The Pedagogical Implications Of The Study

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

This chapter begins with the summary of the research, a brief discussion of the findings of the test for the students in all the four language skills and questionnaire for the teachers, and observation of their lessons and considers the significance of the study with special reference to the research objectives. This is followed by the pedagogical implications of the study and suggestions for further research.

Summary of the Research

5. 1 Introduction

Language is the most important aspect in the life of all beings. Language can be defined as verbal, physical, biologically innate, and a basic form of communication.

Of all the languages, English is a progressive language. It is dynamic and flexible. English is universally renowned for its power of expression and its rich literature. The changing times have witnessed the growing importance of English language in all walks of life. Therefore, the English language has become the primary requirement for inter connectedness of people, and for free exchange of ideas, culture and economics and a lingua franca for communication, business and education.

It is not only a compulsory subject at school, college and university but is also the medium of instruction to the large extent. It is the language of science and technology. English language has been assigned the role of library language.

English has been progressively gaining ground over the years. Regarded as a ‘neutral’ language for wider communication and the language of technology, modernity and development of English is a social status symbol. But teaching English has become a biggest challenge. Though enough awareness is prevailing among the students, parents and society, the majority of them struggle a lot to acquire the language. On the other hand, teachers too equally struggle to find a suitable methodology to facilitate learners in acquiring the English language.

Teachers are made to teach English language without any clear cut and achievable aims. Conservatively or conventionally, most of the teachers are happy at explaining the meaning of a text in English language, as if it is a subject. Due to the system of education, non-availability of the standardized text books, dearth of regular training to the teachers of English and also lack of preparedness among teachers to acquire innovative ideas, faulty teaching methodology, etc. are some of the problems faced by the teachers in the process of teaching of English at school level. At the same time, the lack of motivation on the part of the students due to various reasons such as – lack of awareness regarding the importance and scope of the English language, first generation learners, not aware of the importance of English language, lack of interest of knowledge of books which may not have practical application, stereo type of teaching which does not cater to the needs of the students. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to teach English as it plays an important role in producing and promoting changes and accepting new trends in the modern society.

As the English language is getting consolidated as a global language, it is indispensable for all the countries to teach and learn English. Otherwise, it is difficult to keep pace with the development in the world. In particular it is very essential for a multilingual and developing country like India, to learn this global language. But the teaching of English has always been in difficult circumstances. This is because of the lack of clear- cut policy, socio-economic background of the students, lack of exposure to the language, non-availability of suitable teaching/learning material, lack of experienced teachers who are trained with latest techniques, defective methods, lack of motivation, large classes, faulty examination system, etc. are some of the reasons for not acquiring English language at school level. Teachers are hard pressed for time to cover the syllabus and cannot spare much time to handle the language items.

The teachers of English language at Municipal Corporation schools face many problems. They are not aware of using communicative activities in their classes to make the classes more active, interesting and learner friendly. Hence, there are many problems faced both by the teachers and the learners. These problems are looked upon and in-service training programme is taken up in this research.

5.2 Statement of the Research

Learning Process of English at School Level: A Case Study of Municipal Schools of Vijayawada, A P

5.2.1 Explanation of the Problem

The teachers faced many problems while teaching English language due to various reasons. They failed to provide opportunities for communicative interactions and activities in their classrooms. The classes observed were filled with isolated activities outside of any cultural or linguistic context of the target language. On the other hand they have to complete the syllabus within the stipulated time. This pressure forces them primarily on the work and on finishing all the exercises of the book during class time. In addition, they face the problems regarding clarification of concepts of teaching English using latest methods, techniques, text books, classroom situation, teaching aids, students’ participation in communicative activities and class control.

Students of English also face the problems regarding mother tongue influence, family back ground, linguistic gap, not motivated to learn the target language, no chance to speak in English outside the classroom, and no participation in the English language class, etc.

These problems are studied and in-service training programme is conducted for the English language teachers in this research to enhance the English language skills for both the teachers and the learners in the process of teaching/learning English.

In this context, the objectives of the present study are:

To identify the problems faced by the learners and the teachers in teaching/learning process of English at school level.

