of western discourses, has a great deal to do with question of identity formation and transformation (Pennycook, 2001: 149). Engagement in discourse is part of the continuing construction of identity and English language education raises significant issues in the construction and negotiation of identity. Classroom practices aim to change and modify identities towards particular goals. Engagement with particular languages and cultures is about identity formation. Classrooms are ‘contact zones’ or ‘safehouses’ where negotiation takes place, where in Vygotskyian terms Zonal Proximal Development (ZPD) should take place through cultural proximity. Prodromou (1992) raises a question ‘what culture, which culture’— the local culture or the native English speakers should the ESL/EFL learners be exposed to? Maley (1989) says: “... which culture first of all? Upper, Middle or working class culture?London, Manchester or Edinburgh culture? Corporate or individual culture?Rural or urban culture? Pop or high culture? Teenage Yuppie or OAP culture? And it is true for U.K., How much more true it is for countries like India? ” This is an important issue today. The argument is more for using local culture and context today with a view to shaping learners’ distinct identity as required and promoting values education along with the main task to train their English language skills. 3.1 Introducing Critical Pedagogy (CP) In ELT, a recent development that comes to be known as `critical pedagogy’ (Guiroux. 1999) or Critical applied linguistics (pennycook 2001) the major argument is to resist the hegemony of dominant cultures or discourses in theories of syllabus and materials design, methodology and testing. Critical pedagogy involves, among other things, selfreflexitivity on the discourses and strategies students bring with them as well as those established by dominant institutions (heterosis), and this reflexitivity develops an awareness of the processes and practices involved in educational activity.. CP challenges the bases of centre expertise. Rather than looking at the classrooms through the spectacles offered by readymade methods, they open themselves more fully to the realities of their educational context. CP is the only way to resist these cultural assaults, and it attempts to resist the centre’s attempts to universalize their cultures and marginalize the local culture. Critical pedagogy or critical applied linguistics is a development that can help resist this cultural onslaught. ELT, as it is required today, 64 should be in a state of ‘praxis’ i.e. it should be looked at in all its contexts as a constant reciprocal relation between theory and practice, or preferably, as- “ that continuous reflexive integrative of thought, desire and action”. (Simon, 1992:49, cited in Pennycook 2001:3) . According to McCormik (1994:60, cited in Pennycook 2001:4), critical thinking help “students to learn ways of evaluating the “uses” of texts and the implications of taking up one ...position over another,..assume an objectivist view of knowledge and instructs students to evaluate texts credibility, purpose and bas, as if these were transcendant qualities. Uncritical acceptance of the hegemonic ELT pedagogic approaches is a type of subjugation of the local values, ideologies and learning culture. Critical pedagogy emphasizes on praxis, or negotiation which enables students to appropriate the dominant code and discourses according to their needs and interests. The schools or classrooms are the ‘contact zones’ or ‘ social spaces’ where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery or their aftermath as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” (Pratt 1999: 34). However, the meeting helps develop a hybridity which helps stop hegemony. The act of seeing one`s own culture through the eyes of another cultural group is itself a sobering experience, enabling one to detach him or herself from one`s own discourses, gain reflexive understanding and develop a more critical attitude towards things. The tension of inter- cultural clashes brings in new understanding that helps cope with the hybrid cultural context of the post modern world. The textbooks supported by centre cultural agencies focusing on the cultural capital of the Anglo- American societies may be used to reflect on cultural differences. It is very useful to incorporate readings from local writers (minority writers) or even oral or folk tales from students own communities which gives the students a impression an impression that their own cultural capital is valued. This provides them confidence to tag their own linguistic and discursive resources and further develop them. One of the key challenges for ELT, or critical applied linguistics is to find ways of mapping micro and macro relations, ways of understanding a relation between concepts of society, ideology, global capitalism, colonialism, education, gender, racism sexuality, class and classroom utterances, translations, conventions, genres, second language acquisition, media texts. Expressions or the new metaphors like knowledge-based economy’, ‘globalisation, ‘post-industrialism’, and post-modernism explain the intricacies of our social world. The crossroads of the civilization where we stand today calls for technological skills, for which 65 language skills, especially English, is very important. The breakthrough of the technological and industrial society are – print and electronic media, computer system, cybernetics and automation, bull dozers and skyscrapers, the concept of automatic process and genetic engineering, and in the area of space, English language skills have become essential. We now need to use English to talk about our own identity, our language, our literature, our science and technology, to sell our goods, and buy goods for ourselves, we use English to talk about our society, our economy and politics, our war of liberation, our politicians, social scientists, our cultures and heritage, our history, our past, present and future, our norms and values so that the world outside can come to know about all these aspects of our life. We need English to project and interpret our country, our cultures, tradiion, norms and vlues to the rest of the world. We have to talk about Tagore, Nazrul, Samsur Rahman, Hasan Azizul Haque, Jainul Abedin, Kamrul Hasan, Jahir Raihan, and Alamgir Kabir among others in English to familiarize the world with our art and culture. We should ‘talk’ and ‘write’ back in English. (hooks, 1989 and Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 1989) We need English to translate our cultures for others and other cultures for our benefit. We also need the present English departments to produce good translators as well for our interest. Today, there is no denying the fact that we need human resources with better communication skills in English, given the global realities of our time, whatever may be the reasons, political or non-political, imperialist or philanthropist, many do rightly describe it as ‘ a technology’, call it more than a language, and consider it important for survival in the present global context, not to serve the colonialist causes as it originally was meant to and did in fact serve. Bisong ( 1995) of Nigeria, Mathew(1998?) of India, and many others from the Afro-Asian and Latin American contexts argue that we need English for our purposes, not to serve the colonial masters, or the imperialists. 3.2 Need for a re-orientation of ELT towards Local Culture ELT, like other subjects of study, should conform to broader curriculum objectives (e.g. Taba 1983, Clark, 1988) of the major educational orientations such as classical humanism, progressivism and reconstructionism and taking these views into consideration, ELT, along with training of the language skills or ‘communicative competence’ (e.g. Hymes, 1972), should set the following objectives:  Providing an individual growth, helping develop the faculty to think, analyze, interpret and evaluate.  Promoting Social commitment.  Developing love for the country, or patriotism 66  Developing individuals as good human beings with broader humanistic view and attitude to life and strong moral fabric or good ethical standard, honesty, integrity etc.  Producing skilled manpower to contribute to progress and development of the society.  Teaching social conformity for the well being of society. However, there has not been a balance between these objectives in ELT curriculums in many places of the world. It emphasized on one or the other. There has been little effort to synthesize them in the curriculum. Too often the objective to attain perfection has been submerged in the attempt to “fit him for life” to make him/her a perfect little many/woman who could drop competently into the adult slot, instead of a perfect child. At other times, educators have refused to accept any social purpose whatever. Education should prepare learners for survival skills, social rules, ethical norms, traditions and customs. 4. Conclusion We need to maintain our own distinct socio-cultural identity, and at the same time, a global connectedness. In today`s world of science and technology, and global connectedness we cannot think of ourselves as separate from other nationals. There is a global competition for the “survival of the fittest” in the job market, in business and in industrial productions. A graduate in today`s world is not for the home market only, rather s/he is meant for the international job market. It is English language that, among other things, makes a graduate fit for the international market. But at the same time, humanitarian education is also an important need of the time. We need good human beings with moral and humanitarian values, nationalism, patriotism for progress and prosperity. Areas like everyday communication skills in English, business, computer, information technology etc, cannot help develop humanitarian values, progressive ideals, and liberal attitude to life. It is time we resist the cultural imperialisms in all areas of ELT; we need to empower our students through post-methods (kumaravadivelu 2003) and critical pedagogy (Guiroux, 1999, Canagarajah, 1992). The entire discourse of ELT, along with other areas of education, needs to be re-oriented in line with the ideas of critical pedagogy (Guiroux 19-----), and basic educational philosophy. ELT should be home grown, culture and context sensitive, familiar and local with the regional and global issues will provide the basis for language training and practice. We are no longer required to speak like the native speakers, and behave like the native speakers, we want to be fully grown ourselves with a very distinct national and cultural identity but competent users of English with intercultural communicative competence, at the same time. 67 References Appadurai, A. (1994). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, ed. P. Williams and L. Chrisman, pp. 324-9. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin.(1989). The Empire writes back: Theory and practice in Post-Colonial literatures. London: Routledge. Bisong, Joseph. (1995). Language choice and cultural imperialism, ELT Journal, 49/2: 122-132.B.B.C. Cannagarajah, A Suresh. (1999). 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Said, E. W. 1993.Culture and imperialism. New York: Alfred Knopf. Schiller, H.I.1976. Communication and cultural domination.White Plains, N.Y,: Sharpe, 9. Schumann. John. “Acculturation model of Second Language Learning" Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 7(5):379- 392 · January 1986 William, G .1992. A sociological critique. London: Routledge. 69 Technology Usage in Learning English: A Case Study at Tertiary Level Harun Or Rashid1 Dr. Md. Abdur Rouf (Corresponding Author) 2 Abstract This paper reports a case study that was carried out to evaluate usages of modern technology (MT) in learning English by the tertiary level learners in Bangladesh. The study used case study approach, and data were collected applying three methods- questionnaire, observation, and face-to- face interview. The sample consisted of current students of English department of a public university. The study found that technology usages of learners in English language (EL) learning were not effective enough though their attitudes towards technology-based language learning (TBLL) were positive. The key implication is that the tertiary level learners in Bangladesh need to use MTs in more effective ways to learn the EL. Keywords:Tertiary level, learners, modern technology usage, learning English 1. Introduction We are living in such a world where we cannot even think of passing a single day without the use of modern technology (MT). Technology is a great tool for language learners as they are easily exposed to various aspects of technology. Learning a foreign language is no longer a difficult task as the Internet and other technological aids are just at our door. Technology provides unlimited resources to language learners (Bull & Ma, 2001). According to Harmer (2007) using computer-based language activities improve cooperative learning among learners. Learners have the Internet and other technologies like computer, smart phone, tablet and so on. Nowadays, technology plays an increasingly important role in a language classroom and it is very common for teachers to use technological tools in language teaching (Sun & Yang, 2015). Everyday language usage is so tied to technology that learning language through technology has become a fact of life with significant implications (Chapelle, 2001). 1 MA Student, Department of English, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Email:

2 Associate Professor, Department of English, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Email:

70 Technology has become an integral part of learning experiences and a significant issue for teachers for facilitating teaching and learning process (Eady & Lockyer, 2013). As Dudney and Hockly (2007) have stated ICT is, in fact, an interactive and collaborative medium that allows the creation of texts and activities that can easily be shared in public which helps students discover the target language (TL) they are learning and its usages. ICT is one of the greatest tools for learners who are studying English as a foreign language. The use of ICT can ensure effective communication and it also helps create a virtual community that allows learners to exchange information, ideas, and experiences among them. With the emergence of MTs, a number of educational platforms and software have been developed for learning languages. At present technology in language classes is crucially needed and using technology could be the perfect complement in gaining the TL proficiency and fluency. Besides, English courses accompanied by technological support are the most effective for learners. TheInternet has obviously opened a new door for language learners. They can learn and improve their EL competency using some smart phone apps like Hello English, LingoDeer, LingQ, and Duo lingo etc. Study materials like iPods, especially audios and videos, are assistingboth teachers’ and learners’ development (Shohel & Banks, 2010). Today’s teachers should be ready to provide their students with the opportunity to use technology and make them realize that computers and smart phones are not created only for playing games and spending times on social media. The world organizations like UNESCO, Microsoft and Intel are working for ICT implementation in education which gives directions to teachers on how to become more effective in ICT-based lessons (UNESCO, 2015).In this context, the study reported here aimed to evaluate modern technology usages by tertiary level learners in learning the EL. Overall the present paper is organized in seven parts. The first section introduces the related wider area and subsequently specifies the scope of the study. Relevant literature is then reviewed and the conceptual framework is presented. The third part gives details about the research design. The fourth and fifth parts present the findings and discussion respectively. Some recommendations are then given for learners and other stakeholders. The paper ends mentioning the limitations of the reported study and suggestions for further research. The main objective of this study was to evaluate modern technology usages in learning English by the tertiary level learners. The study, accordingly, was carried out based on the following research question (RQ): RQ: How do the tertiary level learners use modern technology in learning the English language? 71 2. Literature Review The main purpose of the study was to investigate MT usages in learning English by tertiary level learners in Bangladesh. This study was conceptualized in accordance with the interaction hypothesis (Long, 1996). According to this theory, the process of language learning follows the steps shown below in Figure 1. Output/ Interaction/ Input Language Learning Feedback Figure 1: Language learning process according to interaction hypothesis To learn and improve the TL skills, learners have to go through the process given above. First, learners receive the TL input through various mediums. The input can have many forms like spoken, written, and visual etc. Learners then interact and give feedback to their peers using those inputs in real life situations. Their language proficiency thus develops and they learn a foreign language. This study evaluated the ways of receiving the TL inputs using MTs by the students. Getting language inputs is crucial for learning a language according to the theory that the study followed. It also explored the ways of interactions among the learners and the frequency of feedbacks by using smart phone, computer and the Internet. If the learners received language inputs, interacted among them, and gave feedbacks to their peers using MTs effectively, it would facilitate the TL learning. Modern technology facilitates learners’ language learning and serves as a real educational tool that allows them to gain better learning experiences (Ahmadi, 2018). For improving four basic skills of a language, the use of digital devices is inevitable (Nomass, 2013).A papertitled ‘Barriers to the introduction of ICT into education in developing countries: The example of Bangladesh’ investigated the use of technology in learning (Khan, Hasan , & Clement, 2012). The study showed that lack of ICT skills both of the teachers and students was the main barrier to effective teaching-learning. Another study titled “Using technology for enhancing teaching and learning in Bangladesh: Challenges and consequences” showed that using technology like smart phones and laptops helped learners improve their language skills especially the listening and speaking skills(Shohel & Kirkwood, 2012). This study also claimed that students are likely to get interested in technology-based learning. Moreover, a case study was done 72 on the technological skills of English language teachers of secondary schools in Bangladesh (Rouf & Mohamed, 2018). This study found that though the learners as well as teachers were interested in technology, the teachers had poor technological skills and the concerned schools did not possess adequate technological facilities. As shown above, a few related studies were conducted in Bangladesh and they explored barriers to ICT implementation and teachers’ technological skills. However, according to our knowledge, no study was conducted on tertiary level learners’ modern technology usages in learning English in Bangladesh. 3. Research Design The study looked into learners’ attitudes towards TBLL, the effectiveness of their technology usages and the drawbacks of using technology in learning English.This study applied the qualitative paradigm as it is extensively used for case studies. Researchers have frequently used the case study approach as it helps gain in-depth insights on the studied entity (Yazan, 2015). The qualitative design of the present study facilitated obtaining ‘deep data’ on the tertiary level learners’ MT usages. For carrying out the present study, a reputed public university of Bangladesh was selected as the case. According to Robson (2011), trustworthiness shows how much the readers trust the methodology and findings of a qualitative study. The researchers ensure reliability and validity by preserving the trustworthiness through methodological approaches (Noble & Smith, 2015). 3.1 Participants For conducting this study, the current students of English department of the particular university were selected from different batches. Systematic sampling was followed or questionnaire administration and random sampling was used for classroom observations and interviews. The researchers contacted the English department and conducted the data collection phase. Twenty (20) students were chosen from each batch to ensure a systematic way of sampling from the target populations. Consequently, twenty students from each batch and one hundred students in total answered the questionnaire. For observation, the learners were randomly chosen and observed in the classroom. The observation was conducted over more than 350 students following random sampling. Finally, 8 students were selected randomly for interview because selecting the students randomly for the interview took less time and helped to estimate the average level of the learners. The study collected relevant data from a particular context. 73 3.2 Methods of data collection This study included the following three tools for data collection: 1. Questionnaire 2. Classroom Observation 3. Interview In this study, a questionnaire was developed to know about the MT usages in learning the EL by the learners. This questionnaire consisted of 18 items divided into four categories as followed. Table 1: Category of questionnaire SL Area Number of the items 1 Technology usage 2,4,7,8,9,10,11,14,15,16,17 2 Attitudes of the students 1,3,5,6,10,11,13,17 3 Effectiveness 4,7,8,12,14,15,16 4 Drawbacks 13,18 The classroom observation guide included 10 major aspects of technology usages. The researchers observed the learners in their classroom to know whether they used devices like computer, smart phone and the Internet in the classroom. If they used those technologies, it was also noticed how often and for how long they used technology in language learning on a daily basis. Interview: In the last stage of data collection, this research included face-to-face interview with some students of English department. It is often helpful for interviewers to take notes while the participants respond to questions or to tape-record the interviews to be able to, more accurately, analyze the data later(Seidman, 2006). The study included interview mainly to know about the technology usage in learning English in depth. The first author conducted the interviews based on the data collected from the questionnaire and observation. This was not a mass interview rather a selective one for time and monetary limitations. The data collection was carried out from August through November 2019. The questionnaire was administered first. For administering the questionnaire, the authors went to the English department and it took three weeks. In the second week of data collection, the study started observing the classes with the observation guide. Finally, relevant data were collected through face-to-face interviews. It was the most challenging part of the data collection phase as the learners were not interested enough in participating in an interview. The study interviewed the learners with the interview guide in which he wrote the responses of the students. Besides, the study recorded the interview data with the 74 consent of the participants. For recording the interview the researchers used a digital audio recorder. 3.3. Data analysis procedures When the data collection phase was over, the collected data were analyzed by following an iterative approach. The study followed two methods for data analysis. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006)was used for qualitative data and Microsoft Excel for quantitative data. Thematic analysis was implemented for analyzing qualitative data by following the six steps which are given below in Figure 2. Getting familiarized with data Producing Producin initial g report codes Discoverin Naming g themes/ themes sub-themes Re- evaluating themes Figure 2: Six phases of thematic analysis 4. Findings The major findings of the study are presented in this section. 4.1 Low Usage of Technology in Learning English The observation and questionnaire responses suggest that about 95% students had the facility to use smart phone, computer and the Internet but the number of students who used their smart phone and computer in learning English was very limited. The learners who did not bring text books did not use their smart phone as textbooks in the classroom. The number of students who watched online lessons and programs to improve language skills was also very poor. The questionnaire findings show that only 8% students regularly listened to English broadcasting or radio for improving their listening skills. The interviewed learners hardly listened to BBC and other broadcasting whereas these are thought to be a wonderful source to learn the received pronunciation of English. 