An Exploration of Classroom Practices in Secondary Schools

Abstract

This study was undertaken in the secondary schools of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Students from Bengali medium schools of Bangladesh do not achieve even a minimal amount of proficiency in English even after completing high school. Moreover, they are seen to remain teacher dependent even at tertiary level. Learner autonomy is seen as a crucial need of the time in the context of Bangladesh. Either classroom practices or teacher beliefs, or both are responsible for this state of affairs. Therefore, it became imperative to research to find out the classroom practices of English language teachers and see whether they were autonomy supportive. This was exploratory qualitative research, and the participants were class VII English language teachers from five government and non-government Bengali medium schools. Classroom observations and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data. Findings of this study have implications for teacher training programs and how they need to be redesigned to bring about a change in teacher beliefs and approaches.