Teachers’ Awareness and Current Practice of Communicative Activities in Bangladeshi Universities

Abstract

Many applied linguists and researchers regard Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) as one of the most effective approaches to ELT and they have experienced that the variety of activities (e.g. warming-up exercises, interviews, games, role plays, simulations, problem-solving tasks, ranking exercises) compatible with a communicative approach is unlimited. Such activities engage learners in communication and offer them an opportunity to practice their communication skills meaningfully in different contexts and by taking on different roles. Bangladesh embraced Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in the 1990s in order to improve the declining standards of English in the country and it is most likely that when asked to name the methodology the teachers make use of in their classrooms, the majority of language teachers today assert “communicative” as the methodology of choice. But the question is how far the teachers have practiced communicative activities in the class and how they experience it while practicing it in the classroom. Hence, this paper will present teachers’ awareness and current practice of communicative activities in Bangladeshi universities. In addition, it will try to focus on some potential problems of using communicative activities in Bangladesh context and suggest ways of overcoming limitations to cope with the context. It is based on a questionnaire which looked at classroom procedures teachers currently use as part of their English language teaching.