75 The observation shows that there was not even a single student among 350 students who recorded any of the class lectures for listening to the lecture later. There are many smart phone apps like Hello English, Speak English, Duolingoon the Internet for the EL learners but when asked about those apps, the learners could hardly name any of them let alone using them in learning English. Moreover, the learners hardly had any scope for collaborative learning. One of the interviewees opined: The opportunity to learn the target language in a group using technology is very helpful. Some learners told that if they had technological aids and opportunities for language learning collaboratively where they could share their technological knowledge among themselves, it would be a more effective way of learning the EL. The table below shows the major aspects of technology usages of the students in learning English. Table 3: The technology usages of the students in learning English Items Responses Use English-Bangla dictionary apps on smart phones 82% Search in Google for understanding anything 38% Download textbooks from the Internet 32% Use computers or smart phones as textbook in the class 12% Write assignments or home works using computers or smart phones 35% Practice writing articles, paragraphs, essays etc. on computers 19% Prepare class presentations with computers 29% Record the class lectures for later use 0% Watch BBC or CNN for improving listening skills 8% Watch English movies for learning purpose 45% 4.2 Technology Usage Confined to the Dictionary Apps The findings show that the learners predominantly used the digital dictionary application on their smart phone. According to the questionnaire findings, almost 76% student had the dictionary installed on their smart phone and they used those apps frequently. However, when it comes to searching on Google about difficult topics or information regarding the EL learning, the number of the students was only 37%. The most appalling finding was that only 8% learners listened to BBC or CNN for improving their pronunciation skills. The interview and observation findings show that the learners mainly used the dictionary applications for looking up the meaning of some words. It is thus quite obvious that the learners predominately used the dictionary applications in learning the EL. 76 4.3 Poor ICT Skills and Computer Knowledge Another important finding of the study is that most of the students did not have sufficient ICT skills. They were surrounded with the MTs but they were alarmingly unaware of its potential for learning the EL. According to the findings from the questionnaire, 83%students studying at the tertiary level did not even know about web 2.0 which is considered as a wonderful interactive medium for improving language skills. Although about 95% students had the accessibility to the smart phone or computer, only 19% students practiced writing on computers. A very few of the learners used their computer to prepare their assignments and presentations. When it comes to compulsory use of computer for some special tasks, the learners’ anxiety knew no bound as they did not know much about computer. The reason behind their low usage of computer and smart phone was the lack of ICT skills and computer knowledge. 4.4 Technology-based Language Learning The learners’ attitudes towards TBLL were positive in a sense that most of the students thought that learning English with modern devices like computer, smart phone and internet is very exciting, helpful and effective. Most of the interviewed learners expressed positive attitudes towards TBLL. I think technology-based language learning is very much important in today’s world because if we think about learning a language and using technology as an aid, then, definitely it would be very much efficient and helpful. (S2) The participating learners believed that MTs have a great potential for facilitating he learning of a foreign language particularly the EL because most of the web pages and the information on the Internet are written in English. According to the questionnaire data, 100% students believed that MTs can help learn English better. For developing the four basic skills of English, these modern devices can play a unique role. When asked about TBLL, they all claimed that technologies like computer, smart phone and the Internet are very much useful for learning a language. 4.5 Interesting and Effective Way of Language Learning All of the interviewees were positive about TBLL. They said that it is a more effective and interesting way of learning the EL in comparison to the traditional way. Some of them said that learning a language with computer, smart phone and internet was a completely different experience for them because they took those devices as the medium of entertainment only.S1, S4, S5 and S7 opined that TBLL is very much effective and helpful. Some learners said that technology is not only helpful but also 77 operationally effective in learning English. When they get the opportunity to learn something from the Internet, they become more curious but they dislike the usual monotony of the traditional language teaching-learning approach. 4.6 Negative Attitudes of the Parents towards TBLL The attitude of the parents towards TBLL is appallingly negative. Some of the interviewed students told that their parents are very much afraid of letting them use modern devices like smart phone, computer and the Internet. Most of their parents think that these devices are mainly for entertainment purpose, not for learning. So, when they see their children using smart phones, they take it for granted that they are wasting their time. However, the stance of their teachers was completely opposite to their parents. About 70% students opined that their teachers are very much helpful in this regard. Teachers always encouraged them to use technology for learning and improving their language skills. They said sometime their teachers provide important links of the websites so that they can go through those links and learn faster. The students also opined that there are some teachers who are not that much in favor of letting their students use technology but their number is very few. 4.7 Negative Effects of Social Media Applications Seven out of the eight interviewed students claimed that social media applications are the main barrier to learning English by using smart phone and computer. They said when they use their smart phone as textbooks or read study materials on the smart phones they often get notifications from social media apps such as Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram etc. One of the interviewees said that those notifications made them distracted from learning the TL. The observation data suggest that about 4% students used social media applications in the class. They sit at the back of the class for using social media applications and do not pay heed to the lectures of the teachers. Some students also said that when they read something on the computer or smart phone, they cannot concentrate properly as they frequently lose their attention for the notifications from social media applications. It is pretty obvious from the findings that the bad effects of social media are the main drawbacks for the learners. 4.8 Lack of Accessibility to Modern Technology As the learners were from a developing country, they had the lack of accessibility to the MTs, i.e. computer, smart phone and the Internet. The number of students having personal computers was less than that of having smart phones. To improve writing skills, computer is second to none. 45% interviewed students did not have their personal computer. 78 They had to depend on their smart phone only. 25% students said that they did not have stable internet connection. Besides, the cost of the Internet service is another major concern for them. They also mentioned that the important and detailed articles on the Internet are not free of cost. That led them to make low usage of the Internet in learning the EL. The students found it difficult to pay for the Internet connection let alone buy the study materials found on the Internet. So, the overall accessibility to the Internet and the required technological devices to learn the EL was insufficient for the learners. 4.9 Dearth of Encouragement from Teachers and Parents Most of the students opined that the encouragement they got from their teachers and parents was not enough. Their parents thought that MTs are not the tools for language learning rather merely a way of entertainment. They were afraid of allowing their children to use MTs for educational purpose because they believed in the traditional way of learning. About 87% of the students said that they did not get any form of encouragement and support from their parents for using their computer and smart phone in learning English. The other 13% students told that their parents bought those devices for them for communicative purposes only, not for learning the EL. Moreover, only 8% students told that their teachers allowed them to use the smart phone as a textbook in the classroom. Most of the teachers did not allow their students to read texts on their mobile devices in the classroom. The findings make it clear that the learners did not get encouragement and support from their parents and teachers for language learning through technology. 5. Discussion The main objective of the reported study was to evaluate the usages of MTs by the tertiary level learners. The students believed that TBLL is an exceptionally effective and modern way of learning English but the inadequate technological facilities, poor ICT knowledge, negative attitudes of the parents were the main obstacles for the students to use MTs for learning English. Inadequate technological facilities led to limited usage of technology so the learners could not explore all the potential resources available on the Internet (Shohel & Banks, 2010). The students used limited resources of MTs to learn and improve their language competency. The usage of technology was mainly confined to dictionary applications. Some of the students used MTs for reading study materials on the Internet. Using technology for reading textbooks and other materials was the common practice among the learners. Very few students used technology for improving the four skills of the EL simultaneously. To ensure effective technology usages for learning 79 English, the students need to use those technologies for improving all four skills of language, i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. The findings of the study also revealed that the negative attitudes of the parents towards TBLL and the lack of encouragement made the learners demotivated for learning English with MTs.If the parents along with teachers played a supportive role in motivating and encouraging students for using technology in language learning, the competency of the students would go higher. The learners’ poor knowledge about ICT also played a negative role in developing their language skills (Raut & Patil, 2016). Students living in this technologically advanced era did not have a decent idea about the advantages that they could avail using the Internet and computer. The students need to know about all the technological supports so that they can use those technologies in learning the EL from the very beginning of their study. Moreover, if the learners do not have technological skills, they can never use MTs effectively for learning English. The major drawbacks they faced for using MTs in learning English thus were the lack of accessibility to the technology, the negative effects of social media applications, the lack of encouragement from parents and teachers, and the absence of a collaborative learning environment. A Collaborative learning environment is very much effective for TBLL (Stacey, 1999). 6. Recommendations for the Learners and other Stakeholders 1. The tertiary level learners have to know about different educational technologies and gain skills to use them for learning the EL. The lack of ICT skills of the learners can be overcome by creating a collaborative learning environment. 2. The learners should not confine their technology usages to dictionary applications only. They can improve their speaking and listening skills by using different smart phone applications like Audible, Lingoda, Duolingo etc. For reading, they can download all the necessary books as PDF file from the Internet. To improve writing, the students can use word processing and presentation software (Healey, et al., 2008). The software would help learn word meaning along with practicing writing. Moreover, learners could create an online community using web 2.0 for practicing their writing. 3. Teachers then can exploit tertiary level learners’ positive attitude towards technology by involving them in additional technology- based language activities in the classroom and motivating them to use technology more effectively outside the classroom for language learning. 4. It would be worthwhile for the parents and teachers to encourage learners for using modern technology like smart phone, computer 80 and the Internet for learning the EL. All teachers should be positive and supportive towards the use of technology in learning the EL as MTs provide effective tools for the language learners (Rouf & Mohamed, 2018). The parents should also encourage use of MTs along with the teachers (Preradovic, Lesin, & Sagud, 2016). 5. Teachers can discuss with learners the negative effects of spending too much time on the social media and encourage them to spend more time on language learning instead using MTs. 6. Finally, available mechanism has to be put into place so that learners get easy access to technological devices for language learning. To enrich the ICT skills of learners, universities can provide them with ICT lab facilities. Moreover, it is also essential to arrange secure and fast internet service for all the learners. 7. Conclusion and Suggestions for Further Research There is no doubt that MTs have become an indispensable component of today’s classroom teaching-learning and they can play a significant role in language learning. The findings showed that, on top of everything, the tertiary level learners need to use MTs more effectively and frequently for language learning. We all must remember that technology is not an end in itself rather could be the means to effective EL learning if used judiciously. The study reported here has some limitations. Like other case studies, the findings of this study cannot be generalized. However, generalization of the findings was not a target of this study rather the aim was an in-depth understanding of tertiary level learners’ MT usages. It was then carried out selecting only one public university from Dhaka as the case. Further researches might be carried out with a wider sample from all over Bangladesh. 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M., & Banks, F. (2010). Teachers’ professional development through the English in action secondary teaching and learning programme in Bangladesh: Experience from the UCEP schools. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5483-5494. Retrieved from https://cyberleninka.org/article/n/5844/viewer Shohel, M. M., & Kirkwood, A. (2012). Using technology for enhancing teaching and learning in Bangladesh: Challenges and consequences. Learning Media and Technology, 37(4), 414-428. Stacey, E. (1999). Collaborative learning in an online environment. International Journal of E-Learning & Distant Eduaction, 14(2), 14-33. Sun, Y. C., & Yang, F. Y. (2015). I help, therefore, I learn: Service learning on web 2.0 in an EFL speaking class. Computer Asisted Language Learning, 28(3), 202-219. Tuovila, A. (2019 , September 30). Sampling. Retrieved from Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sampling.asp UNESCO. (2015). UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers. Paris: UNESCO. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000265721 Yazan, B. (2015). Three approaches to case study methods in education: Yin, Merriam, and Stake. The Qualitative Report, 20(2), 134-152. 83 Exploring Attitudes of Bangladeshi Private University Students and Teachers towards Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) Dr. Protiva Rani Karmaker 1 Ashim Kumar Paul2 Abstract This paper aims to investigate the attitudes of students and teachers towards Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) in English Language Teaching and Learning at private universities in and around Dhaka, Bangladesh. It also tries to explore the existing challenges which the teachers and students face in using technology in the ELT classrooms. In this regard, a questionnaire survey was used to obtain a quantitative insight of the study. Participants were 100 students and 12 teachers of 04 private universities in Bangladesh. Their responses were analysed with SPSS software. After studying their responses, it is found that students have positive attitude towards the use of technology in English language teaching and learning while the participant teachers have expressed mixed opinions with regard to the integration of technology in English language teaching. Besides, from the responses of the students, it is also conspicuous that most of the students are prone to passing their time in social media rather than study purpose. This tendency is misleading the original motto of the technology incorporation in the ELT arena. However, further scholastic considerations to resolve the problems faced by both the teachers and students can be done. Keywords: Communicative competence, ELT, private university, Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) 1. Introduction In spite of not being the official language, English is a widely spoken foreign language in Bangladesh (Rasheed, 2012). Since the British colonial rule, the government has given extra attention to English language teaching for different purposes including its global importance for study, business, politics etc. Hence, from primary to higher secondary level of education, students have to study English as a compulsory course for about twelve years (Hani & Siddika, 2018). Besides, due to the global 1 Associate Professor and Director, Institute of Modern Languages, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Email:

2 Lecturer, Department of English, Ishwardi Government College, Pabna, Bangladesh; Email:

84 acceptance of it, universities also offer foundation courses in English and communicative language teaching (CLT) has been the most used method to teach this language here. According to the UN report, Bangladesh has fulfilled the eligibility requirements to hold the “Developing Country” status in 2018 (Rahman, 2018), and the government is focusing on the digitalization of different sectors. Hence, many universities have adopted multimedia facilities to run the classrooms. Even though English has been taught with the assistance of technology in universities, there are still shortcomings to be addressed. Most of the students and language teachers here not yet have access to a personal computer and they often lack the minimum adequacy of technical skills for computer-assisted language learning. Besides, the underdeveloped highly priced internet services in the country cannot provide every student with the regular access to technology enhanced language learning from home. This gap between technology and people has also affected the whole learning procedures in universities. Though many institutes offer a multimedia classroom, the teachers and students are not able to get the best experience from there. Hence, the practice of TELL remained partially implemented here and the students are not getting the complete experience from it. In this modern era of science and technology, the world not only has shrunk into a global village but also made the villagers a part of one global community (Mallick, 2018). Thus, technology has become an integral part in the everyday life. Likewise, the necessity of integrating TELL in English language teaching and learning is increasing. Even though the government is forcing digitalization of education systems, the classrooms and teaching practices are not yet digitally sound. The students are not receiving proper materials from the classroom that can help them to learn a language with the help of technology. Even the teachers are not ready to teach them with those materials with the assistance of computers. Besides, it is often argued that technology used in classrooms is creating a gap between the learners and the instructors resulting in the interruption of teaching and learning. In addition, the practice of classroom learning here is often constructed between a teacher and his students. Therefore, people find it difficult to adjust to the multimedia environment and to find a computer taking the role of a teacher. However, over the decades, a good number of private universities have been established across the country and they are contributing to national development through fostering skilled manpower (Alam & Parvin, 2017). Hence, the students and teachers of these private universities were targeted to oversee how the use of technology in English language teaching and learning in the classrooms of the universities has motivated them to learn English language more effectively. Besides, the 85 researchers have tried to find out how information technology has brought about significant changes in the in-class and out-class activities of the learners in learning English and how the teachers feel about using information technology in order to ensure effective English language learning process. 2. Literature Review Relating to the clarification of ICT, Ibrahim (2010) illustrates that it is the term that is currently used worldwide to describe new technologies which depend mainly on computer and the internet. Even the traditional technologies such as radio, television and telephone are considered as ICTs. In accordance with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 2003), ICTs include, ‘basically information –handling tools-a varied set of goods, applications and services that are used to produce, store, process, distribute and exchange information. Nevertheless, radio, television and telephone fall under the category of old ICT tools while computer, satellite and internet are considered ‘new’ ICT tools. These different tools are now able to work together, and combine to form our ‘networked world’, a massive infrastructure of interconnected telephone services, standardized computing hardware, the internet, radio and television, which connect us around the globe’. As such, technological innovation has changed the social, political, economic and cultural fabric of life since the end of cold war (Taylor, 2001). Moreover, ICT has a considerable influence on the way of making our learner autonomous. According to Toyoda (2001), there are three conditions necessary for autonomous learning:  accessible and reliable technology,  sufficient computer literacy in students,  and good communication with and support from peers With regard to the affinity between technology and English language, Drigas and Charami (2014) mean educational technology to be more broadly Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and explore that their association in English language teaching and learning has been attaining commendable outcomes while helping both the language facilitator and L2 learners in all the major skills of the linguafranca. According to Ahmadi (2018), incorporation as well as effectuation of technology has emerged to be a part and parcel of both the teaching and learning procedures inside and outside the classrooms. Regarding the diverse helps of the technological devices in the English language teaching set-ups anywhere in the world, Ahmadi (2018) also emphasizes that technology both assists and ameliorates language teaching and learning. Nevertheless, ICT as a teaching aid is more complicated as it demands specific skills from the teachers (Salehi & Salehi, 2012) and 86 more attention from the learners. The development of ICT e.g. electronic mail, internet, multimedia, possibilities to use collaborative platforms, undoubtedly, influences the process of using them in everyday classroom teaching and learning. ICT no longer serves as a simple additional means but ICT is an indispensible part of the modern and contemporary learning environment (Kalnina&, Kangro, 2007). Likewise, during unearthing scores of laudable successes of the implementation of ICTs in English language education, Drigas and Charami (2014) also come in touch with some bleak issues, like the shortage of ICT training and professional expertise of the teachers, lack of ICT-oriented logistic availability and the like. On the actualization of ICTs in the arena of English language teaching and learning in Bangladesh, there have been quite a number of mentionable studies albeit in the primary and secondary levels of educations and higher education as a whole (Parvin and Salam, 2015; Mahmuda, 2016; Rahman and Ullah, 2016). The study on the effectiveness of using technology in English language classrooms in government primary schools in Bangladesh conducted by Parvin and Salam (2015) reveals that though in and across the world, the significance of digital technologies in language teaching and learning is duly recognized, the English language teachers as well as facilitators in the school levels of the country are not satisfactorily proficient in activating it as per the purpose. On the other hand, Mahmuda (2016) in her research on “Teaching and Learning through Technology in Bangladeshi Higher Education” points to the transition of conventional higher education from the enclosed classroom to the infinite and borderless virtual ambience, which has only been possible by the constant and substantial utilization of technology- oriented resources. In the higher educational institutes of Bangladesh, Mahmuda (2016) finds that ICT-based educational resources like multimedia projector, smart phones, apps, social networking sites, search engines, e-books, websites, e-journals, e-dictionary and many such online platforms are utilized in a proliferated manner, which shedeciphers and considers should be exploited in achieving more skill-oriented and interactive learning. Similarly, Rahman and Ullah (2016) study the impact of technology use on English language teaching at the undergraduate level in Bangladesh only to reach the fact that implementing the devices of Information and Communication Technology in the classrooms demonstrates mixed outcomes. On one hand, a properly applied and monitored use of technology among the English language teachers and learners can result in optimum acceleration in the learning of the target language whereas on the other hand, random and unfocussed use of it can produce unexpected consequence. 