To evaluate the listening skills of the students and assess their ability of listening to sounds, vocabulary, grammar and information in the process of listening comprehension.

To examine the proficiency of L2 learners wherever they find linguistic gap in the process of learning the oral communication and to evaluate their speaking skills.

To evaluate the reading ability of the students in the process of reading comprehension.

To investigate the problems faced by the students while learning the writing skills.

To propose remedial measures to develop all the four skills of English language.

To examine the problems faced by the English language teachers and

To conduct a training programme for the in-service teachers in communicative language teaching and propose remedial measures to help them raise the standards of English at school level.

In order to realize the aims of the study, data was collected through the tests for the learners in all the four language skills (LSRW), and the teachers through questionnaires, observation of lessons and interviews with them. The findings of the pilot study (3.3.2) revealed that no attempt was made by the teachers to teach English language by using communicative activities in Municipal Corporation Schools. It was felt that a more detailed and systematic study was necessary to find out the problems faced by both the teachers and learners in the process of teaching/learning English and conduct an in-service training programme for the teachers to use communicative approach and motivate the learners to acquire the language in a systematic way.

5.2.4. Findings of the Study

i). Findings from the Students’ Data

Data was collected from the students by conducting tests in all the four language skills, i.e. Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing and findings are presented.

A. Findings from the Test on Listening Skills

The learners are from families where parents and siblings did not know English at all. These learners do not get any exposure to English at home. Moreover, Telugu was used as a language of communication with peer group members and others. Therefore, learning English was confined to English language classroom only.

Their exposure to English language outside the classroom was minimal and mostly confined to classroom teaching only, even that was in mother tongue most of the time. Hence, the students did not have the exposure to the language inside or outside the classroom.

Students were unable to recognise even simple and familiar vocabulary, and grammatical aspects. They could not get the meaning from the context. They were unable to guess the main idea of the passage. Guessing meaning from the context seemed problematic for them.

They were unable to process the text if the text was spoken at a rapid or even at natural pace. However, if the text was provided with visual support they processed to some extent, but very slowly. They were unwilling to take risk to listen to the text carefully and comprehend it. Due to these factors their attention was frequently disturbed.

It is unearthed that for the test of 'inferring the text based information', 49% of the students have answered correctly. 32% of the students have responded partially, 17% of them answered incorrectly and only 2% of them understudy have skipped this test item. The reason for the good performance of the students in this test item is that the given dialogue is constructed with simple and familiar words which enable the learners to comprehend the given dialogues easily. So it is inferred that the simple and familiar words facilitate the listening comprehension of the students. Further, it is found that the hard and unfamiliar vocabularies hinder them to understand the concept. That is, they are not able to deduce and guess the meaning of unfamiliar and hard words using the contextual clues.

In the test of 'inferring explicit Information', there are only 24% of the students responded incorrectly. This is due to unfamiliarity with this context. That is, the students who have responded incorrectly are not exposed to the Railway announcement. So it is evident that the sociolinguistic knowledge also helps the language user to understand a discourse. Hence, for the test of identifying errors in the given sentences, 30% of the students have responded incorrectly. Thus, they failed to recognize the distinction found between plural and singular nouns, tense markers, verb inflections, and auxiliaries which are given wrongly in the sentences. It is a known fact that the recognition of grammatical features in the sentences is important. Any difficulty found in recognizing these linguistic features will affect the understanding the meaning of sentences.

Apart from this the students failed to distinguish the slight phonetic variation of the group of words given viz., brake, ache, shake, streak, and break.

In the test recognizing phonetic variations and phonemic contrasts with in given words, there are 32% of the students responded incorrectly for each item.

It indicates that they are not too conscious to the sound variations with in the words. Further, they are not able to distinguish voiced and voiceless and aspirated and un aspirated fricatives and affricatives.

Finally, in the test of recognizing and recalling numbers, years, days, majority of the students have not performed well. They failed to recognize word endings of numbers (forty, fourteen, fifty, fifteen etc.). Further, they missed the numbers when they are given more than five digits and the grammatical items 'the' and 'of ' from the given test items.

