Pakistani Government Secondary Schools Students’ Attitudes towards Communicative Language Teaching and Grammar Translation in Quetta, Balochistan

Zeeshan Muhammad

doi:10.5539/elt.v9n3p258

Abstract

<p>Students’ attitudes towards an English language teaching approach play an important role for its implementation success or failure. This study measured Pakistani government school students’ attitudes towards Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Grammar Translation (GT). A survey instrument was used to assess students’ attitudes. Data were collected from students at two government secondary schools located in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan. A total of 204 students (102 females and 102 males) participated in this present study. Overall, students showed favorable attitudes towards CLT. In contrast, students showed either less favorable attitudes or a neutral stance towards GT. Finally, this study suggests that policy makers consider adopting or adapting CLT to teach English in the aforementioned schools. Recommendations for future research are also suggested.</p>

Highlights

Government secondary schools in Balochistan, Pakistan are public Urdu-medium schools that provide free education to students
The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) items “Teacher should act as a guide in teaching English language” (4.70); “The aim of English language teaching should be to help students communicate in English” (4.66); “Ordering scrambled sentences is a good language classroom activity” (4.65), and “English newspapers should be used for improving learners reading skills” (4.58) had the highest student mean ratings
The items “The aim of English language teaching should be to help individuals to learn grammar rules of English;” “Group work should seldom be used in the language teaching” had the lowest mean ratings 3.23 and 3.25, respectively

Summary

Introduction

Government secondary schools in Balochistan, Pakistan are public Urdu-medium schools that provide free education to students. English is taught through grammar translation using Urdu and other local languages in the public schools in Pakistan (Shamim, 2009). In Pakistan, all the national merit-based examinations such as central superior services examinations (CSS), provincial services examinations, and others are conducted in English. This means that unless students are proficient in English, they cannot access the jobs. I would argue that the purpose of English language teaching and learning in government secondary schools should be to build students’ communicative ability rather than merely teaching the grammar rules of the English language. Have you completed a diploma in English from any local private English language institution? ☐ Yes

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Results

Conclusion