87 Accordingly, this study ventures for discerning as well as bringing to light the effects of the ample incorporation of ICTs among the English language instructors and learners in an emerging but vast field like that of the private universities of Bangladesh with a view to perceiving if the technological implementation is serving the purpose as per the expectations or it is happening otherwise and whether substantial reconsiderations are required. 3. Research Questions The general objective of the research was to explore the attitude and perception of the learners and teachers at the private university-level education in Bangladesh towards technology enhanced language learning. To accomplish the study, three research questions were set to investigate the attitudes of students and teachers towards the technology enhanced language learning. The following research questions guided this study: 1. What are the attitudes of the learners and teachers toward the use of technology for teaching and learning English language? 2. To what extent the students find any differences between traditional ELT class and Technology Enhanced Language Learning in the ELT classes? 3. What are the existing challenges which the students and teachers face in implementing Technology Enhanced Language Learning in the ELT classrooms? 4. Research Methods A survey method was used for the purpose of the study. Questionnaires were used as a means of data collection. The item formats for questions were open-ended questions, five-point Likert scale which were on attitudes of students and teachers related with TELL. This study aimed at exploring the attitude of students and teachers regarding the significance of Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) in some private universities of Bangladesh. Hence, both the students and teachers were selected as the sample. In this regard, 100 students and 12 teachers of four private universities in Dhaka were selected to collect quantitative data. Owing to insufficient time and resources to study the whole population, sampling technique had been used. 5. Data Analysis For the purpose of data collection, a questionnaire survey was conducted between January-April, 2018, in four private universities of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The questionnaire for students and teachers comprised five-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= undecided, 4=agree and 5=strongly agree) and open-ended questions. Later, the 88 collected quantitative data were analysed with SPSS software using mean and standard deviation and presented through tables. 6. Result The findings of the study is presented below- 6.1 Students’ Perception of the Efficiency of TELL Table 1 shows, the students hold the notions that TELL had a positive impact on English language learning process. In fact, the integration of TELL in the learning activities has a good number of facilities that incorporates convenience of use, control over learning, improvement of four language skills, motivational, comparatively efficient, lots of practice opportunities, facilitation of virtual group discussion, and timesaving. Table 1: Effectiveness of ICT into language Learning Statement Mean Standard Deviation TELL is easy to use for learning 4.43 0.86 English TELL gives good control over 4.48 0.84 learning English TELL helps improve four English 4.32 0.91 language skills Using TELL for learning English is 4.28 0.85 motivating TELL is more efficient than 4.02 0.97 traditional printed materials Use of TELL is cost-effective 4.44 0.86 TELL allows a lot of practice for my 4.38 0.81 language development TELL facilitates group discussions 4.27 0.98 among peer students outside campus TELL saves time 4.45 0.82 6.2 Students’ Proneness to Spending time in Using ICT Tools Table 2 presents the distribution and frequency for the use of ICT in learning English. Generally, the findings showed that ICT was not widely used by the students in the purpose of learning English, as averagely students only spent 1-2 hours weekly on learning activities. A large number of students reported that most of the time, they spend their time on surfing social media sites like Facebook, YouTube. On the other 89 hand, a few number of students reported that they spend a substantial amount of time on using ICTs for learning purposes like practising grammar exercises, searching for word meaning and pronunciation. Table 2: Students’ proneness to spending time in using ICTs Items Less than 1-2 3-5 More than 5 an hour hours hours hours (%) ( %) (%) (%) Spending time on facebook, twitter etc. 14 32 38 16 Visiting learning websites 33 49 18 - Practising listening items 46 44 10 Searching for vocabulary and 62 38 - - pronunciation Visiting YouTube 23 35 40 2 Visiting various news portals 56 44 - - 6.3 Students’ Perception of the Challenges of Using TELL The questionnaire data regarding students’ perceptions of the challenges of using TELL shows that the use of TELL is not beyond limitations. According to the responses of the students, the major challenges of using TELL for learning English language comprise slow internet speed, lack of teachers’ interest to use ICT, outdated academic software and insufficient allotted time in the classroom . Nevertheless, the students did not have unanimity over the challenges like problems of using TELL and distraction in paying attention to studies. Table 3: Students’ perception regarding the challenges of using ICT into language learning Statement Mean Standard Deviation Slow internet speed interrupts learning process 4.42 0.85 My teachers does not encourage me to use ICT 4.05 0.82 for learning English Lack of relevant and updated software hinders 4.23 0.92 English teaching-learning process Allotted time for classroom activities are not 4.18 0.94 sufficient for the use of ICT in English teaching- learning process I face difficulties in using ICT for learning 4.27 0.87 English. Use of TELL in the classroom divert attention to 4.47 0.81 studies 90 6.4 Teachers’ perception of the efficiency of TELL As Table 4 shows, the teachers do not have unanimous perceptions regarding the efficacy of TELL in English language teaching-learning process. In other words, their opinions with regard to development of teaching-learning process, encouraging instructional strategies, effectuation of web-based social platforms and development of critical thinking are divided. However, they have consensus on some issues that include hampering spontaneity of instruction in the class, diverting students’ attention and wasting time. Table 4: Attitudes and perception of teachers regarding the effectiveness of ICTs in English language teaching and learning Statement Mean Standard Deviation Technology Enhanced Language Learning is as 3.84 0.77 valuable as traditional language learning. Technology Enhanced Language Learning is a 3.46 0.74 valuable extension of classical learning methods. People who learn a language assisted by TELL 3.61 0.81 are less proficient than those who learn through traditional methods. The use of Technology in English language 3.74 0.82 instruction encourages my instruction E-mail, chat, and web discussions are used to 3.41 0.76 provide students with greater opportunities to practice English language. Students are encouraged to join social network 3.91 0.92 sites or online groups such as face book to exchange ideas with others in English. The use of TELL into language learning and 2.74 0.83 teaching develops students’ critical thinking Use of ICTs hampers the spontaneity of my 4.12 1.12 instruction Use of ICTs diverts the attentions of my 4.33 1.08 students Use of ICTs in language teaching-learning 4.26 1.15 process wastes time 91 6.5 Use of ICT by the Teachers To know the use of ICTs in English language teaching context by the instructors the above questions were set. Out of all 20 teachers of private universities 20 responded positively that all of them can use computer related logistics for English language teaching. Teachers are using multimedia presentation for both reading & grammar classes as well as in teaching listening and writing. 7. Discussion From this study, it has been found that learners at these private universities have high interests in the use of technology for learning English language. This is in line with a research of Tri and Nguyen (2014). Moreover, the knowledge of ICT enhances performance of the students. However, the students like to spend more time in social media rather than in visiting learning sites that hamper their performance. This is evident from the fact that these days the popularity of Facebook is increasing among private university students. According to the Alexa ranking, it stands on third position after Google and You Tube. However, the students also informed that they also use social media for academic purposes. From the findings of Dabbagh and Kitsantas (2012), the use of social media has also been found to be a promising approach to enhance students’ learning. On the other hand, when teachers speak of second language learning, they usually put emphasis on long lasting implication of acquired knowledge by the learners in the practical field, which is only possible, if the learners get ‘learning friendly’ atmosphere in the classroom. Autonomy means moving the focus from teaching to learning (Bajrami, 2015). An autonomous learner is able to take charge of his own learning and becomes responsible for all the decisions concerned with his or her learning and the implementation of those decisions in practical field. Thus it ensures increasing self-awareness of the learners. Students of this generation expect to get benefit from the use of new technological devices in a language classroom and feel motivated to use the language experienced even after class. Developing teaching-learning by using modern technology enhances students’ autonomy which in turn promotes language acquisition. However, some teachers feel uneasy in using ICTs. Their responses correspond to the findings of Chang (2005) who opines that teachers feel uncomfortable and fear of coping with ICT tools. In some cases, the application of ICT gives more opportunities for communication among peer learners: they can exchange information in real time, they can participate in blog discussions, work in teams on different projects, exchange emails, search for information etc. By using 92 the authentic material provided by the internet we will have a better insight into the culture and people whose language we study (Padurean & Margan, 2009; Rozgiene, Medvedeva & Strakova, 2008). In addition, audio/video programme of the particular lesson can provide students with extra opportunities to do meaningful language learning tasks. However, students’ response regarding the teachers’ inclination to using ICTs in the teaching-learning process contradicts that of the teachers. 8. Conclusion In the end, it can be said that technology has both the negative sides and positive sides in case of promoting English skills. We need the use of ICTs for all subjects and for the development of our country as it has been dominating the choices and opportunities in education, technology and global trades and business. A creative and adaptive workforce with English language proficiency is now essential for fostering a nation’s socio-economic development. However, achieving the command and mastery in English is a challenging task particularly in a developing country like Bangladesh where information and communication technology can play a significant role though it must be stated that blind followers of ICTs may never achieve all-round competence in English Language skill. Teachers should motivate the learners to use ICTs for attaining creativity not for following just a system and style only. Learners in Bangladesh can extensively be benefited, if technology can be used in fruitful ways at undergraduate sectors. Through mutual sharing of the usage of technology by the public and private in ELT classroom, immense positive achievement will be ensured. References Ahmad, K. (1999). The Use of English: An Unending Debate in Bangladesh. In Tom Hunter (ed.) National and Regional Issues in English Language Teaching: International Perspectives. Dhaka: The British Council Ahmadi, M. R. (2018). 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CALICO journal, 21(1), 7-27. 95 Visual Strategies in Teaching English Vocabulary to Bengali-Speaking Special Children Quazi Farzana Yesmin1 Abstract Language is the predominant medium of communication, and communication is a major difficulty for special children. Teaching the native language to a special child needs immense effort. Similarly, teaching him/her a foreign language is a great challenge for the educators. In this age of globalisation, it is essential to add English as a language course to the special education for special children. However, recent years have experienced an incredible success of visual strategies in teaching language to autistic learners. As visual aids and/or materials are powerful tools in getting attention of the learners, teachers prefer visual strategies in teaching English vocabulary items to special children. The present study intends to trace out the current scenario of using visual aids and/or materials in teaching English vocabularies to the special children in Bangladesh. Besides, it focuses on the challenges that the educators face using the visual strategies. Finally, it makes recommendations for the stakeholders and further studies as well. Keywords: Special Children, Special Education, Language, Visual Strategies, English Vocabularies 1. Introduction The word ‘communication’ refers to the activities of sending and receiving messages and for human beings that covers all the forms of language use such as verbal language, sign language, body language etc. Language is the predominant medium of communication and communication is the major difficulty for special children. These children suffer from a lifetime neurological disorder that is marked by social, communication and language deficits (Tager Flusberg, 2004). Hence, teaching language to the special children is a matter of extreme effort, time, and patience. Teaching them a foreign language like English, is a great challenge for the teachers. Teachers use different types of strategies and techniques in teaching language to the special children. Using visual 1 Lecturer, Department of English, City University, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email:

96 aids is one of them which is very popular to the teachers all around the world as they are very powerful tools that can be used properly in teaching a foreign language. Visual aids or materials can be used to display complex information clearly and introduce variety into the activities in class (Pateşan, M., Balagiu, A., & Alibec, C. 2018). Students, especially the students who suffer from Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), get attracted to the visual materials more easily and respond accordingly. The recent years have experienced that visual strategies make an incredible success to the learners with ASDs. In the developed countries, teachers follow this strategy to provide excellent and acceptable special education to the special children while in Bangladesh, even in this twenty first century too, autism is a name of a curse to the most of the people of the society. Even then, knowing English is a must in this globalized world. So, for the betterment of the special children, it is necessary to teach them English as a foreign language and in doing so, visual strategy can be a commanding technique. Therefore, the present research aims to trace out the current scenario of using visual aids and/or materials in teaching English vocabularies to the special children in Bangladesh and additionally to focus on the challenges that the educators face to teach the special children through visual instructions. The paper also intends to give necessary suggestions to offer further study on the topic. 2. Literature Review As the children with ASDs have difficulties with communication and social functioning, they need special strategies for learning. Among all the strategies, using visual aids or materials might have a great impact on the students in learning a foreign language like English. Using visual strategy has been highly appreciated globally by all in teaching language to the general students, whereas the special students find themselves more interested in the visual instructed classrooms. Sight vocabulary, a procedure of visual strategies, is an important component in teaching language especially to the students with ASDs. Browder & Xin (1998) stated that students with disabilities could learn functional academics through sight word or sight vocabulary that helped the students to function well in society. According to Yahya, S., Yunus, M. M., &Toran, H. (2013), sight vocabulary teaching is quite effective in making bridge between L1 and L2 especially for the students with autism and through such teaching strategies students learn L2 more quickly and spontaneously than others. Roa and Gagie (2006) emphasized on using visual materials in the classroom as they found the aids very attractive which enabled the students to focus on the message and reduce anxiety. They also mentioned that 97 teachers got the students’ abstract expression more easily and promptly by using visual aids in the classroom. Farzana, S., Hoque, M. &Alam, R. (2018) conducted a research on the autistic children and found visual strategies very convenient in making communication more specific that encouraged the autistic children to be more enthusiastic in their learning. Pateşan, M., Balagiu, A., &Alibec, C. (2018) pointed out that by making the class environment more attractive and interactive, the visual aids helped English language learners to build their vocabulary, speaking, listening as well as the writing skills and additionally, they made the students more creative and developed their deep thinking. The researcher feels the urgency of knowing the current scenario of using visual aids in teaching English language to the special children in Bangladesh context as this strategy has been proved as an effective one in many other contexts, therefore, the existing study focuses on the present situation. 3. Research Methodology The present study followed the qualitative method to conduct the research. As both interrogation and inspection are powerful instruments in leading such a complex research work like the present one, both interview and class observation were used to accomplish the investigation. 3.1 Participants To conduct the research, three schools for the special children were selected from Dhaka city to have the survey on the students who were suffering from ASDs. The participants were the learners of primary level of these schools who were aging 6-10 and had 2-5 years’ experience of schooling. In total the number of the students was 15. The researcher interviewed six educators, two from each school, and one speech and language therapist who was working as the therapist of one of those schools and went through the class observation to remark the classroom implication of visual aids. Three classes were observed from the three special schools. 3.2 Instruments Semi-structured interview sessions were held in separate informal settings with the educators and the speech and language therapist where 7 questions for the educators and 3 questions for the therapist were interrogated by the researcher. All questions were open ended in nature and some of them were followed by some follow up questions for the researcher’s deeper insights of the issues. For the classroom observation, the researcher followed a customized classroom observation checklist prescribed by Cassar & Jang (2010).The researcher’s main concerns were 98 to observe the learners’ reactions to the visual aids that were used in the classroom and to focus on the challenges that the teachers faced to use visual strategies in English vocabulary teaching. 3.3 Data Collection and Analysis To collect data, the researchers visited the selected schools and with the permission of the school authorities, the researcher observed the autistic students in their classrooms according to the checklist and notes were taken. Before observing the students, the researcher conducted separate interviews with the educators and the speech and language therapist. With the permission of the interviewees, all interviews were recorded by an audio-recorder and written notes were taken as backup in order to experiment the data collection. After collecting data through classroom observation and interviews, the researcher analyzed the data by content analysis. 4. Findings and Discussion The findings of the investigation are discussed in the following sections based on the research instruments i.e. interview sessions for the educators and the speech and language therapist and the classroom observation of the special children. In the first section, the interview results are discussed and in the second section, according to the checklist the classroom observation results are discussed. In the third section, a summary of the findings and discussions is given. 4.1 Interview with the Educators There were six educators in total and all have faced seven same interview questions. Based on their responses to the questions, a summary of the interview sessions for the educators is given below. In the response to Q.1 on using visual strategies in the classroom to teach English vocabulary for the EFL special children, all the educators have answered that they use various types of visual strategies in the classroom especially in the EFL classrooms. The educators have mentioned some visual aids’ types e.g., pictures, flashcards, puzzle games, objects, sign languages and texts. Two of them have added that they often show the students different pictures or videos by using projectors as modern technology, but the rest of them have said that they do not use projector in their schools as that is not provided by the authorities. In the response to Q.2 on the students’ response to the visual instruction, all the educators have agreed that students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) tend to learn best using visual supports rather than through auditory input. One educator has stated: 99 Although, the response varies from student to student because of their autism difficulties, the students who have mild autism disorder than the severe ones, responds quickly to the visual instructions. As they get attracted to the visual materials more easily, and response promptly rather than to a simple sentence, we find the students very responsive to the visual instructions. Rest of the educators has also agreed on the point. Another educator has said that usually it takes 3 to 4 months to make the students steady in the classroom and 6 months to 1 year to get minimum response from a student through traditional teaching, but if the instruction is visual then the students become more attentive and respond to the teachers rapidly. Two educators have shared their experiences and have mentioned that by applying voice variation or using audio recorder they do not get the students very attentive to their lessons, but when they have started to use visual aids, they get the students’ attention to them and after repeatedly showing the visual aids they get the students’ response, and this whole process takes two to four months, and within six months it is possible for an ASD learner to learn 80-100 words. In the response to Q.3 on the assistance of visual aids in teaching English vocabulary, the educators have claimed that to conduct a second language classroom they are able to manage the special students only by applying visual strategies. For the students who suffer from ASDs, need special instructions to interact. One educator has stated that it is experimentally proved that students with ASDs respond to the visual materials more than audio commands. They become able to learn English vocabularies by using different types of visual aids very easily. In the response to Q.4 on the procedure of using visual aids in teaching English vocabularies, the educators have claimed that even though they use visual aids, they need the usage of repetitions and variations of tones to teach the EFL special students a single English word just as like as they do in teaching native language. One educator has depicted : To teach an autistic student the word ‘horse’, we need to show the students a picture or toy or any other image of a horse repeatedly. After repeated instructions, the students get the vocabulary and utter it by themselves. So, the educators use different visual aids e.g. pictures, videos, sign languages, charts, texts or any possible object from the real world in the classroom. But there are some students also who suffer from severe 100 disorder and cannot differentiate between an image and the object of the same image. For example, the educator has said: To teach a student about fish, we may use a colorful image or a toy of fish. This is effective for the students who have mild disorder, but who suffer from severe disorder, they cannot understand the lesson until seeing a real fish. They cannot distinguish the image and the real object. In contrary, according to the educators, the students who suffer from mild ASDs, can learn English vocabularies rapidly.Using visual aids, the students learn alphabets and numbers very fast, and then can learn different vocabularies one by one. After learning some easy words separately, the educators teach the students to use the words in a sentence to communicate with people. For example, the educators at first teach the students some separate words such as I, want, go. After learning the words separately, the educators teach the students to use the words in one sentence e.g.,“I...want...go”. Then, the students learn it with proper grammar i.e., “I want to go”. Thus, the students learn social communication in English language gradually. So, the effectiveness of using the same visual aids does not bring the same result always. For different students, different types of visual materials work. To answer Q.5 on the role of native language to teach the students with ASDs English vocabulary by using visual aids, all the educators have said that commonly they need to use the native language to teach the students English vocabulary even when they use the visual aids. Two educators have stated: Students, who are trained up in English language from the early stage, do not response in Bengali language. It is necessary to communicate with them in English language only. The educators have also specified: For the students who are severely suffering from ASD, cannot adopt more than one language. To handle these students, we focus on the students’ speaking skills. If these students are trained up in English language only, they can communicate in this language. But if once they get training in Bengali language, they cannot adopt English as a second language. On the other hand, students who suffer from mild ASDs, though, they can adopt two languages at the same time and can response in both languages, usually they response more in their comfort language. 