The above findings reveal that the students are not able to listen to the simple texts, such as, dialogue, news items, railway announcement, some numbers, years, dates, etc. First of all they are not given opportunities to listen to various texts in the classroom. Though they have to listen to the lessons taught, there was no interaction between the teacher and the learners. After the completion of the lesson, notes is given and the learners learn it by rote method for the examinations point of view. No examination is conducted in listening skills. Hence, the students are not given opportunities to listen to various listening items.

B. Findings from the Test on Speaking Skills

Speaking plays a vital role in maintaining the relationship between and among the people. Communication through English occupies predominant position in all the fields of the global village. Because of this, teaching/learning of English is in inevitable in almost all the non-English society. India has long history for teaching/learning of English as second language. Further, to enhance the teaching/learning of English, proper guidance and remedies also have often been provided with the help of the results drawn by research studies which have been carried out in this field. The research findings help to find out the remedies for the problems of teaching/learning English.

The present research findings such as, strategies followed by the students and problems encountered by them are summarized, and remedies are given for eradicating or at least minimizing the problems in the process of learning oral communication.

It is found that in the process of learning to speak, the students followed certain strategies in their communication to conceal their linguistic inadequacy. The avoidance is the first and foremost strategy followed by the students. 7% of the students avoided to talk with the researcher in English and to speak on a given topic due to the anxiety, language shock, cultural shock and the linguistic inadequacy. Syntactic avoidance is yet another type of strategy, in which they have avoided to construct sentences. Instead of constructing sentences, they have given elliptical responses for the questions asked. The strategy of semantic avoidance is of peculiar type, in which the students have avoided to semantic co-operation for the questions asked.

The learners follow the word-for-word translation from the native language to L2, and use the fillers in their communication whenever they encounter gap and linguistic inadequacy. Self repairing, drawling and repetition are yet another type of strategies followed by them. In the strategy of self repairing, certain vocabularies, grammatical items are self corrected. Sometimes, the self corrected items have gone wrong. Drawling is of lengthening the syllables. This strategy provides time to the speaker to search for the forthcoming elements. Repetition is also one of the strategies followed by them. In this strategy the students have repeated certain items such as words, partial sentence and full sentence. It is found that the repetition of full sentence gives more time to the learners than the word or partial sentence repetition.

Message abandonment is a strategy followed by the students. The students initiate the communication on a specific topic, but in the middle they cut short due to difficulty and due to the anxiety about the linguistic elements in the target language system.

The students reduce their voice when they feel that they are incorrect.

The strategy of voice reduction shows that they have no confidence in L2. Resource expansion strategy is yet another peculiar strategy whereby the learners attempt to increase their linguistic resources instead of giving required enough response.

Further, it is observed that some students have invented certain new words in their oral communication, when they fail to find appropriate word or for the word which is absent in their mental lexicon. In certain contexts, the students follow the code switching strategy. That is, they use certain L1 words in L2. Approximation is another strategy in which the learners have used the approximate items instead of correct ones. However, this approximate words share near semantic feature.

Further, it is identified that the learners have adopted the intra lingual strategy where there is an irregularity in the rules of target language. The learners have often over generalized the target language rules. For instance, the learners have the tendency to add simply‘s’ to all singular nouns whenever the need arises for the use of plural form. And also, the suffix ‘ed’ is mostly used while changes the verb into a past form. However, the students have conjugated the ‘ed’ morpheme even to the irregular verbs. These are some of the intralingual strategies followed by the learners in their oral communication.

C. Findings from the Test on Reading Skills

It is found that in the test of completing the incomplete sentences, 54.5% of the students have failed to complete the incomplete sentences using the options given. The reason for the incorrect response is the ignorance of the grammatical functions and ignorance of meaning of the conjunctions, like co-ordination conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, etc. used in the sentences. And in the test of answering the questions using passage, 30.5% of the students have answered incorrectly because of the failure in understanding the meaning of the words, like 'both', 'inspite of', 'except', etc. And also in the test item 3, 'matching table', there are 20% of the students wrongly matched the given parts of speech to make complete sentences. This is due to the failure in understanding of the phrasal verbs like 'gave up', 'climbed up' 'called on' etc.

