A study of how English is taught in government schools in Karachi

Abstract

English is considered to be one of the core subjects in secondary schools in Pakistan. But it is observed that the way it is taught is through the cascading approach rather than the development of language as a whole. Teachers provide few opportunities to students to relate their learning with their experiences in daily life. Students are mostly asked to copy down the answers from the chalkboard or from the textbooks and memorize the grammatical rules and reproduce them as it is, in the examination. However English is seen as an international language and a very powerful means of global communications and a sign of personal and national development in the society. This study is aimed to understand how English is taught in our secondary schools in Pakistan. It also identifies the challenges related to teaching English as a foreign language in government secondary schools in Pakistan. The study is divided into five chapters. Chapter one highlights the background and rationale, context, significance and purpose of the study, while chapter two offers a critical review of some relevant literature available in the area of the importance of English language teaching. Chapter three explains the research methodology and data collection. Chapter four presents an analysis of the data and research findings. Finally chapter five outlines some recommendations, implications, lessons learnt and possibilities for further research