101 Consequently, the educators have claimed that every student is unique, so, usage of native language in the EFL classrooms actually depends on the students’ level of difficulties and speaking proficiencies. In the response of Q.6 on the challenges that the educators face in teaching the special children English vocabulary, all of them have agreed on the point and have stated that as the learners with ASDs suffer from unusual social communication difficulties, the first and foremost challenge is to draw their attention. The educators have asserted that the students do not want to sit steadily in the classroom, they have deficiencies with eye contact and vocal responses. Hence, it is quite tough to get the students’ attention. One of the educators has says that sometimes the students seem having hearing difficulties too, but it does not mean that they do not notice. They may notice everything, but do not respond promptly. So, this is also a challenge for the educators to convince the students to respond, in other sense, to get their verbal response. In the case of teaching English vocabulary, the educators face more challenges as teaching English language requires much more efforts than teaching them the native language. Another educator has claimed that often they get pressure from the parents of the students. Sometimes parents want their children to communicate in English, but the children may not be able to adopt more than one language. Again, sometimes parents become too impulsive not to find their children responsive within a short period, and do not agree to teach them English language as learning a foreign language is a tougher task for the students. It also becomes a big challenge for the educators to teach the students without the parents’ cooperation. To reply Q.7 on their procedure to manage the students to be attentive and responsive in the EFL classrooms, the educators have asserted that as the students with ASDs become easily attracted to the visual materials, it is comparatively easy to hold the students’ attention and interest in the class lessons. They themselves want to play and spend time with the aids or materials. Moreover, the educators also have claimed that they make the lessons entertaining and easy through the visual instructions for the students. Hence, being interested in such visual instructions, the students become attentive and responsive in the EFL classrooms. 4.2 Interview with the speech and language therapist Among the selected three schools only one school has their own speech and language therapist who is appointed for providing regular speech and language therapy to the autistic students of the school. To get the research findings, the researcher conducted an interview session with the therapist too. There were three questions for the therapist. The result of the interview session with the therapist is given below. 102 In response to Q.1 on the connection between visual strategy and language therapy, the therapist has answered that they are strongly connected with each other. Because, for the students with ASDs, regular language therapy is very essential for their fast development and often it becomes too tough to grow the children’s attention and to get their response. She has stated: Using visual aids is the best way to make the children responsive and attentive. So, as a language therapy I can’t think of giving therapy to the students without visual materials. Only by using visual tools, the special children respond and produce words and become able to speak. To answer Q.2 the therapist has said that usually she visits the students one by one. But sometimes she visits some students all-together in the classroom and spend time with them. As a therapist, she talks with the students repeatedly, plays with them and helps them to communicate with each other. She mentions that through regular therapy students can produce single words and through repetitions they can communicate in short sentences too. In the response to Q.3 on the importance of visual aids in learning English vocabularies for the special students, the therapist has claimed that visual aids are very much supportive for the learners with ASDs in learning a language. She has mentioned: It is always fruitful and helpful to follow visual strategies to teach the special children a new language. Whenever, it is about a foreign language like English, visual materials are the main tools to help them in learning the language through therapy. To communicate with these students in English, the therapist follows visual strategies and use flashcards, puzzle games, pictures and objects. Sometimes, she needs to make some tools by herself for the students with paper crafting and by using all of these she used to help the students to learn English vocabularies through special language therapy. 4.3 Classroom Observation For classroom observation, the researcher has followed a student engagement observation checklist prescribed by Cassar & Jang (2010) and has customized the checklist according to the present context. 15 special students, five from each school for the special children have been observed in their classrooms based on five points on following visual strategies in teaching English vocabulary. The researcher has found almost all the students always attentive and responsive in the visual instructed classes. Students who have severe autism are sometimes attentive in the classes. But in the case of mild 103 autism the students have been found more attentive in the visual instructed classes rather than simple auditory classes. The teachers have been found to use various visual aids in the classrooms such as videos, images, puzzle games, objects, or flip cards. Being interested in the visual aids, most of the students have sit steadily in the classroom. It proves that they have really enjoyed the visual instructions in the classes. But some students, who suffer from severe autism, are seen not to be steady like other students. The students have been found to be excited and spontaneous to see the visual materials and they are active in responding to identify them immediately. For example, an image of cat has been shown in the classroom. Most of the students immediately have responded to see the image and uttered the word ‘cat’ by themselves. Some students are late in responding, but with other students they also have started to utter the word together and have drilled the word with their teachers. Most of the students have not been found to raise their hands to answer any question by themselves or for volunteer information. A very few students have been noticed to be active in questioning their teachers by themselves. The students are shy to question the teachers or for volunteer information. Only two students have been found who have used English language only as the medium of learning and communicating with others. These students are well trained in English language at home by their parents. One student has been noticed to respond to the teachers in English sometimes. But rest of the students need their native language e.g., Bengali to use as the medium of learning and communicating others. For them, the educators have to use Bengali language as the medium of teaching English vocabularies. 4.4 Summary of the interview the classroom observation After getting all the answers from the interview sessions with the educators and the speech and language therapist, and finally having the result of classroom observation and crosschecking, the findings can be summed up as follows: 1. Visual strategies are quite effective for the special children. 2. Although, the students who suffer from mild autism are more responsive and attentive to the visual aids than the students who suffer from severe autism, more or less, all the students with ASDs become active in the visual instructed classrooms. 3. The special children are spontaneous and active in responding in the visual instructed EFL classes. 104 4. Learning through visual aids or materials the special children can acquire around 80-100 English vocabularies within only six months and can produce short complete sentences in English by using those vocabularies. 5. Language therapy is very effective and essential for the special children for their English vocabulary learning as the therapy is given to the students through visual strategy. 6. Although, the EFL special learners learn English vocabularies through visual instructions, the teachers need to use Bengali language too as the medium of teaching and communicating with the learners. 7. Although, the teachers need to give much efforts to teach the special students English as a foreign language, visual instructions make their task easier than auditory instructions. 8. The result of using visual strategies in the EFL classroom for the special children is more effective, easier, and fruitful than a simple ordinary and traditional classroom. 9. Teachers face difficulties with the students who suffer from severe autism. 10. Teachers face much challenge to teach the special children when the parents create unnecessary pressure on them and the school authority do not cooperate them with enough facilities for visual instructed classes. 5. Recommendations Based on the findings and discussions of the results of interview sessions and classroom observation, some recommendations are given below by the researcher, 1. Every school for the special children should follow the visual strategies in the EFL classrooms more actively. 2. The schools should have the facilities of modern technologies to use them in the classrooms as visual aids or materials. 3. All the schools for the special children should arrange their own speech and language therapists at the school as language therapy helps the students more firmly to learn a language through visual instructions. 4. Parents should be more careful and patient about their children’s special abilities and should accept their limitations as well. 5. Cooperation is a must among the educators, the parents and the speech and language therapists. 6. The schools for the special children should extend their facilities for the educators to teach the students by following visual strategies. 105 7. Every special school should arrange at least a monthly outing for the students as open space can give them much opportunities to learn naturally. 8. Proper training for the educators should be arranged as they can follow the visual strategies in their classrooms. 9. Monthly evaluation system should be arranged by the school authorities to evaluate the special learners’ learning progress and necessary steps should be taken for their betterment. 10. Besides of the special schools, different NGOs and organizations and the Government should take proper steps to extend the opportunities of using visual aids in the EFL classrooms for the special children. 6. Conclusion Special children are born with special abilities. If they are trained up with proper education, their special abilities will be emerged as a blessing, but if not, they will be treated as a curse to the society. In this modern era, special children are going through qualified education system in the developed countries. To change the scenario of Bangladesh context, it is high time to make our special children educated with special care and attention. In teaching English as a second or foreign language, visual strategies are considered as one of the most fruitful ways to follow all over the world. Furthermore, it is used globally as the most effective way to teach the special children. Hence, as an additional tool in the teaching and learning process, visual strategies should be followed sincerely at every special school to make the special students stimulated, focused and motivated. Only effective use of visual aids and/or materials can make beneficial and permanent English vocabulary learning among the Bengali speaking special children which will help them bringing out and blooming up their special abilities through proper education. References Browder, D. & Xin, P.Y. (1998). A meta-analysis and review of sight word research and its implication for teaching functional reading to individuals with moderate and severe disabilities. Journal of Special Education, 32, 130-153. Cassar G.A. & Jang, E.,E. (2010). Investigating the effects of a game- based approach in teaching word recognition and spelling to students with reading disabilities and attention deficits.Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 15(2):193-211. Retrieved https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/ 233328373 Farzana, S., Hoque, M. &Alam, R. (2018).Implementing Visual Strategies in L2 Acquisition Process for English as a Foreign Language 106 Autistic Elementary Learners: Bangladesh Perspective. Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT), 4(3), 103-109. Haryudin, A. & Jamilah, A., S. (2018). Teacher’s difficulties in teaching speaking using audiovisual aid for autistic students. ELT in Journal, Journal of English Language Teachingin Indonesia, 6(2). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.22460/eltin.v6i2.p107-116. Tager-Flusberg, H., (2004).Strategies for conducting research on language in autism.Journalof Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(1), 75-80. Tager-Flusberg, H.(2016). Risk Factors Associated with Language in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Clues to Underlying Mechanisms. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 59 (1), 143- 154. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC4867927/ Rao, S., M. &Gagie, B. (2006). Learning through seeing and doing: Visual supports for children with autism. Teaching Exceptional Children, 38(6), 26-33. Pateşan, M., Balagiu, A., &Alibec, C. (2018).Visual Aids in Language Education. International Conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION, 24(2), 356-361. Yahya, S., Yunus, M. M., &Toran, H. (2013). Instructional practices in enhancing sight vocabulary acquisition of ESL students with autism. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 93, 266 – 270. 107 English Education in Bangladesh: A Historical Overview of Education Policies in the Post- independent Period Shamsia Wahida Rahman1 Abstract The present paper deals with a brief historical overview of English language education policy of Bangladesh in the post-independent period. A critical analysis of the policy documents (since 1972 - 2010) formulated by different governments in the education sector at the state level in Bangladesh is followed by an overview of the history of English language education policies, policy implementation and their outcomes. Prior to that, the state of English education in the British and Pakistani regimes is also touched upon in the introductory section since a proper historical overview of English education in Bangladesh has its origin and expansion to its political history as a part of the Indian sub-continent under the British Empire. Thus, a total of seven national Education Commissions’ reports have been reviewed and critically analysed as sources of data for the present study to explore the historical development of English education in Bangladesh. Later, it proceeds to identify the factors and underlying problems relating to quality English language learning and teaching in Bangladesh. The concluding section sketches some of the problems and includes a set of recommendations for successful policy implementation in the country. Keywords: Historical overview, English education policy, Post- independent period, policy outcomes 1. Introduction Defining ‘history’, Best and Kahn (2005) state, “History is the meaningful record of human achievement, helps us to understand the present and, to some extent, to predict the future” (p. 95). Similarly, regarding the importance of the knowledge of history, Stern says "Through studying the history of language teaching we can gain perspective on 1 Lecturer, Department of English, Mirpur College, Mirpur-2, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Email:

108 present day thought and trends and find directions for future growth" (Stern, 1983; p. 76). From this perspective a historical overview of English education policy in Bangladesh has been presented and analysed. The history of English education in Bangladesh, its origin and expansion goes back to its political history as a part of the Indian sub-continent under the British Empire. British Empire ruled the Indian sub-continent for about more than two hundred years. As a legacy of the British rule English became the official language of the British India. 1.1. Status of English in pre-independence India The status of English as the medium of education was confirmed by the approval of Macaulay's Minute (1835). He made forceful argument about the usefulness of English language as the medium of ‘Western’ system of education he recommended. But, the teaching of English in a systematic way could start only after the promulgation of Wood’s Dispatch in 1854 and, that’s why, Wood’s Dispatch has been generally regarded as the ‘Magna Carta’ of Indian education (Mukherjee,1951). He also states that the Despatch is so comprehensive in nature that Indian educationists have not yet succeeded in fulfilling the tasks, which it had set. It provided a scheme which tried to touch all aspects of Indian education, rightly defined the comparative position of English and Indian languages in a general scheme of education for this country. It recommended for the establishment of universities in the presidency towns, viz. Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. As a result of this charter Education Departments were established in every province and Universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were established for higher education. Thus, the importance of English was rising in the early twentieth century with the spreader of schools, colleges and the increase of universities. In sum, English continued to gain an importance in pre- independence India and it became the medium of instruction in so many schools and colleges, equipment for acquiring the new information and knowledge, technical or otherwise. Thus, the pre-independence period of India reflected the gradual development of English language covering Macaulay’s restricted policy leading to the policy of universal and compulsory education to the nation. 1.2. English education during Pakistani regime When the British left India in 1947 dividing India and Pakistan, Bangladesh became a part of Pakistan and was named as East Pakistan. At the time of partition English was the language of Pakistan government and was taught as a compulsory subject at both primary and secondary level. In 1950s and 1960s many language teaching conferences, lectures, symposia, seminars, refresher courses were held to suggest appropriate teaching 109 methodology in different parts of Pakistan such as Dhaka, Karachi, Lahore, etc. But none of them could be able to attain this goal. Since its relatively recent independence in 1971, a total of seven national Education Commissions were formed in Bangladesh, all of which placed various degrees of emphasis on the planning, pedagogy and learning of English in Bangladesh. The next sections of the paper critically reviews the major trends of English education policy as enacted through the formation of different commissions. It also examines the commission reports to detect the status of English in them. 2. English Education During 1972- 2010 Bangladesh is a monolingual setting on the grounds that this country is notoriously homogeneous linguistically and that almost all the people (perhaps 95% or more) other than a few tribes speak the same language Bengali (Maniruzzaman, 1998). Moreover, the issue of language is sensitive and sentimental in Bangladesh which has a near unique history of sacrificing lives for national language Bangla in 1952 (Hamid, 2006a; Mohsin, 2003 and Musa, 1996). Bathed in nationalistic fervours, language policies in post-independence Bangladesh promoted Bangla at the expense of English (Rahman, 1991 and Zaman, 2004). Here, Bengali or Bangla is the de facto and de jure national language and it was made the sole national language and was awarded constitutional recognition in 1972 (Banu & Sussex, 2001). Begum (2015; as cited in Roy, 2017), identifies two prime objectives as the reasons of the emergence of Bangla as the sole national language replacing English: (i). to place Bangla at the peak of linguistic esteem, and (ii) to eliminate other languages, mainly Urdu and English. Similarly, in the field of education English was de-emphasised and replaced by Bangla since the independence of the country. Books were translated into Bangla to meet the demands of the universities; as a result English standards fell to abysmal depths in public schools and universities (Choudhury, 2001; as cited in Chaudhury, 2009). However, almost 95% of the texts and reference books still remained in English, and Bangla failed to become an adequate medium for higher education (Banu & Sussex, 2001); this resulted in the necessity of giving time, attention and energy to the learning of English (Alam, 2001; cited in Chaudhury, 2009). Thus, since the independence in 1971, the education system of Bangladesh as well as English language learning and teaching has undergone many changes (Middlehurst & Woodfield, 2004). Regarding the education policy, there was widespread support for the country to prepare a new education policy consistent with the aspirations of the people. With this objective, several education commissions and committees were established in Bangladesh since the independence of the country. 