Further, in the test of finding synonymous words, 20% of the students have responded incorrectly. It is because of poor vocabulary knowledge of the students. And in the test of recognizing homophonous forms 23.5% of the students have responded incorrectly. It happens as the students find problem in recognizing phonemes and vowel cluster differences within the given words. In the test of finding errors in sentences, there are 25% of the students who have responded incorrectly. This indicates their poor grammatical knowledge. In the telegram mode of testing, 40.5% of the students have responded incorrectly. This is due to the fact of unfamiliarity of the test passage.

In the test of labeling the parts of the sentences, 42% of the students have labeled incorrectly. This is due to the poor grammatical knowledge of the students. That is, they could not distinguish the difference between past participle 'broken' in the noun phrase 'broken chair', and verb 'broken' in the verb phrase 'have broken'. The students have labeled these two phrasal words as only verb. Further, they failed to distinguish the difference between objective pronoun (him) and possessive pronoun (his) etc. In the test of answering the questions using the 'passage', 16% of the students have answered to the questions incorrectly.

The wrong responses have found to occur as complex and/or unknown words, like 'bequeathed', 'endowed', 'unworthy', contribution etc., are found in the testing passage. In the test of answering questions using pie graph, around 15% of the students have responded incorrectly. This is due to the uniqueness of text item.

It is concluded that the use of phrasal verbs, hard words, complex sentences, lengthy sentences, unknown contexts, etc. in the reading materials of the students hinders the students in understanding the concepts of reading materials.

D. Findings from the Test on Writing Skills

It is observed that the students under study have used the articles 'an' before words beginning with vowels, and 'a' before words beginning with consonant without considering the quality of letter or phoneme which begins in a word. Further, both definite and indefinite articles are indiscriminately used before noun/noun phrase and are unnecessarily omitted where they are required.

Another type of error found out in the students’ writings is the use of prepositions. That is, the preposition 'on' is used before 'yesterday' 'tomorrow' 'last month', etc. This error has occurred because of the overgeneralization of the rule that 'on' is used before days as 'on Monday', 'on Sunday', etc. and also, the prepositions are deleted and added unnecessarily.

The errors in the use of pronouns and adjectives are also identified. That is, the pronouns are wrongly substituted as 'my' instead of 'I' and 'myself; instead of 'me'. And also, the nouns are used where the adjectives require. The errors are also identified in the usage of nouns. The students tend to over generalize the rules whenever there is an irregularity in forming the plural noun forms. Another peculiar type of error was in use of the verbs. That is, in the negative sentences and interrogative sentences the double past was used; this is due to the L1 interference. Past forms were used where the past participles are required. Further, the learners tend to over generalize the verb forms due to the irregularity found in the formation of the past tense forms.

Moreover, errors have also been unearthed in the grammatical items like adverbs and auxiliaries. The auxiliary verb 'am' is unnecessarily added in between the subject 'I' and verb (past form). This is due to the fact the copula verb 'am' functions as a main verb in certain contexts (I am a student). Because of the impact of this structure, learners unconsciously use 'am' whenever they have to use 'I' in a subject position. Further, the auxiliary verbs are wrongly substituted as 'am' instead of 'was', are instead of were and vice versa. Another problem area to the learners is concord; the grammatical agreement between words.

The agreemental problems are enormously found between demonstrative adjectives and noun, subject and verb, and relative pronoun and verb.

It has been identified that more number of errors are committed by the learners in sentence level also due to the dissimilarity of syntax pattern between L1 and L2. Further, it is found that the interrogative sentences are used in the reverse order as where + sub + aux + verb (where he was going) instead of where + aux + sub + verb + (where was he going). This is due to the influence of L2 spoken form on writing. And also there are a number of incomplete sentences found in the learner's writings. Hence, another problem area is orthographical, that is spelling. It is the fact that the English spelling rule is one of the reasons for the spelling errors in addition to the L1 interference and learners incorrect speech habits.

