Impact of English Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) on desired proficiency of 8th grade students

Abstract

Within the context of lockdown and pandemic situation, by taking all these conditions in attention, government of Punjab introduced compact and shortened curriculum named as Accelerated learning program for 8th grade students. The accelerated syllabi are usually introduced and implemented to fulfill short term objectives. The current study aimed at investigating how efficient and effective this ALP can be in achieving estimated language proficiency of students. Furthermore, there is some need to get awareness to teachers’ preference and their ALP teaching practices meeting the desired aims. The syllabus has been introduced to minimize the Covid-19-driven learning loss and expedite the teaching and learning procedures to damage control and maximize learning outputs. Therefore, current study was designed as experimental so that researchers can check the impact of ALP on students’ achievements. Moreover, the effect of the independent variable ALP course was checked upon the English proficiency of the learners which is termed as a dependent variable. The 8th grade students at government schools of Bahawalpur district were taken as the population of the study out of which only 60 students were selected by using a random sampling technique and 80 teachers were also selected by using a purposive sampling technique. The findings of the study indicate that there is little or no impact on students’ learning outcomes by the use of ALP course for teaching English language. It is also found that teachers face difficulty while teaching through ALP because it is too compact and it did not include all the language components and skills. In order to obtain the maximum output from ALP, it is suggested to devise comprehensive lesson planning and proper teaching strategies with revised and modified pattern of learning outcomes.