110 2.1 Education Commissions and Committees On July 26, 1972, the first Education Commission in the independent Bangladesh was formed in accordance with a proposal accepted by the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The Commission was headed by the leading educationalist and scientist of the country Dr. Quadrat-e-Khuda that submitted its recommendation to the Government in May, 1974. Regarding the aim of forming that commission as stated in the ‘Introduction’ was “to remove the various defects and deficiencies of education system, to indicate a way as to how a wholesome nationhood can be achieved through the medium of education and to strengthen the country in modern knowledge and creative endeavour” (Bangladesh Education Commission Report, 1974; p. i). Historically a milestone in Bangladesh’s history of education, the Khuda Commission published its report in May, 1974 with an aim to 'decolonise' the education system for the first time. It considered the four fundamental pillars of the Bangladesh Constitution – nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism – as the central principles of its education policy. The salient aim of the Khuda Commission was to flourish socialistic views and ideas within the newly-born country’s young generation in order to establish a non-discriminatory, egalitarian and just society. It measured education as the way to build Bengali nationalism and reformation of the society (Ministry of Education 1974). Unfortunately the Khuda Commission recommendations never saw the day of light. Due to the political turmoil in 1975 that saw the assassination of the nation’s founder Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the Commission report was shelved by the then military ruler until 1979, marking a premature end to the BEC’s recommendations (Chowdhury & Kabir, 2014). During the subsequent years, six more education policy/reports were prepared. In the light of the recommendations of the Education Commission Report 1974, the “English Language Teaching Task Force” was formed in 1976 to assess the state of English language teaching in Bangladesh and to suggest recommendations for improving it. It was the first extensive study by the government to identify the real teaching-leaning situation in Bangladesh and language teachers’ deficiencies in ELT )Sinha & Idris, 2013(. A large sample study of classes IX and XII at 45 schools and colleges was carried out on the basis of proficiency tests. The study identified that “at class IX students were 2 years behind the level assumed in course books while at class XII, they were 4 years behind” (Report of the English Teaching Task Force , 1976) . In 1976, an English language teaching workshop evaluated the teaching of English, looking at recent approaches to teaching and explored writing materials for the higher secondary level. The workshop identified three different needs for learners of English in Bangladesh: social, 111 occupational and academic, with the academic most significantly affecting the student population (Harrison 1976, p. 1, as cited in Rahman, 1999, p. 36).It also pointed out that the current course was unsuitable to meet these demands as it was entirely literary in character and did not match students' actual level of ability. It recommended that a new textbook be written to contain reading material graded according to linguistic difficulty that was less literary in character and had copious practice materials for developing skills of reading and, to a lesser extent, writing (Kerr 1976, p. 2 as cited in Rahman, 1999). Considering it very systematic and well organised the present researcher has mentioned that table here to have an overview of English education policy and practice in Bangladesh since 1972 to the latest National Education Policy (NEP) 2010: Table: 1.1 English Education in policy: A chronological summary Education policies and The position of English and English education commission reports 1974 Bangladesh English given priority as foreign language, to be Education Commission taught from Class 6 General emphasis on English language 1976 English Teaching English to be taught either in Class 3 or Class 6, Taskforce Commission subject to availability of English teachers 1988 Bangladesh Grade 3 suggested as recommended starting point National Education for English education Grade 6 suggested as uniform Commission starting point for English education 1991 National English education introduced in Class 3 English Curriculum Committee introduced as compulsory subject in Class 1 (1992) 2000 National Education English set as medium of instruction for Policy kindergartens Curriculum and all text material used in kindergarten translated into English. Introduction of English as extra subject from Class 1 and 2 and as compulsory subject from Class 3. Along with Bengali, English could be medium of instruction from the secondary level (Class 7) Emphasis on English as medium of instruction at the tertiary level 2003 National Education Reemphasis on English learning from the primary Commission level .One objective of primary education to acquaint learners to English language skills as a foreign language Emphasis on rebuilding overall English curriculum Emphasis on organising foreign training for trainers of PTI and NAPE and local training for all secondary school teachers to improve English education Emphasis on introducing a six- month English language course at the tertiary level 2010 National Education English recognised as essential tool to building Policy knowledge-based society Emphasis on English writing and speaking from the very beginning of 112 primary education English to be set as compulsory subject adopted in all streams from the secondary level. English as medium of instruction could be introduced from the secondary level. Emphasis on appointing adequate number of English teachers at secondary level English to be a compulsory subject in all colleges and universities. English (along with Bengali) to be the mediums of instruction at the tertiary level Emphasis on the need to translate books written in English to Bengali Adapted from Chowdhury & Kabir (2014, p. 10) 3. Implementation of Education Recommendations of Committee As Rahman & Pandian, (2018) state: Bangladeshi ELT policy has always been driven by a basic uncertainty and lack of clear vision as to the fundamental status of English in the country. Indeed, according to Chowdhury & Kabir (2014), until the National Education Policy, 2010 (Ministry of Education, 2010), Bangladesh never had any planned and consistent English language policy at all. As a result, even given the generally low level of educational standards in Bangladesh (Islam, 2015), the standard of English language teaching and learning has decreased alarmingly in recent years (Hamid, 2011). If we observe the brief historical development of English education and English language teaching and learning in Bangladesh, it is easily identified that inconsistency in education policies has always been a feature of ELT in Bangladesh. Decisions about changes have often been driven by no apparent justification. 3.1 Political Indifference towards Implementation Education policy in Bangladesh has been embroiled in vested political interests from the very beginning of its emergence as an independent nation in 1971 (Chowdhury & Kabir, 2014). As it has been mentioned earlier that a total of seven national Education Commissions were formed in Bangladesh, and all of which placed various degrees of emphasis on the planning, pedagogy and learning of English in Bangladesh. But the first and foremost reason of limited success of the implementation of English language education policies in Bangladesh is the failure of implementing none of the education commission’s recommendations fully in Bangladesh. Until the most recent Education Commission 2010, all the other commissions’ reports were shelved and nullified mainly because of political instability and the vested political interests of different governments. For example, if we consider Wood’s Dispatch as the ‘Magna Carta’ of Indian education, the first Education Commission in the independent Bangladesh i.e. the Khuda Commission must be considered as the ‘Magna Carta’ of Bangladeshi education. 113 Although the commission declared Bengali as the medium of instruction, the recommendations and importance regarding the status of English that the commission made were really significant. But, the ill practice of disregarding all the initiatives, activities, decisions or recommendations of the predecessors by the succeeding governments simply because of the evil politics of revenge is the main reason of the deplorable standard of English as well as the whole education system of the country. 3.2 Dispute over the Role of NGO’s and International Agencies English in language policy and planning has not been static in Bangladesh’s history (Chowdhury & Kabir, 2014). It has been adapted for political reasons and has been directly and indirectly influenced by international donors and NGOs that have had their own interests in mind (Hamid & Erling, 2016). According to Hamid & Erling, (2016) “The implementation of English language education policies in Bangladesh has met limited success and this despite rather significant support from NGO and international donor agencies. Supporting their argument the researchers mention that these disappointing results of English teaching and learning are also evident in other countries of the world. Thus, English language education policy and planning in Bangladesh has been influenced by numerous forces at the national, supra- national and sub-national levels. There has been little research into language in education in connection with historical factors, national priorities, educational NGOs and international development agencies (Chowdhury & Kabir, 2014) and this complex set of factors makes it difficult to find simple explanations for the use of English as a language for economic development, the prominence of the language in the national curriculum and, conversely, the modest outcomes of English language teaching in Bangladesh (Rahman, Pandian & Kaur, 2018a). 3.3 The Bangla language Introduction Act in 1987 The Bangla Language Introduction Act in 1987 which was passed by the government of Bangladesh. The aim of the Act was to ensure the use of Bangla in all spheres and at all levels for government purposes. Repeated orders and directives, verbal and written, were issued by the government to enact the law. It was the most effective Act that proclaimed Bangla as the national and official language of Bangladesh and strictly prohibited the use of English anywhere. As a consequence of this Act, Bangla immediately replaced English in all spheres of national life and created a “vacuum” in English Language proficiency and deprived the nation of numerous global opportunities for so many years (Banu & Sussex, 2001a; Rahman, 2005). Imam (2005; cited in Roy, 2017) says that the sentimental rhetoric in favor of Bangla saw English as a great 114 challenge to the national language and national identity. However, despite the language law, proficiency in English remained an unarticulated condition for jobs and promotion. But the people of Bangladesh could not cope with the demand for bilingual skills (i.e. proficiency in both Bangla and English). Realizing the need for academic and occupational purposes to check the deterioration of English proficiency, Bangladesh government decided to introduce English from class I in 1990; in line with this decision, new syllabus and new books for class I-X were introduced. In 1995, a British council study (sponsored by the UGC) identified two problems of teaching English in Bangladesh: shortage of English teachers and lack of training. The recommendation of British council report emphasized on pedagogic planning, formulation of expert teams, graded syllabus and extension of course hours. In 2000, National Education Policy suggested introduction of English an additional subject from class I and as a compulsory subject from class III. 3.4 Dispute over the Status of English: EFL versus ESL Although English is considered as a foreign language in Bangladesh (Maniruzzaman, 1998; Karim, 2004; Hoque, 2008 & Mazumdar, 2011) some misconceptions also prevail about its status as a foreign or second language. The main reason behind this misconception is it has no status in our constitution. The only language that is mentioned in our constitution is Bangla, on the other hand, English is dominantly present in every sphere of our national life; it is also allowed in our parliament and in many government events. Many important government documents are written both in Bangla and English, the parliament proceedings are kept into these two languages and even, when a government body organises a fair often the souvenir is published in English. There are many other examples of the presence of English everywhere in our country. However, taking all the above in account we find that from sociolinguistic point of view the status of English in Bangladesh is very interesting. From the government point of view Bangla is the national-official language of Bangladesh and English is the most important foreign language. But in reality English is the second language of the country and in many places English is more important than Bangla in Bangladesh (Hasan, 2011). As Rahman& Pandian, (2018) state: Bangladeshi ELT policy has always been driven by a basic uncertainty and lack of clear vision as to the fundamental status of English in the country. Maniruzzaman (2009) investigates people‘s perception about the status of English and, explores the use of English in different domains in Bangladesh. In this study, the author deals with two hypotheses. First, ―though a foreign language constitutionally, English is currently being used as a second language in 115 different sectors of Bangladesh‖. Second, ―the prevailing situation of Bangladesh demands a language policy to be adopted and a pragmatic plan to be implemented to consider English as complementary to Bengali and proclaim it as the second language of the country (p. 70). Findings of the study indicate that 93% respondents use English with their family members; 100% respondents use English with their friends and colleagues; 100% use English in their profession, workplace, and to communicate with foreigners. Besides, 91% participants think that their fellow persons need to use English in their everyday life; 94% reported that they need to use English in their daily life; 100% reported that they use English and Bengali side by side in their real life communication. The author argues that these data support the first hypothesis about the use of English as a second language in Bangladesh. Apart from this, the following data testifies the second hypothesis about the existing demand of declaring English as a second language. On the basis of these findings the author recommends that ―a language policy should be adopted and a pragmatic plan should be implemented so as to consider English as complementary to Bengali and proclaim it as the second language of Bangladesh‖ (p. 86). 3.5 Power-coercive Strategy Rahman (1999), points out that English language education policy in Bangladesh is implemented through ―power-coercive strategy i.e. imposition of policy using force. The author gives an example to show that English language education policy in Bangladesh follows ―power- coercive strategy‖. In 1986, a textbook entitled English for Today Book VIII was introduced for class 11 and 12. This book was withdrawn due to the reaction of the critics. In particular, critics pointed out that the texts [of the book] were un-English, unimaginative, and unidiomatic. However, in an ―acceptability experiment Hamidur Rahman (1998) found that some ―ungrammatical‖ sentences identified by critics were acceptable to native speakers of English. Rahman opined that the textbook became a personal issue of education secretary who came from literature background. Therefore, the textbook was revised by incorporating literacy. She provides another example of power-coercive strategy‘. English language was introduced in class I without any consultation with ELT-expert and English teachers. Apart from this, the author notes that there is no homogenous policy on medium of instruction at tertiary level in Bangladesh. 116 4. Recommendations 1. Apart from nationalistic favouritism towards Bengali, and the politics surrounding the national language or rather than looking into the politics of policy planning and implementation, policy makers should look towards the possibility of an education system that can bring about a healthy juxtaposition between heritage and modernity. 2. The dispute over the status of English in Bangladesh i.e. thebasic uncertainty and lack of clear vision as to the fundamental status of English in the country needs to be determined immediately. The recommendation made by Maniruzzaman (2009) that “a language policy should be adopted and a pragmatic plan should be implemented so as to consider English as complementary to Bengali and proclaim it as the second language of Bangladesh” should be taken into consideration. 3. It is strongly desirable that the governments should implement recommendations of education commissions avoiding the tendency of showing reluctance toward the recommendations of Education Commissions. The political leaders should be transparent and committed regarding the educational development of the country.. 4. The first Education commission i.e. Quadrat-e-Khuda Education commission which was formed in 1974 followed by several other commissions but no commission saw the light of implementation. But as a nation we need a permanent education commission as education is the guiding force and most constructive and valuable investment. It is undoubtedly a matter of satisfaction that after several modifications, the commission published the national education policy in 2010. 5. Concluding Remarks Thus, from the critical analysis of aforementioned reports of all Education commissions and committees formed by different governments in the post independent Bangladesh, it is revealed that until the National Education Policy of 2010, Bangladesh neither had any specific and consistent English language policy, nor any straightforward and coherent strategy of using English language at various education levels. At the same time, there is no denial that the ELT policy of Bangladesh lacks clear vision and this have ultimately resulted in poor English language learning and teaching in the country. 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Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Zaman, N. (2004) National language policy. In A. Kalam (ed.), Bangladesh in the New Millennium: A University of Dhaka Study (pp. 203-213). Dhaka: University Press Limited. 120 Developing English Writing Skills through Scaffolding and Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Babul Chandra Shil1 Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman2 Abstract The study aimed at investigating how writing skills developed through scaffolding at Higher Secondary level. The study was carried out among150 Secondary level students of Feni Government College, Bangladesh. The study revealed that changes in teaching style can be a way to deal with the current situation of teaching students of Bangladesh. It was observed that the ZPD and scaffolding were helpful to prepare for effective teaching strategies as mixed ability in students is common in all classes. Liking of students both in activities and topics should not be avoided while designing a lesson along with their behavior in the classroom. The study displays that writing in the language turns into a complex undertaking because writing entails meaningful segments of language: words, sentence, grammar, and how to transfer these segments in written types, but application of constructivism can make careful mind- set and grasp with students. The study faces some limitation in regards of instruments used and the number of participants. Keywords: Writing skill development, constructivism theory, scaffolding, zone of proximal development, effective teaching 1. Introduction Writing is the most important skill for the students as they have to write during examinations in order to get a better grade. But it is the most difficult language skill and a complex cognitive activity where the writer needs the knowledge about thesis statement, supporting details, drafting, reviewing and editing (Alsamadani, 2010; Kurk & Atay, 2007; Latif, 2007; Nunan, 1989). Writing is a productive skill but it is not acquired naturally like speaking skill. Both native and non-native speakers of a language have to acquire the writing skill (White, 1987).Grabe and Kaplan (1996: 24-25) state that, “Students in English as a foreign language context will need English writing skills ranging from a simple paragraph and 1 Professor of English and Principal, Nawab Foyjunnesa Government College, Cumilla, Bangladesh; Email:

2 Research Student, Master of Education (M.Ed.), Dept. of Language Education, Institute of Education and Research (IER), University of Dhaka.; Email:

121 summary skills to the ability to write essays and professional articles”. So, the students have to give maximum effort to do well in writing especially when it is not their first language. Teachers of EFL context use different strategies to help the students to develop their writing skill. It is proved from some early researches that using different types of techniques, approaches and theories have the positive effect for developing students’ writing skill. In an experimental study on Turkish students, Ozdemir and Aydin (2015) showed the effects of blogging in developing English writing skill. In another research, Hasan and Labonya (2016) claimed that the use of facebook had an effect to develop students’ English reading and writing skills. Caicedo Triviño (2016) conducted an action research on the effectiveness of cooperative learning approach in developing English writing skill, and the result showed that it helped the students to improve their English writing skill. Podder (2018) conducted a research on 30 first year Bachelor of Education hon’s students of Govt. Teachers’ Training College, Dhaka, Bangladesh who uploaded posts, commented on those posts and edited those posts to practice their English writing. The results showed that ‘the English writing skill of those who continued the facebook activities improved significantly’ (Podder, 2018, p.49). So, different strategies are taken to develop students’ English language skills and most of the time these work well. The study context is Feni Government College, Bangladesh which is 165 kilometers distance from the capital of the country. Due to the lack of sufficient institutional facilities, new approaches of learning cannot be implemented in the classroom of this college. Here, most of the teachers of English department conduct classes using traditional teaching method (Grammar-Translation Method) instead of modern teaching approach (Communicative Language Teaching) though the textbook (English for Today) demands CLT. But it is a challenge for implementing CLT in the classroom because of some reasons; large classroom is one of the main reasons for implementing CLT. In this institution, everyday more than 250 students present in their regular class schedule. Therefore, besides the everyday class schedule, we wanted to develop the first year college students’ (grade 11) writing skill by using two theoretical ideas as well as well we wanted to know how theoretical ideas work on them. 2. Theoretical Framework Learning theory shows how learning occurs and it gives explanation about practice. It is said that ‘nothing is so practical as a good theory’ (Merriam & Bierema, 2014, p.25). Moreover, it allows teachers to critically reflect on their practice in the classroom. It helps teachers with basic methods of enquiry that are used for revealing and looking at the beliefs, presumptions and qualities with an ideological and political agenda 122 which regularly decide how instructors sort out their techniques in the classroom (Higgs, 2013). The theory constructivism pointed to the individualistic learning style which depends on the personal opinion and logical explanation. The theory asserts that we comprehend new learning as we encounter with various experiences and information about the society in our ongoing life(Jia, 2010). Moreover, in the paper Jia (2010) claims that the theory asserts that when we experience something new, we need to assemble it with our past thoughts and experience to accept it as new learning or rejecting the new information as irrelevant. Constructivism is an active process(Jia, 2010). In 2000, Tam(as cited in Olusegun, 2015) listed some following basic characteristics of Constructivist Learning Environments which must be measured when implementing constructivist instructional strategies: 1) Knowledge will be shared between teachers and students. 2) Teachers and students will share domain. 3) The teacher’s role is one of a facilitator or guide. 4) Learning groups will consist of small numbers of heterogeneous students. All the above characteristics are commonly profound in the constructivists classes (Olusegun, 2015). Supporting the fact, Zone of Proximal Development is associated with the term of constructivism which emphasizes the role of social interaction in development and learning (Verenikina, 2010). Verenikina advocates the view of Vygotsky which is ‘good learning’ occurs in the Zone of Proximal Development (2010). 2.1 Theoretical Idea 1: Scaffolding The term ‘scaffolding’ is metaphorically used in learning context. It refers the support which students get in their instruction from their parents, teachers, and mentors at the time of learning new skills. It is used in the way where “teachers orpeers supply students with the tools they need in order to learn” (Jacobs, 2001, p.125).The support is temporary but it helps the students todevelop their knowledge. As a metaphorical term in the learning context, ‘scaffolding’ was first used byWood, Bruner and Ross (1976). ‘Scaffolding’ means the assistance that the students get at the time of learning when they cannot learn by themselves. In classroom, generally, teacher gives this assistance to the students so that they can develop their new understanding, new concept, and new knowledge. When students acquire these learning, teacher stops that support so that they can perform by themselves. According to Rasmussen (2001), scaffolding refers to understand “a form ofsupport for the development and learning of children and young people” (p.570). 123 2.2 Rationale for Choosing Scaffolding Scaffolding is used in education to make the learning easy. Since the term was first introduced by Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976), it is being used in many learning contexts and educational researches. Hammond and her colleagues (2002) stated that scaffolding is important and it is needed in language and literacy education. Donovan and Smolkin (2002) conducted a study on 24 children at the issue of scaffolding where they investigated different levels of scaffolding in children’s writing. The researchers developed a series of tasks to investigate what the children knew about the school genres, stories and informational texts as well as to know the connections among development, task, and genre knowledge. Children were supported little with “a prompt to write a made-up story” and the findings revealed that “while scaffolding can assist children it may also, at times, hinder children in demonstrating their full range of genre knowledge” (Donovan & Smolkin, 2002, p.429).So, it is clear that little support helps the students to develop their skills. According to Mercer (1994), “Scaffolding represents the kind and quality of cognitive support which an adult can provide for a child’s learning, which anticipates the child’s own internalisation of mental functions” (p.96).Many researchers have argued that scaffolding can be used too largely in education. Pea (2004) also claimed that “the concept of scaffolding has become so broad in its meanings in the field of educational research and the learning sciences that it has become unclear in its significance” (p.423).Both in L1 and L2 contexts, English-writing theories have greatly impact on classroom practice (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996). So, scaffolding may have an effect on the students’ writing development as English for Today (Classes 11-12) has designed based on CLT approach where teacher has to play the role of facilitators. Moreover, it is easy for the teacher to support the student in large classroom like Bangladeshi government colleges. 