5.2.4 (ii) Findings from the Teachers’ Questionnaire

Before suggesting implications for practice and future research, findings concerning English language teachers’ perceptions of teaching, methods, major development activities, in-service training programme and the problems faced by the teachers while teaching/ learning process of English in the classroom are presented.

The findings are based on the questionnaires on curriculum, materials, teaching methods, role of the teacher, INSET programme and its implications.

The study highlights the unsatisfactory picture regarding the relationship between teaching methods and development of communicative skills, because relationship between the two is strongly evident. Through the study it was found out that teaching/learning is still dominated by the behaviouristic approach because of the lecture method of teaching and that the cognitive perspective has taken a back seat.

The effects are detrimental and the intriguing findings pushed the investigator to analyse further the cause-effect relationship of poor performance and ineffective communication skills. This brought out to surface the core point which holds that language teachers are responsible for this state of affairs.

English is taught as a subject rather than a skill. In view of this, development of communicative skills, therefore, failed to take place. The purpose of teaching English is primarily for learners to pass and get good marks in the year-end examination. The teachers’ role is that of a dispenser of knowledge. Most of them are facilitators of examinations rather than facilitator of communicative skills.

The problems get compounded due to absence, inadequacy of irrelevancy of teaching-learning materials to facilitate language skill development. Audio-visual aids are not accessible to them and if accessible, they can hardly utilize them. Besides, teachers have little knowledge about the skill of using them. The language skills (LSRW) are hardly taught to the learners.

Teaching-learning is always teacher centred. There is no room for query. Role play seems an impossible activity to many of them. The teachers hardly motivate the learners to communicate in English. Teaching gears learners towards obedience rather than autonomy.

Learners’ performance is ignored. The recognition of the importance of the formative evaluation which is essential in the instructional process is ignored. This in itself points to the faulty teaching methods which is attributing towards low achievement and weak-based communicative skills.

The unsatisfactory language teaching makes it imperative to create and update one’s knowledge of the theory and practice of language teaching. Hence, the proposal of INSET programme was accepted by all the teachers to enhance their professional skills.

For most of the participants, the INSET course was significant in terms of their increased confidence, knowledge of different ways of teaching language skills professional development and bringing social changes by effecting changes in their teaching styles.

Most of the participants confirmed that the TESL component was useful to them in a number of ways. The inputs and the practice teaching sessions were the main agents of change in their attitudes. They also developed by the language studies and teacher development components of the INSET course. There is a possibility of these teachers becoming ‘effective teachers’.

Their learning for explicit teaching of prose, poetry, grammar, vocabulary, repetition and practice is evident in some of the respondents’ views that it is a sub-conscious process of language learning. Still, these teachers need follow-up courses, encouragement to experiment new techniques and collaboration among teachers and administration.

Educational background can be one of the factors that are considered as important hindrance to professional development by most of the teachers. It appears that sometimes teachers find it difficult to improve their English language due to their weaknesses that come from their educational background.

As teachers get older or experienced in their job, they may not be in search of innovations, get into monotony and be willing to stick to their old ways however it can be inferred that the young teachers are more eager, excited and willing to get help and ready to improve their teaching skills.

As they are teaching upper primary and high school classes, they are able to identify the exact problems faced by both the teachers and learners in the teaching / learning process of English.

The teachers who have less than 15 years of teaching experience are more open to new challenges in teaching than experienced ones. This sounds plausible since the data on the background variable age also proves those young teachers and therefore less experienced teachers more in favour of being free to test any new idea or a new technique in teaching.

The pass percentage seemed to be high; however, they seemed to have failed in imparting the necessary language skills to their pupils. As it was said earlier, one needs to legitimately ask here, "Why the high pass percentage of the students does has no relation to their being proficient in the language?" Many factors have been identified which are responsible for this, chiefly the content-oriented examination system which was explained earlier.

Since, most of the teachers use only traditional methods to teach English keeping in mind the examination system, they fail to provide opportunities for students to interact and use the target language. According to Deckert (1987) the "classroom is a place to use the foreign language, and not essentially a place to learn right answers" (p.19). As the data revealed most of the teachers conduct their classes a question and answer session, in which they provide students with correct answers and fail to interact with them.