2.3 Critical Discussion of Scaffolding’s Impact on Teaching Many educational researches were conducted to know the impact of scaffolding on teaching. Most of the researchers claimed that scaffolding influenced teaching greatly. In a case study, Barnard and Campbell (2005) wanted to know “how scaffolding can be affected by teachers and students” (p.76). At the beginning of the study, the researchers gave their reviews on ZPD, scaffolding, and appropriation to help the reader to understand the concepts of sociocultural theory. As a case study, they selected an undergraduate EAP (English for Academic Purposes) course at the University of Waikato in New Zealand where scaffolding was adopted for teaching EAP writing. They also critically viewed the course and found that the adequate activities helped the students’ academic writing as they had to co-construct texts, helping each other to revise drafts, making versions for inter-group feedback and finally 124 to write individual assignments. In another research, Woodward-Kron (2007) investigated on scaffolding learning when faculty-based language advisers and non-English speaking background (NESB) postgraduate students worked together to develop students’ texts. The research was conducted in a context where English language and academic support were provided to the students by the advisor (the researcher herself). In this research, students were asked for individual writing consultationsand to audiotape the consultations that were discussed during the consultation by the advisor.The findings showed that the writing support was a dynamic exchange and “the individual consultation has potential for the scaffolding of student’s writing development” (Woodward-Kron, 2007, p.265). In another research, Van de Pol, Volman and Beishuizen (2010) analysed 66 educational research articles in scaffolding and the results showed that ‘scaffolding is effective’ (p.271). So, from the discussed literature, we believed that scaffolding might have a positive effect on Bangladeshi students and here it might be worked better as it worked well in many EFL contexts. Therefore, we chose scaffolding for the students to develop their writing skill. 2.4 Theoretical Idea 2: ZPD To challenge the psychometric-based testing in Russian schools Vygotsky in 1962 presented the idea of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Fania & Ghaemib, 2011). Vygotsky had seen learning distinct from development which may prompt improvement and ZPD is the reflection that portrays the process and potential impact of learning on advancement (Rezaee & Azizi, 2012). The ZPD is distinguished as the blank space between what students have effectively perceived, their real dimension of improvement, and what they can accomplish when with instructive and educational help, called potential advancement (Rezaee & Azizi, 2012). The ZPD shows the distinction between the ability of child to take care of issues without anyone else, and his ability to resolve them alongside getting help. In fact, in formative dimension what a child is able to do alone can be referred to as developmental level. Then again, ZPD offers a platform of processing for any activity with the help of teacher, a parent, caretaker, language instructor or another peer who is sufficiently knowledgeable regarding the particular function (Christmas, Kudzai & Josiah, 2013).In other words, it can be said that the Zone of Proximal Development indicates the functions that have not yet matured but are in the process of maturation. Rogoff (as cited in Christmas et al. 2013) points out that the ZPD is a dynamic region of sensitivity to learning the skills of culture, in which children develop through participation in problem solving with more experienced members of a group. Vygotsky's ZPD reflects his view on the idea of human 125 development and interrelation between learning and development. The primary objective of Vygotsky’s ZPD was indicated Shabani, Khatib, Ebadi (2010). According to the paper Vygotsky’s primary concern were as follows: 1. To identify specifically human aspects of behavior and cognition via genetic analysis methodology 2. Psychological tools, particularly language, were of primary concern (Shabani, et al., 2010) Vygotsky shows that advancement cannot be isolated from its social and social setting, so the best way to investigate mental procedures is through understanding Vygotsky's idea of intervention that made a leap forward in belief of comprehension regarding the improvement of students (Shabani, et al., 2010). The study of Verenikina (2003) took a consideration of the conditions for the tools that have been created in ZPD to be internalized. In other words, the study outperformed those techniques what have been used to ensure the transformation of assisted performance into autonomous performance (Verenikina, 2003). In sum up, the drawn up line is Vygotsky's (1978, 1986) idea of ZPD sets up two formative dimensions for the student: the actual developmental level, which is defined by what the student can do alone, and the potential level of development, which is set up to observe what the student can do when helped by a grown-up or professional-skilled companion (Guerrero & Villamill, 2000). Zone of Proximal Development is interrelated with other theories of learning which make it valuable by itself. Firstly, one aspect of ZPD in language acquisition is the role of corrective feedback. In general analysts believe that corrective feedback has a role to play in second language (L2) learning (Shabani, Khatib, Ebadi, 2010). Moreover, it shows up that successful platform relies upon how skillfully the interaction between the activity and the learners is taking place in an environment which is also related with the concept of ZPD (Guerrero & Villamill, 2000). So, by implying ZPD in the lesson plan we can analyses the outcome based on other theory like corrective feedback. Secondly, it was revealed in the operationalization theory of ZPD that the ZPD is neither a property of the learning condition nor of the students; it is a property of the cooperation between the two (Rezaee & Azizi, 2012). This view supports the teaching method of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, students are taught through following the features of CLT where teacher is facilitator by creating an environment for the learners in a pair or in group. As a cause, by applying ZPD as a theory in the lessons we can develop the language competency of students. Under the light of Vygotsky's meaning of ZPD can be defined as a method to deal the capacity of youths’ proficiency level. In many cases, L2 classes are filled 126 up with grown-up students (Ohta, 2005). Ohta finds that in reality, adult companion of L2 learning setup are less capable than professionals which made ZPD more suitable for L2 learning environment (2005). Supporting the fact, the adapted definition of ZPD can be cited from Fania and Ghaemib (2011) as they confirmed “the ZPD is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by individual linguistic production, and the level of potential development as determined through language produced collaboratively with a teacher or peer”. The adjusted definition expresses that the ZPD is the separation between the actual constructive dimension as controlled by individual linguistic production, and the dimension of potential improvement. In the context of Bangladesh, the situation is same as our students find English as a foreign language (Jahan &Jahan, 2008). In this way, the ZPD is useful for them to comprehend and get familiar with the language effectively. Then, by communicating within a context and watching others in it, children learn social standards and social conventions that assist to shape who they are. Thus teachers are to assist students with learning in profound way through collaborating with others. It is useful to show students how to learn without any assistance. Practically, the successful accomplishment of these possibly make students independent and self- coordinated. Rather than depending on another person, students will figure out how to support themselves and how to internalize it. In this way, the internalization of learning as a fact is working for choosing this theory in the write-up. Zone of Proximal Development is always appreciated for its theoretical demand. Many studies have shown ZPD’s impact on teaching practically (Guerrero & Villamill, 2000; Shabani,et al., 2010; Fani & Ghaemib, 2011; Shoari and Aidinlou, 2015) which makes it important in the field of teaching language. It was shown in the study of Rezaee and Azizi that the learners learn better and deeper if they are taught language components, e.g., adverbs, based on their ZPD (2012). Assisted versus unassisted performance is a recognizing point of instructing which must be reclassified as assisted performance and teaching accomplished through the ZPD of children (Guerrero & Villamill, 2000). The consequences of the examination conducted by Shoari and Aidinlou (2015) are in agreement with the perspective on Vygotsky’s a child's performance in following up on an errand with the guide of others would surpass what she or he may manage without help. He trusts that this potential performance is only conceivable inside the Zone of Proximal Development (cited in Sidek, 2011). Moreover, the term is adapted in a new form for teaching the teachers as well as for their professional development. Vygotsky's concept of ZPD has as of late been utilized in teacher training(Warford, 2011). 127 Warford coins the term zone of the proximal instructor improvement (ZPTD). Nonetheless, it is important to comprehend that dissimilar to ZPD which begins with other-guideline ZPTD begins with instructors' self- framework and advances toward other-guideline(2011). A more profound comprehension of the hypothetical fact of the metaphor, scaffolding and ZPTD will advance its imaginative and educated use by instructors (Fani & Ghaemib, 2011). It is claimed that a teacher's lecture can oblige as a scaffold upon which learners can build new knowledge functioning as assistance in their ZPD,the capable peers' affectability to the students' ZPD is observed to be significantly more successful than the teacher's informative and explicit lecture (Khatib &Safa, 2014). This paper of Khatib andSafa (2014) introduced an examination of the analogy of scaffolding in its association with the Vygotskian idea of the zone of proximal advancement. Notwithstanding the undeniable constraints of the metaphor contrasted with the idea of the ZPD, platform remains progressively well known among instructors - researchers and professionals. 3. Lesson Plans Planning gives the instructor more noteworthy affirmation and more noteworthy opportunity in teaching. It accommodates satisfactory lesson summaries, guarantees an unmistakable task for class, and accessibility of materials for exercise when required (Tuyen, 2015). It empowers the educator to know the most alluring way of showing techniques and prepare activities of progress and checks for making a decision about the results of instruction. It animates the teacher to present essential inquiries and illustrations. Generally, the above factors decide teaching effectiveness; teachers should consider when they plan a lesson to meet students’ needs and the curriculum goals (Tuyen, 2015).Three lessons were taken from English for Today (NCTB, 2015) and the lesson plans format was adopted from Teachers’ Curriculum Guide (NCTB, 2017). The topics taught in three classes included Unit One: People or Institutions Making History, Lesson 3: Two Women; Unit Two: Traffic Education, Lesson 2: Traffic Capital of the World; andUnit Four: Human Relationships, Lesson 2: Etiquette and Manners. These lesson plans were used for this study to teach first year students (grade 11) of Feni Government College, Bangladesh. The following lesson plan is an example of the three lesson plans to show the readers: 128 Lesson Plan: 1 Lesson Plan Class: XISubject:English for Today Duration: 90 minutes Unit One: People or Institutions Making Date: 04.04.2019 History Time: 2.00pm – 3.30pm Lesson 3: Two Women Learning Strategies/Teaching- Assessment Theoretical outcomes: By learning activities for learning Framework the end of the lesson, the Ss will be able to Warmer Scaffolding 10 mins. 1.Show some images ZPD of space downloaded from Internet and the pictures of Valentina Tereshkova and Kalpana Chawla. Then ask the following questions: Do you know the images and the persons? Who are the well- known astronauts? What do you know about these two women? 2.Tell Ss that they are going to study about the women – Valentina Tereshkova and Kalpana Chawla 129 1. Read for Section A 25mins. comprehension and answer 3. Tell the Ss to read questions the text 4. Continuous monitoring while reading 5. Help with them to ZPD complete Activity 2 6. Ask them to complete the sentences (Activity 3) with the help from the passage Scaffolding 7. Askthe Ss to read the passage again in groups (Activity 4) 8. Tell the Ss to find out the true statements from Activity 4 9.Check answers and give feedback Section B 25 Checking Scaffolding mins. students’ 2. Ask and comprehension answer 10. Ask Ss to do of passage questions Activity 5 - Read the given sentences - Find out the right answer for each sentence 11. Ask to do pair work for Activity 6 and7 in following manner: -Discuss in pair - Complete the sentences and find out the answers with the 130 help of passage - Identify some famous women in our country and why they are famous for 12. Tell Ss to peer- check 3. Writing Section C 30 Checking the essay mins. writing and solving it 13. Ask to write Scaffolding Activity-8 which will ZPD be completed in following manner: - Find out the areas of similarities and write down 5 sentences - Find out the areas of dissimilarities and write down 5 sentences -Continuous monitoring -Random Checking and feedback 14. Write a paragraph aboutTereshkova and Chawla (Activity 9)at home as per correction Self-reflection 1. What went well? 2. What did not go well? Why? 3. What measures can be taken to improve the writing class in future? 131 3.1 Critical Reflections on Teaching the Lessons Reflective teaching is an approach of taking a deep thought in the classroom about: the process of teaching, learning, evaluating, self- awareness, reasons of choosing content, outcome of teaching, and scope of further improvement (Moon, as cited in McSweeney, 2014). It bears its importance by showing the strengths and weakness of the complete process of teaching which is helpful for professional development of teachers (McSweeney, 2014). Moreover, McSweeney(2014)advocates that teachers’ imbued with the attitude of reflective teaching in their classroom can support instructors as well as intelligently expert and encourage these qualities in their students. For this study, we invited first year students to take part in three 90- minute classes in three days besides their daily class schedule. More than 150 students attended the class though total number of students was more than 250 in regular classes. In the first class, we welcomed the students and gave a brief about the classes. In the warmer section, we showed some pictures about the space and two women astronauts so that they got some ideas about the women. This support helped them to predict and describe the pictures. Here scaffolding helped to motivate the students as many of them gave nearly correct answers. Later we made them clear about the pictures and the lesson by introducing the two astronauts Valentina Tereshkova and Kalpana Chawla. Although the two women were not familiar in this context, some of the students became interested but some of them felt bored. While they were gone through the text, we were continuously monitoring them and helping them when it was needed. At the time of doing activities, some students felt difficulties because of some new vocabularies. So, we helped them with the meaning of those vocabularies which motivated them to do the activities. One by one, they completed all activities which helped them to gather information about the two astronauts of the text. All the activities of Section C were writing based and activity 14 was like an argumentative easy, and they did better because the previous activities and teacher’s support helped them. Therefore, it was seen that both scaffolding and ZPD helped them to develop their current level knowledge and skill in writing. In the second class, the warmer section was curious part as we got idea about the current level knowledge of the students regarding the topic traffic capital and traffic education. Since students of Bangladesh have little concern about the traffic education, we described the definition of traffic education. This section gave us the idea of students’ current level of understanding which is related to the theory of Zone of Proximal Development (Rezaee & Azizi, 2012). Moreover, students learnt lessons with an instructor through brainstorming which is connected with ZPD (Christmas et al., 2013).In section A and B, we felt active movements in 132 the classroom as the students started reading the passage. After completing the passage, students did various activities. In this section, we were continuously monitoring and providing all help to teach the students about traffic capital and assessing their learning level through various activities. Students were working on their writing skill and got feedback to finish the activity. We observed that in these sections students became more independent in lessons. Since we (teacher) were helping providing accessories to learn the lesson plan met the goal of scaffolding (Rasmussen, 2001).In final section, we found that students writing ability needed to test through essay writing as students were able to find reasons and logic. Moreover, students were guided by me through random checking and feedback. In the time of thirty minutes, majority of students were able to finish the essay. Finally, in sum up we want to say that the section C was guiled with theory of ZPD and scaffolding. By checking the copies, students’ proficiency level about traffic capital is improved which proof of the applied theory of ZPD as it is showed the difference between previous level and current level of proficiency (Guerrero & Villamill, 2000). In the last class, we started the class with two interesting questions related with the lesson since the class was going to continue for a long duration of time. As manners and etiquettes are important in Bangladesh, we knew the questions will be likeable. Meanwhile it helped to assess background of students regarding the topic which was related with theory - ZPD. In ZPD knowing students current level of proficiency is mandatory (Guerrero & Villamill, 2000).In next, Section A students were reading the text to solve mentioned activities while we was monitoring continuously. During this section we found that students were enjoying the text as the content was similar to their life. While checking the random copies we felt that the students tried to bring up their experience about manner in the society they live in. So, giving feedback became easier for a native English teacher like me. Meanwhile, Section A was dependent on the theory of scaffolding since students were performing with the help of teacher which is a crucial factor of scaffolding (Jacobs, 2001).Similarly, in Section B, students did activity and got feedback through their pair. Since students were writing five sentences about manners and etiquettes, finding grammatical mistakes was easier. This section was connected with the theory of scaffolding as it was peer work involved with teacher’s instruction (Jacobs, 2001). In final section, it was about finding the level of writing improvement of students which was completed through easy writing. Students were guided by us through random checking and feedback. In the time of thirty- five minutes, majority of students were able to complete the essay by using their background knowledge. Finally, in sum up, we want to say that the section C was guiled with theory of ZPD and scaffolding. By checking the 133 copies, students’ proficiency level about etiquettes is developed which proof the applied theory of ZPD as it is showed the improvement level of students by engaging students with a professional within a perfect setting(Shabani, et al., 2010). Moreover, as students stood up to success after getting careful guidance, this proved the point of scaffolding- guidance (Donovan & Smolkin, 2002). At the end of the third lesson, students were assessed through a summative assessment contents taken from the three taught lessons. The summative assessment was done with descriptive questions which basically tested writing skill. 3.2 Outcomes of the Lesson Plans While taking a class, we observed something unusual regarding our given task to students. It appears that some students did not get any interest in the task. The idea of mixed ability students did not come to our mind as traffic education is a difficult topic without any humour. It was happened that some students had finished the task earlier while some other groups did not complete the task in time. Some of the groups had found out the task easier than their level. Difficult text also cause problematic for management of classroom. Students spoke a lot in the class which hampers the teaching atmosphere. To control the class, we need to reflect on our strictness in the class. In Bangladesh, we have to deal with a large classand controlling the students became a great task for the teacher (Jahan& Jahan, 2008). We needed to find out the strategies of making discipline in the class. With all weakness, our evaluation indicated that our goal was successful as majority of the students completed the tasks within stipulated time. Since the topic of the lesson was not alluring for the students, they disturbed and felt difficulty to understand the text. We achieved the goal of the lessons as students were feeling free in the classroom. They were writing their experiences in their surroundings regarding the topic which was very impressive. Students’ voluntary participation in the classwork is the strength of the teaching which also relates the theory of ZPD as students start to show mastery on the particular topic after getting help from a professional (Rezaee & Azizi, 2012; Guerrero & Villamill, 2000). Students’ explanation about the definition of manner was impressive. They find the tasks enjoyable. Before applying this technique, it may occur that time is not moving. After using the technique of pair feedback work, the class time went so fast and the students did not feel bored which is also important in the theory of ZPD. Asserting the theory of ZPD,Shabani, et al. (2010) told that peers play the obsolete role in the completion of ZPD. Students also felt that they also belonged to the class. They had their presence in the class because we listened to their problems during monitoring to support the theory of scaffolding as guidance is mandatory in it (Jacobs, 2001). 134 However, assigning no homework for the students was one of the weaknesses of the lesson. 3.3 Teachers’ Reflections Teacher’s reflection is necessary for any important segment of education. Teachers should be reflective practitioners since their observations can change the educational programs with higher quality of education (Zeichner & Liston, 2011). We enjoyed three classes with a bunch of fresh students. Majority of the students were involved in the lessons to complete given activities. The classes were based on three different lessons containing three different themes. Students felt difficulty within new class duration at first class which had changed at the end of the lessons. All the lessons were practiced with a variety of activities which were completed in the stipulated time. However, class control was a big issue when the contents were less interesting for the students. For example, students were not motivated about two women astronauts and felt bored about traffic education. Since the focused skill was writing, authentic material and technology became insignificant. So, students started to disturb in the class which was stopped with strictness. We have achieved the aim and objective as majority of the students outperformed in the classes. Teacher is a role model for a student. For this reason, theresearchers tried to cope up with students through monitoring and communicating with them. 4. Conclusion Changes are not always welcomed by many people. However, the changes in delivery of lessons were positively received by the students of Feni Government College, Bangladesh. The use of theoretical ideas in the lesson plans has brought positive changes in teaching and learning activities where students have got the chance to develop their current level of knowledge and skills. They got support from us when they were doing the activities at the beginning of the lessons, and later it was seen that they independently completed other activities. Here both scaffolding and ZPD were reflected which helped the students in achieving the learning objectives of the three lessons. That the students were benefitted from scaffolding and ZPD was evident during formative and summative assessment. The topics of the first two lessons were difficult for many students but later on they were scaffolded by the teacher; and then they worked in groups; and they performed significantly better. We hope, if scaffolding and ZPD are used in the lesson plans in future, the quality of the teaching will improve and thus students will also be benefitted in learning English writing skill better. 135 What we learnt from the teaching of the three lessons is that, theoretical ideas increased the quality of the teaching through the engagement of students in different activities such as pair work and group work in which the students were supported when and if necessary. Additionally, it was easier for better management the large classes making a teacher more confident to cause and manage students’ learning. References Alsamdani, H.A. (2010). The relationship between Saudi EFL students’writing competence, L1 writing proficiency, and self- regulation.European Journal of Social Science, 16(1), 53-63. Barnard, R., & Campbell, L. (2005). Sociocultural theory and the teaching of process writing: The scaffolding of learning in a university context. The TESOLANZ Journal, 13, 76-88. 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(2010). Scaffolding in teacher–student interaction: A decade of research. Educational psychology review, 22(3), 271-296. Verenikina, I. (2010). Vygotsky in Twenty-First-Century research. In J. Herrington & B. Hunter (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (pp. 16-25). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Verenikina, I. (2003). Understanding Scaffolding and the ZPD in Educational Research. Retrieved 14 April, 2019, fromhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/267778614_Underst anding_Scaffolding_and_the_ZPD_in_Educational_Research Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (2011). Reflective Teaching: An Introduction. UK. Routledge 138 Method to Postmethod: A Review of Kumaravadivelu’s Arguments in ELT Khandoker Montasir Hassan1 Md. Niaz Alamgir2 Abstract For many years, the goal of language pedagogy was to find the right method— a methodological magic formula that would work for all learners at all times (Brown, 1994). On the other hand, in the late twentieth century, the legitimacy of the concept of method came under questions. Some ELT practitioners and theorists began to express their dissatisfaction with the methods and approaches. Nunan (1991), e.g., asserts that there never was and probably never will be a method for all. Some go even further to assert that “the best approach” does not exist at all, because different teaching contexts ask for different approaches (Prabhu, 1990). This dissatisfaction of a group of scholars with the concept of method leads the way to a shift in paradigm: from the era of method to an era of postmethod. The present article attempts to shed lights and deconstruct the concept of method, describe the reasons of antimethod sentiments, and delineate the emerging postmethod condition. It then presents Kumaravadivelu’s arguments for a postmethod condition as an alternative to method. Finally, Kumaravadivelu’s argumentfor a postmethod condition is followed by a critical analysis offered by different researchers. Keywords: Method, postmethod pedagogy, Kumaravadivelu, ELT 1. Introduction In response to the shortcomings of methods, and as an attempt to compensate for such shortcomings Kumaravadivelu (2001) has argued the need for a postmethod pedagogy that would be developed within the parameters of particularity, practicality and possibility. In fact, along with postcolonialism, postmodernism, poststructuralism and a host of other ‘posts’, in the area of English language learning and teaching, we have recently reached the postmethod era (one of the offspring of ‘globalization’, Kumaravadivelu, 2012), a new phase in its history. It dates 1 Associate Professor, English, Institute of Modern Languages, Jagannath University, Dhaka-1100, Bangladesh; Email:

2 Assistant Professor, English, Institute of Modern Languages, Jagannath University, Dhaka-1100, Bangladesh; Email:

139 back to the idea of eclecticism or beyond method (Richards, 1990), which can be called the first criticism to the idea of method and the rigidity it posits. 2. The Concepts of Method and Methodology Language teaching, as defined by Adamson (2004), is a complex undertaking. It is “an enterprise that is shaped by views of the nature of language, of teaching and learning a language specifically, and of teaching and learning in general; and by the sociocultural settings in which the enterprise takes place” (p. 604), and the particular section of applied linguistics that deals with theorizing these views of language, education, and language education is known as ‘methods’. Again, these different theoretical standpoints or views have made the abundance of methods and consequently, led to the emergence of a field of study – which is described as methodology (Adamson, 2004). Richards and Rodgers (2001) describe ‘methods’ in terms of three levels: approach, design, and procedure. The approach refers to the underpinning theory of language and of language learning; the design covers the specification of linguistic content and the roles of the teacher, learners, and instructional materials; while procedure means the techniques and activities that are used in the classroom. From this description of methods, Adamson (2004) suggests that methods can be analysed as scientific constructs – the products of theorising or reflective practice; or, alternatively, methods can be viewed as curricular resolutions, given the interplay between methods and aspects of the curriculum, such as planned objectives, syllabus specifications, types of resources, the roles of teachers, learners and materials, and actual teaching and learning practices. Similarly, according to McDonough (2002) “method includes all the elements of planning: techniques, exercise, activity, time distribution, learning plan, syllabus, level of proficiency, classroom organization, resource management” (p.106). In this sense, he defines method as “the embodiment of general principles in pedagogic decision making” (p. 106). Larsen-Freeman (2000) subsumes method under principles and techniques. The principles refer to the theoretical framework of the method: a set of insights derived from theoretical and applied linguistics, while the techniques refer to what occurs in the classroom; that is, the activities and procedures derived from the application of the principles. Thus, different commentators offer different frameworks for describing methods and approaches, and in the second half of the twentieth century, we have experienced different definitions of methods. “Harmer, for example,sees approach as the most general term and this is realised in terms of methods, realised in their turn by procedures, which in turn are realised through techniques. In 140 contrast, Richards and Rodgers )2001( use the term method as their super-ordinate, which is then realised at various levels from the most theoretical, approach, through design to the most practical, procedure”) Badger and Yan, 2008; p.4(. Again, according toAdamson (2004) the term “methodology” tends to be employed loosely in language teaching and it is commonly used interchangeably with “method” and “pedagogy.” “Methodology denotes the study of the system or range of methods that are used in teaching, while a method is a single set of practices and procedures, derived from theory or theorization of practice, that impinges upon the design of a curriculum plan, resources, and teaching and learning activities” (Adamson, 2004; p. 604). However, he (Adamson, 2004) also states thatmethodology may include methods that might be developed and employed by just one teacher, provided there is a principled rationale from which the set procedures of the method have been distilled. Thus, method means different things to different people. For some, it means a set of procedures; for others, the avoidance of some teaching procedures. For some, it is the primacy of a language skill; for others, it is the type and the amount of vocabulary and structure (Masouleh, 2012). For this reason McDonough (2002) has rightly mentioned that ‘method’ in language teaching is a multiply ambiguous term. Finally, the way Bell (2003) has tried to define the term method from three distinct meanings seems conclusive to the present researchers. Bell (2003) offers the following three somewhat distinct meanings to deconstruct the term methods: “Definition 1: Smorgasbord of Ideas: Methods with a lowercase m means a grab bag of classroom practices; Definition 2: Prescription for Practice: Methods with an uppercase M seems to mean a fixed set of classroom practices that serve as a prescription and therefore do not allow variation; and, Definition 3: Organizing Principles: Richards and Rodgers (2001) write about methods as an umbrella term comprising approach, design, and procedure” (pp. 326- 327). 3. The Search for the Best Method The value of ‘method or approach’ for successful learning and teaching of a language is always a matter of debate as Masouleh (2012) states, “although the question of how to teach languages has been debated for centuries, the conceptualization of language teaching in terms of teaching methods has been the heated debate of the last century” (p. 67). The search for new methods (what Brown, 2002, described as our century- 141 old obsession) might have begun around 1880 with Francois Gouin’s publication of The Art of Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in which his series method was advocated. It seems the commonest solution for the teacher to cope with the demands of students in class lies in the adoption of a new teaching approach or method (Masouleh, 2012). While the advocates of the method consider it as the cause of success and failure in language teaching, for others, little importance was assigned to methods. To one group of educationists, theorists and writers, for the purpose of successful teaching and learning, selection of an appropriate method is essential in every language whereas the others deny its importance in language teaching and learning. For example, according to Jewad & Verma, (2014) for language teachers, use of methods as a guiding principle is important as the method anchors the design of teaching plans, learning activities, instructional materials and evaluation techniques. Richards and Rodgers )2001( state, “the quality of language teaching will improve if teachers use the best available approaches and methods” )p. 15(. Modern research also indicates that if proper and suitable methods and techniques are used, even the students of normal intelligence can easily learn )Kousar, 2010(. In fact, some of the researchers consider the role of methods in language teaching so important that they even value method as proportionate to the performance of the students. Joukoulian,(2016), for example, argue that discovering the methodology that suits students best is the most important element in the process of teaching especially, when it comes to teaching English as a foreign language, and because of this obsession with methods, “the history of language teaching has been characterised by search for more effective or efficient ways of teaching second or foreign languages and new approaches and methods proliferated throughout the twentieth century” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. viii). The origins of new methods lie in a discontent with an existing state of affairs, Johnson and Marrow (as cited in Ahmed & Rao, 2013, p. 95). This picture of the emergence of new approaches and methods and their replacement by methods based on newer or more appealing ideas and theories has been mentioned by Albert Marckwardt (1972) as a ‘cyclical pattern’. Brown has summarised it as follows: “A glance through the past century or so of language teaching gives us an interesting picture of how varied the interpretations have been of the best way to teach a foreign language. As schools of thought have come and gone, so have language teaching methods waxed and waned in popularity” (Brown, 1994, p. 14). 142 4. The Demise of Method As Kumaravadivelu (2006) describes the exact number of methods conceptualized by theorists is not clear. A book published in the mid- sixties, for instance, provides a list of fifteen 'most common' types of methods, still in use in one form or another in various parts of the world' (Mackey 1965, p. 151). Two books that were published in the mid-eighties (Larsen-Freeman 1986 and Richards & Rodgers 1986) – included a list of eleven methods that are currently used. They are (in alphabetical order): Audiolingual Method, Communicative Methods, Community Language Learning, Direct Method, Grammar-Translation Method, Natural Approach, Oral Approach, Silent Way, Situational Language Teaching, Suggestopedia, and Total Physical Response. Thus, the last century experienced a ‘cyclical pattern’ (Albert Marckwardt, 1972) of the rise and fall of the abundance of methods. However, in the late twentieth century the legitimacy of the concept of method came under questions. The major criticisms of the concepts of method, what some researchers even declare it as thedemise of methods are as follows: Nunan (1991, p. 3), for example, has a strong reservation about the value of methods as he states: “Despite their diversity, all methods have one thing in common. They all assume that there is a single set of principles which will determine whether or not learning will take place. Thus, they all propose a single set of precepts for teacher and learner classroom behavior, and assert that if these principles are faithfully followed they will result in learning for all. Unfortunately, little evidence has been forthcoming to support one approach rather than another or to suggest that it is the method rather than some other variable which caused learning to occur”. According to Brown (2002; as cited in Ziafar & Namaziandost, 2019; p. 30): There are four reasons for the demise of methods: “(I) Methods are prescriptive, i.e., they presume what context is, before even the method has been introduced to any context; (II) Methods are distinguishable from each other at the beginning levels, but gradually they lose their uniqueness and very much look like each other; (III) It has been discovered that methods are not empirically testable, given the ‘artful’ and ‘intuitive’ nature of language pedagogy; (IV) Methods are tools for linguistic imperialism by the ‘powerful center’ to the disadvantage of the disempowered periphery”. 143 Trying to identify the answer of the question, why has methodology failed to provide a clear set of precepts to language teachers? Adamson (2004) argues,one reason is that language and education are both highly complex phenomena riven with tensions that defy an all-embracing theory. He (Adamson , 2004) further mentions that even methods as widely conceived as task-based learning – fail to take into account the totality of learning contexts, which are embedded in macro-, meso-, and micro-sociocultural conditions that defy the generalizations that lie behind the promotion of particular methods. Also, systemic pressures, such as examination changes or school inspections, may bring about superficial adjustments to a teacher’s pedagogy, but many teachers resent being asked or forced to discard beliefs about methods that they have acquired through experience at the chalkface. Stern (1992, p. 277; as cited in Adamson, 2004; pp. 616-617) observes: “It is particularly important that in the development of a policy for teaching procedures we learn to operate with flexible sets of concepts which embody any useful lessons we can draw from the history of language teaching but which do not perpetuate the rigidities and dogmatic narrowness of the earlier methods concept.” Finally, the dissatisfaction with the concept of method what the postmethodologists declare as the ‘death-knell for methodology’ has mainly emerged from the inability of methodology to cater for the diverse contexts in which second or foreign languages are learnt. This has given rise to attention in the literature and it has also become a matter of important concern and area of investigation to find an alternative to method. As mentioned earlier, Prabhu (1990) argued that there is no best method and that what really matters is the need for teachers to learn “to operate with some personal conceptualization of how their teaching leads to desired learning—with a notion of causation that has a measure of credibility for them” (p. 172). Henceforth, the majority of scholars were after an alternative to method instead of an alternative method (Kumaravadivelu, 2006) which ultimately leads the way to a shift in paradigm: from the era of method to an era of postmethod. 5. Kumaravadivelu’s Views on the Limitations of Method For Kumaravadivelu (1994), a method “consists of a single set of theoretical principles derived from feeder disciplines and a single set of classroom procedures directed at classroom teachers” (p. 29). The limited and limiting nature of the concept of method based on which Kumaravadivelu, (2006; p. 37) has delineated and validated the emergence of his proposed postmethod condition are as follows: 144 First and foremost, methods are founded on idealized concepts geared towards idealized contexts. Since language learning/teaching needs, wants and situations are unpredictably numerous, no idealized method can visualize all the variables in advance in order to provide situation-specific solutions that practising teachers sorely need to tackle the challenges they confront every day in their professional lives. Secondly, as a predominantly top-down exercise, the conception and construction of method have been largely guided by a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach that assumes a generic clientèle with common goals. Preoccupied with their potential global reach, methods have lacked an essential local touch. Clearly, methods that are manufactured and marketed as usable in all learning/teaching contexts cannot be useful to any learning/teaching context. Thirdly, not anchored in any specific learning/teaching context, and caught up in the whirlwind of fashion, methods tend to drift wildly from one theoretical extreme to the other. These extreme swings create conditions in which certain aspects of learning/teaching (such as grammar or meaning) get overly emphasized, while certain others are utterly ignored, depending on which way the wind blows. Finally, the concept of method is too inadequate and too limited to satisfactorily explain the complexity of language teaching operations. Concerned primarily and narrowly with classroom instructional strategies, it ignores the fact that the success or failure of classroom instruction depends to a large extent on the unstated and unstable interaction of multiple factors such as teacher cognition, learner perception, societal needs, cultural contexts, political exigencies, economic imperatives and institutional constraints, all of which are inextricably interwoven. 6. Antimethod Because of these limitations mentioned above, Kumaravadivelu (1994) claimed that going through the endless cycles of life, death and rebirth of methods created antimethod sentiments among teachers and teacher educators, and ultimately led them to a different drum where: “ (a) teachers who are trained in and swear by a particular method do not conform or confine themselves to its theoretical principles and classroom procedures, (b) teachers who claim to follow the same method often use different classroom procedures, (c) teachers who claim to follow different methods often use the same classroom procedures, and (d) over time, teachers develop and follow a carefully delineated task-hierarchy, a weighted sequence 145 of activities not necessarily associated with any established method” (p. 37). Thus, according to Kumaravadivelu (1994) we now seem to have reached a state of heightened awareness – an awareness that as long as we are caught up in the web of method, we will continue to get entangled in an unending search for an unavailable solution, an awareness that such a search drives us to continually recycle and repackage the same old ideas, and an awareness that nothing short of breaking the cycle can salvage the situation. Out of this awareness has emerged what he has called a 'postmethod condition, a search for an alternative to method rather than an alternative method. 7. Postmethod Accordingly, Kumaradivadilu (2006; as cited in Masouleh, 2012, p. 71) takes the principles of postmethod era a point of departure to propose a strategic framework for L2 teaching. Of course, this framework, as he claims, is offered not as a dogma for uncritical acceptance but as an option for critical appraisal. “The framework is composed of 10 macrostrategies that can operationalized in the classroom through microstrategies. 1. Maximize learning opportunities. 2. Facilitate negotiated interaction. 3. Minimize perceptual mismatches. 4. Activate intuitive heuristics. 5. Foster language awareness. 6. Contextualize linguistic input. 7. Integrate language skills. 8. Promote learner autonomy. 9. Ensure social relevance. 10. Raise cultural consciousness” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Such strategies are considered theory-neutral since they are not confined to any theory of language learning and teaching. What is plausible here is a shift in the role of teachers form disseminators to strategic teachers and strategic researchers. The teacher is not considered as a mere sender of information and the learner not as an empty vessel that must be filled. As Kumaravadivelu states a strategic teacher spends time reflecting on the process of learning and teaching; stretching their knowledge, skill and attitude to stay informed and involved (Masouleh, 2012, pp. 71-72). However, Postmethod condition was later enriched by Kumaravadivelu's (2003) and attempted to provide the fundamentals of the postmethod pedagogy as a three-dimensional system consisting of the pedagogic parameters of particularity, practicality, and possibility. The parameter of particularity according to Kumaravadivelu's (2003) is based 146 on the belief that any language teaching program “must be sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular sociocultural milieu” (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 538). In other words, it rejects the advocacy of a predetermined set of generic principles and procedures aimed at realizing a predetermined set of generic aims and objectives while as the parameter of practicality, postmethod pedagogy rejects the artificial dichotomy between theorists who have been assigned the role of producers of knowledge and teachers who have been assigned the role of consumers of knowledge. Instead, it seeks to rupture such a reified role relationship by enabling and encouraging teachers to theorize from their practice and practice what they theorize. Pedagogy of practicality aims for a teacher-generated theory of practice. This assertion is premised on a rather simple and straightforward proposition: No theory of practice can be useful and usable unless it is generated through practice (Kumaravadivelu, 2001). And, the parameter of possibility is derived mainly from Freirean critical pedagogy that seeks to empower classroom participants so that they can critically reflect on the social and historical conditions contributing to create the cultural forms and interested knowledge they encounter in their lives" (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Thus, these three frameworks besides ten macrostrategies epitomize primary principled efforts to transcend the limitations of the concept of method. 8. Criticisms against the Postmethod Pedagogy However, Kumaravadivelu’s (2001) proposed postmethod pedagogy within the parameters of particularity, practicality and possibility as an alternative to method has not yet been stopped the search for new methods rather the debate and developments around the methods of language teaching and learning are still going on. Moreover, the postmethod pedagogy has received a lot of criticisms in recent years. Some of the major criticisms against the postmethod pedagogy are as follows: As mentioned earlier, offering three distinct meanings to define the term methods Bell (2003) argues that Postmethod perspectives seem to focus on the smorgasbord and prescriptive senses of methods (as Richards and Rodgers, 2001 define methods as relatively Ž fixed in time, leave little scope for individual interpretation, and are learned through training) when they advocate abandoning methods in general. According to Bell (2003) defining methods like this ignore the evidence indicating that, despite its shortcomings, the concept of methods as prescription is still a salient one for classroom teachers (Block, 2001; Liu, 1995). They also ignore the idea that methods as organizing principles are important for understanding what TESOL professionals do. 147 Bell (2003) further asserts that-- “The postmethodologists’ claim that little of interest remains in prescriptive Methods is also defective as this argument ignores the huge influence that the core philosophies of community language learning, silent way, and suggestopedia have had on language teaching. Teachers, like Stevick (1998), who have closely studied these designer methods, Ž and that their core philosophies—the emphasis on socioaffective factors, student validation, self- realization and autonomy, peer support and interaction, and problem solving—still play a fundamental role in the classroom” (p. 329) According to Bell (2003) whereas the concept of method has been attacked for its positivist and progressivist view of the linear development of TESOL practices (Pennycook, 1989), the charge can equally be made against postmethod pedagogy. Another very important limitation of the postmethodology as Bell (2003) mentions although postmethod pedagogy seeks the higher ground by claiming to be an alternative to method it is derived on the local level from CLT and on the larger level from the ideas of postmodernist thinking. The post-method condition argues that language teachers are not to imprison themselves and their students in any method even an eclectic method. Unlike these plausible features, Akbari (2008) claims that the post-method is qualitatively not much different from method because both of them ignore or misrepresent the realities of the classroom and impose their own version of hypothetical reality Akbari (2008) further claims, “While method has ignored the realities of teaching and language teachers, post-method has ignored the realities of teaching and language teachers. By making too many demands of teachers, the post-method pedagogy, in practice, turned a blind eye to the social, political and cultural realities of language teaching contexts and the limits within which teachers operate” (p. 642). Critically analyzing the postmethod pedagogy from social semiotics and critical literacy perspectives, Kabgani and Zaferani ( 2013 ) state that from a social semiotic perspective, the postmethod pedagogy has adopted a monomodal orientation in which there is no room for considering other potential modes of meaning making, hence representing an incomplete picture of representational tools. On the other hand, from critical literacy perspective, the mentioned pedagogy has not offered a holistic insight into social issues of language learning. From the latter point of view, it is argued that overemphasizing the local issues of a given pedagogy can result in neglecting global ideologies being injected through the ways other than those of method based pedagogies. 148 Akbari (2008) further argues that the first and foremost problem postmethod encounters, is the one ‘the postmethod is taking language teaching beyond the realms of possibility and practice’ (645). In effect, postmethod is more of a philosophy than practice (as cited in Kamali, 2014, p. 826). He adds ‘through a process of marginalization and self- marginalization, teachers’ practical knowledge does not find the space and the scope to be regarded as visible, and consequently, fails to become part of the accepted knowledge of the discourse community’ (p. 645). Moreover, ‘the financial and occupational constraints the language teachers work within do not leave them with the time or the willingness to act as iconoclasts and social transformers’ (Akbari, 2008). Another limitation of the postmethod pedagogy as Kamali (2014) mentions that teachers are not only victims of postmethod but they could exploit this idea as an alibi to compensate for lack of knowledge. According to Akbari (2008), postmethod pedagogy has ignored the social and professional limitations teachers face in their day-to-day negotiation of identities of their practices because of the pedagogical and ideological barriers. Pedagogical barriers impose on prospective teachers a prescribed, preselected, and presequenced body of knowledge. Ideological barriers are formed due to the marginalization and selfmarginalization of teachers’ knowledge and experience that does not have the opportunity to be included as visible and acceptable in the discourse community. Adamson (2004) also mentions the issues: “although both principled eclecticism and pragmatism offer pedagogical strategies to teachers to respond to particular circumstances, the need for autonomy to employ these strategies is often in tension with systemic forces (such as the prescribed syllabus or the focus of examinations), with the design of available resources, and with many teachers’ limited access to relevant knowledge on which they might base their informed professional decisions” (p. 618). 9. Concluding Remarks Kumaravadivelu (1994) supports the idea that teachers should have the freedom of action in practicing their profession by making decisions on how to teach autonomously within imposed constraints of institutions, curricula and textbooks. Postmethod condition thus, promotes the ability of teachers to analyze and evaluate their teaching practices, to initiate change in the classroom and to observe the possible effects of these changes. It is advocated that empowering teachers and promoting teacher autonomy enable them to theorize from their practice and practice what they have theorized. Seemingly, these ideas are high sounding but we have 149 to remember the fact that along with ensuring freedom, it demands too much responsibility on part of the teachers. And, because of this reason, in a country like Bangladesh and other similar EFL settings, postmethod pedagogy may not be an alternative to method. Finally, the notion of postmethod pedagogy still remains theoretical and philosophical as there are not enough evidences of success of putting such theoretical ideas into actual classroom practices. References Adamson, B. (2004). Fashions in Language teaching methodology. In A. Davies & C. Elder (Eds.), The handbook of applied linguistics (1st ed., pp. 604-622). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Ahmad, S., & Rao, C. (2013).Applying communicative approach in teaching English as a foreign language: a case study of Pakistan.Porta Linguarum, 20(Junio 2013), 187-203. Akbari, R. (2008). Post-method discourse and practice.TESOL Quarterly, 42(4), 641-652. Badger, R., & Yan, X., (2008). To what extent is communicative language teaching a feature of IELTS classes in China?in IELTS Research Reports Volume 13, https://www.ielts.org Bell, D. (2003). Method and post-method: Are they really so incompatible? TESOL Quarterly, 37(2), pp. 325-336. Block, D. (2001). An exploration of the art and science debate in language education.In M. Bax & J.-W. Zwart (Eds.), Reflections on language and language learning: In honour of Arthur van Essen (pp. 63–74). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching (3rded.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Brown, H. D. (2002). English language teaching in the post-method era: Towards better diagnosis, treatments, and assessment. In J. C. Richards & W. A. Renandya, Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice (pp. 9-18).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jewad, H. G. & Verma, S. S. (2014). A comparative study of the difficulties faced by the teachers in communicative language teaching & grammatical translation method in the primary schools of the rural areas of Allahabad.European Academic Research. II (2), 2174-2205 Joukoulian, A. (2016). Teaching English as a foreign language today integrated approach versus communicative approach. Kabgani, S. & and Zaferani, P. (2013). A critical review of postmethod pedagogy.Iranian EFL Journal.9 (6).427-441 150 Kamali, J. (2014). Post Method Survival. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 98: 824 – 829. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.487 Kousar, R. (2010). The Effect Of Direct Instruction Model On Intermediate Class Achievement And Attitudes Toward English Grammar. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC), 7(2).https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v7i2.94 Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The postmethod condition: (E)merging strategies for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 27-48. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). ‘Toward a postmethod pedagogy’.TESOL Quarterly, 35: 37-560. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006). Understanding language teaching: From method to postmethod. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mackey, W. F. (1965). Language teaching analysis. London:Longman.http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/V.1.3 Masouleh, N. S. (2012).From method to post method: A panacea!.English Language Teaching; 5 (4), 65- 73. doi:10.5539/elt.v5n4p65 McDonough, S. (2002).Applied Linguistics In Language Education: London: Routledge Nunan, D. (1991). Language teaching methodology. London, England: Prentice Hall. Pennycook A. 1989. ‘The concept of method, interested knowledge, and the politics of language teaching’.TESOL Quarterly, 23/4:589- 618. Prabhu, N. S. (1990). There is no best method—why? TESOL Quarterly, 24, 161-176. Richards, J. C. (1990). The language teaching matrix.Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C. and T. Rodgers.(1986). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Richards, J. C. & Rodgers, T. S. (2001) Approaches and methods in language teaching (2nd edn.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ziafar, M. & Namaziandost,E. (2019). Critical look at post-method pedagogy. International Journal of English Language Studies IJELS, 1(2):29-34 151 Book Review Breakfast of Champions: A Pastiche of Postmodern Humanity Rabita Rahman 1 Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions has been phenomenal in contributing to the discourse of postmodern narrative and post-human era in literature. Being a science fiction that derives its strength from focus on humane understanding of lives and ideas, this book resonates the psychic and socio-cultural condition of humanity in a late capitalist society. As I thought of penning this review on the post-structural deconstructive prospects of this book, I was bit perplexed whether this requires another write-up on this at all or not. But the fact that it touches on so many contemporary issues and we are constantly living on the verge of a posthuman conjunction confirms that there’s never a non-perfect time to talk about it. Vonneguts’ writings critically reflect on several key factors of American society and in doing so it talks about the nuances of postmodernity in a way peculiar to him. Breakfast of Champions is no exception to this style of him. I might have stopped reading this particular book immediately after starting to read it if I were the same orthodox reader of my late teens who used to prefer reading a classic narrative contemplating grave issues of life and philosophy over a not that “serious” science fiction. But what got me stuck to reading it to the full length is the uniqueness I encountered for the first time in my reading experience. Our expectations from science fictions have always been somewhat limited to the exploration of futuristic vision of a technologically advanced utopia or dystopia in which humans are mostly non-existent or struggling to sustain with their lives. This is where Breakfast of Champions stands as a difference. It explores, critiques and contends life, a posthuman life, to be more specific, and posits its readers in a new kind of postmodernist humanism. Kurt Vonnegut attracts his readers in this book with a fragmented, decentralized narrative that is complemented by subsequent drawings by him. Thenon-linear and ambiguous pattern of the plot fails to make the characters and story engaging at some point but also induces a unique idiosyncrasy in its essence which metaphorically represent the 1 Lecturer, English, Institute of Modern Languages, Jagannath University, Dhaka- 1100, Bangladesh; E-mail:

152 psychic disorientation of the thought pattern of a technically advanced or machine-oriented life through the temporal distortion. The author takes on themes such as violence, mental illness, schizophrenia, free will, suicide and subjectivity extensively and in an interesting casual manner inthe hyperreal setting of the novel. Set on a fictional city named Midland City, the two protagonists of the text Kilgore Trout and Dwanye Hoover, are eccentric in their own ways and treatment towards life. But one thing that the book misses on reluctantly is detailing the character of Dwanye Hoover unlike it does that of Kilgore Trout. While Trout’s character is sketched through his childhood trauma to the present pessimism, Hoover is given bit less attention than required in this regard. We don’t get the clues on what factors provoked and cultivated his hallucinatory being and violent outburst except for some vague reference to his own version of interpretation of this madness as “bad ideas” inside his mind/brain. Vonnegut seems to be somewhat purposefully avoids giving us any explanation to this character which again is suggestive of the prospect of humans being mere biological machine with no repression or unconscious psyche to be interpreted rather a product of the technoculture. And according to Broer (1994), “Part of Vonnegut's critical success is in fact the achievement of a storywhose message of psychic and social trauma is perfectly fused. It is the bedlam of violence and social chaos that induces the personal dissolution and incipientmadness of Vonnegut's dazed and pliant heroes” (Broer, 1994, p.5). The two central characters of the novel stand in two opposite poles in one of which is a sheer empathetic humanism and an apathetic posthumanism on the other. Vonnegut successfully blends the two with hints of psychoanalytical prospects for both of them. Hoover’s take on a postmodern ideas are balanced by Trout’s critical understanding of those. Most of his characters are alienated from their families and this isolation is reinforced by the technocratic intellectual surrounding they live into. But Vonnegut’s approach towards female subjectivity seems to be indistinct as we hardly find any major female character throughout the novel which also may make one wonder if Vonnegut’s male protagonists seem to be desexualized like machines to a certain extent. What I found most interesting about this book’s approach to these psychological turmoils of the characters and its contents, is how Kurt Vonnegut voluntarily becomes a part of it and vouches for a therapeutic approach. He engages into the plot saying, “This is why I have gone to Midland City: to be born again”. This is a compelling technique to engage in a conversation with the characters and readers at the same time and which makes the novel exclusive. Nonetheless, the novel also comments on the social hierarchy present in every sphere of America. The major characters themselves are different in their socio-economic stature, one being affluent Pontiac Dealer (Hoover) and another struggling to make a name for ownself (Trout). 153 Vonnegut describes the agonized souls of its citizens saying that they constantly felt that they were born in a wrong country and their lives were some sorts of terrible mistake. Vonnegut’s mockery on the country’s spiritual promotion of a futile optimism comes round as he uses words such as “gibberish” or “nonsense” to talk about the national anthem. At times he even mentions the lives of American people as sprouting from some sort of short stories and books and which needed an abrupt ending. This may trigger a reference to the American myths of success, liberty and ‘pursuit of happiness’ in its reader’s mind. Vonnegut’s disillusionment with the American myth of success and an American Paradise resonates loudly throughout the book thus making it a relevant read for anyone interested in understanding the fallacies of narratives of nation, which again alludes to a critical postmodern view towards the idea of nation and state itself. As we speak of Vonnegut’s humanist attitude, he depicts the lives of black people as extremely limited and repressed due to their “blackness”. But we must not miss the point that he does not project the lives of black people only as devoid of freedom and taste of a happy life, but also portrays how everyone’s life is full of resentment towards the lives they lead. In spite of these humanitarian views, Vonnegut doesn’t refrain from being a critique of the destruction caused by human beings through their manufacturing process and how it has caused severe damage to the planet’s geology. He blames everyone starting from the executives to the state government, involved in the process of approval to these projects for the sake of monetary benefits or allures of capitalistic development at the cost of natural balance. Broer (1994) says: “Vonnegut sees that the corrupting processes of a machine world are circular and unending. A ravaged and polluted environment sterilizes and demoralizes the minds of the citizenry, which in tum instills soulless and regimented values into its institutions and cultural pursuits” (p.99). It might not be an exaggeration to say that the novel vouches for our attention towards environmental humanism and ecological balance. One would also encounter Vonnegut’s representation of the intellectual struggle of authors of different literary genres which happened to be categorized as “low art” while reading this book. Promoting and projecting on the life-sketches of such an author most of whose books have been published in pornography magazines, Vonnegut draws an intentional or unintentional focus on the postmodern attitude towards art and culture which is committed to blur the demarcation lines between “high art” and “low/popular art”. While portraying Kilgore Trout’s creative struggle as an author “Vonnegut is not saying that science fiction is pornography; on the contrary, he is arguing quite the opposite. “[. . .] what Trout had in common with pornography wasn’t sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world” (Simpson, 2004, p. 264). As a matter of fact, the novel 154 itself through its ‘non-definitive’ narrative style along with an incorporation of a myriad of images such as flags, anus, scale, cows, apple, zero and so on complementing the qualities of both a social satire and science fiction; is heterogeneous in nature which has made it a landmark piece of postmodern literature. In the era of digital humanities and cultural postmodernism, Breakfast of Champions is a pure delight to explore the conjuncture between humane intellect and posthuman condition. Kurt Vonnegut’s remarks on American life reflect his grievances against the culture of oppression and capitalistic “progress” which in turns takes everything away from human beings, even their sanity itself. In Vonnegut’s terms, postmodern humanism is nothing more than a comforting lie, one more constructed narrative in the infinite range of narratives. As I read the book, I have known a Vonnegut mourning for a lack of culture, ideas and sincerity among his folks and authorities. But despite all its cynicism, I have also confronted a Vonnegut who celebrates this nomadic carnivalesquecanvas of a postmodern, posthuman and post-structural life that does promote a space for cultural amalgamation, fluidity and intellectual acceptance. It seems to intrigue its audience to comprehend postmodern literary techniques and socio-cultural-psychological dilemmas of individuals living in a post-structural society whether knowingly or unknowingly. As we are living in an age of breaking free of all the methodical boundaries both in our theoretical paradigm or cultural arena, I think this unique and rare blend of everything that’s “post”; altogether makes Breakfast of Champions a thought-provoking and pertinent piece for readers at any moment. References Broer, L. R. (1994). Sanity plea: Schizophrenia in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Davis, T. F. (2006). Kurt Vonnegut's crusade, or, How a postmodern harlequin preached a new kind of humanism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Simpson, J. (2004). "This Promising of Great Secrets": Literature, Ideas, and the (Re) Invention of Reality in Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of Champions "Fantasies of an Impossibly Hospitable World": Science Fiction and Madness in Vonnegut's Troutean Trilogy. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, p. 261-272. Retrieved from:https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vcrt20 Vonnegut, K. (1975). Breakfast of champions: Or, Goodbye blue Monday!. New York: Dell Pub. Co. 155 Call for Papers Dear Colleagues/Researchers, Education and Development Research Council (EDRC) is a government affiliated research organization established in 2004. EDRC currently publishes a double-blind peer-reviewed Quarterly Journal titled The Postmethod Pedagogy especially for college and university teachers, trainers, researchers, instructional designers, e-learning developers, and practitioners. The Journal emphasizes academic excellence, research rigidity, knowledge dissemination, and reciprocated scholarly efforts in order to endorse theoretical, empirical, experimental and practical research at the national and international levels. The journal invites original and unpublished research papers from the scholars and researchers around the globe. The journal seeks to embrace the entire areas of applied linguistics and language education, education policy, syllabus and curriculum, especially on teaching and learning to meet the criteria of research excellence for publishing in forthcoming issues of the journal. Authors are encouraged to submit papers as per the following structure: Structure of a Research Paper Though academic disciplines vary on the exact format and style of journal articles in their field, most articles contain similar contents and are divided in parts that typically follow the logical flow. The EDRC Journal of Learning and Teaching highlights the essential sections that a research paper should include: 1. Title of the Paper The title should be specific that indicates the problem the research project addresses using keywords that will be helpful in literature reviews in the future. The title of your paper may be 10- 12 words long. 2. Abstract The abstract should provide a complete synopsis of the research paper and should introduce the topic and the specific research question(s), provide a statement regarding methodology and should provide a general statement about the results and the findings. Because it is really a summary of the entire research paper, it is often written last. The abstracts must not cross 225 words. 3. Introduction The introduction begins by introducing the broad overall topic and providing basic background information of the study. It then narrows down to the specific research question(s) relating to this topic. Every section may have subsections. It provides the purpose and focus for the rest of the paper and sets up the justification for the research. 156 4. Literature Review The purpose of the literature review is to describe past important research and it relates specifically to the research problem. It should be a synthesis of the previous literature and the new idea being researched. The review should examine the major theories related to the topic to date and their contributors. The researchers are required to know the research that has already been done in their field. The Literature Reviews examine previous related research. It should include all relevant findings from credible sources, such as academic books, and peer- reviewed journal articles. 5. Research Design/ Methodology The section will describe the research design and methods used to complete to the study. The instruments used (e.g., questionnaire, interview protocol, observation, focus group discussion, think aloud protocol, etc.), the participants, and data analysis procedures should be clearly mentioned in this section. The section may comprise subsections for every item. The general rule of thumb is that readers should be provided with enough details of the study. 6. Findings and Discussion / Results In this section, the results are presented. This section should focus only on results that are directly related to the research or the problem. Graphs and tables should only be used when there is too much data to efficiently include it within the text. This section should also discuss the results and the implications on the field, as well as other fields. In this section, the hypothesis is tested or the research questions are answered and validated by the interpretation of the results. 7. Recommendations (Optional) In this section, the author/researcher may put forward some recommendations based on findings of the study. 8. Conclusion This section should also discuss how the results relate to previous research mentioned in the literature review, any cautions about the findings, limitation of the study, and potential for future research. 9. References In this section, the author should give a listing of works cited in the paper. References should be an alphabetized list of all the academic sources used. Information for Submission:  Submission deadline: Open Submission Method: Electronic submission to: <

> or <

>, <

>  Research Article: not exceeding 5000 words including references  The APA Style, 7th Edition throughout the paper with reference Executive Editor The Postmethod Pedagogy 157 Education and Development Research Council (EDRC) Education and Development Research Council (EDRC) is an organization administered by a group of professionals including teachers, researchers, and educationists working at the national and international levels. It is a government registered non-profit research and development organization working for the expansion of education, conducting multi- disciplinary academic and development research for individuals and groups, and operating relief and rehabilitation services for the disadvantaged and vulnerable people in Bangladesh. EDRC mainly pursues projects, initiatives, and activities to advance the field of education research, promote cutting-edge lines of study, and deepen knowledge about education research as a discipline, profession, and field. Education research is a domain of inquiry aiming at advancing knowledge of education and learning processes, and development of the tools and methods necessary to support this endeavor. EDRC’s Education Research Service Projects is designed to encourage education researchers to offer their pro bono expertise to educational organizations, institutions, or other communities that have identified and expressed a need for such assistance. EDRC is equipped to offer Editing Services for original research papers and research grant proposals, and for other professional documents, such as reviews, case reports, monographs, and theses. It professionally provides pertinent support for producing high quality research. The fee is according to time, and type and amount of work required. EDRC has a number of projects, including building school structures and learning centers for children who have to travel long distances to attend school. It has programs in the areas of education expansion, health and economic development that provide underequipped schools with teachers’ salaries, health care kits, stationeries, staffing, and water purification as well as financial assistance for the poor but meritorious students. EDRC also conducts as well as coordinates training and workshops based on demand by academic professionals, researchers, and practitioners to build the capacity of various stakeholders. It extends cooperation to the disaster-stricken school children in favour of the commencement of schooling aftermath of disaster. 158