The data revealed that the teachers need to spend lot of time to improve their language skills if they want to be effective in their language teaching.

The teachers indicated that the text books are of ‘good standard’. These text books are prepared by the experts to help learners enjoy learning English (all the four language skills) through proper use i.e. giving learners plenty of practice in using language skills and learning through doing i.e. organising a variety of activities by creating a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom will help them improve their language skills.

Bu the data revealed that in reality this is not done. Teachers are hard pressed with the completion of syllabus, time constraints, large classes, administrative staff interference etc. are some of the problems teachers face and some of them do not know how to handle the communicative activities in the classroom. Hence, they prefer teaching English by using traditional methods.

Observation of students’ behaviours revealed that, classes did little to engage them in the learning process. Students, in many cases, appeared distant from the classroom by looking around and talking about unrelated issues in the classroom.

According to Gardner (2001.8) "if the language teacher is ineffective or non responsive, or, if the course book is particularly dull or confused, etc., these factors will undoubtedly be reflected in the individual’s attitudes towards the learning situation." In addition, students’ have a negative attitude towards learning English. Hence, they are unable to learn the language effectively.

Almost all the teachers gave importance to explain grammar rules. The oral work which is the soul of any method is totally neglected. Writing which is an advanced skill to be learnt is taught right from the beginning. Students are not given exposure to the use of language. Language is taught by the rules and learnt by rote memory. As a result students fail to learn the target language.

The teachers face lot of problems while teaching English and also at administrative level. The teaching of English has always been in difficult circumstances especially in Municipal Corporation Schools. This is because of the large classes, bleak economic conditions, the cultural and social diversities, insufficient trained teachers, teaching material, and lack of clear-cut policy, because of the poor social and economic background, students neither gets enough exposure to English outside the classroom nor enough opportunities to improve themselves in speaking English.

At administrative side, the language teachers are imposed with additional constrains like census work, survey of economic conditions time to time or given them some of the administrative work. Hence, teachers are hard pressed to complete the syllabus.

Many teachers are unable to use communicative approach. Most of them do not know how to handle these classes. Teachers are not aware of their roles and their students’ in communicative language teaching class.

Xiaoju (1984.10) points out that "the communicative teacher’s role is neither to give lectures nor to supply correct answers. The teacher’s job is to provide the conditions for this (communicative) process, set it going, observe, try to understand it, give guidance, help it along, analyse and evaluate it.’ Thus, one of the central roles of the teacher is to provide guidance to students during communicative activities.

However most of the teachers not being aware of CLT, took the role of provider of correct answers to book exercises, placing themselves as the centre of information resource, rather than allowing students to utilise their own knowledge. As a result, the teachers fail to guide the students appropriately to take their roles as negotiators.

Many teaching/learning materials like – good reference books, work books and hand books for teachers, TV, radio, charts or other useful visual material are essential for effective teaching. Unfortunately many Municipal Corporation Schools do not posses these materials. The students and the teachers are not provided with any of these materials. Hence, most of the time teaching and learning becomes more imaginative than practical.

Only a few teachers use group work as a communicative activity. Teachers do not have sufficient knowledge of the communicative activities like group work, pair work, dramatization, role plays etc.

The findings indicate that the teachers do not implement pair and group work activities in their classrooms. Although the pair and group work are productive, their effect is inhibited when they are not handled well. Hence, the teachers showed great interest to learn and use them in their language classes.

Most of the teachers admitted that Communicative Approach is most useful in developing all the four language skills (LSRW).

Here, motivation seems to play an important role for both the teachers and the learners. Many of the teachers remarked on the gap between CLT theories and putting them into practice in the classroom. Most of the teachers agreed that the limited training they received focused on theory and did little to direct them on how to implement such theories in practice in the classroom.

As the data revealed, the classes observed include mostly explicit grammar teaching, reading comprehension and text book focus. Teachers failed to provide opportunities for students to interact and use the target language.

Most of the teachers suggested a number of ideas to use communicative language teaching and develop language skills.

The findings indicate that the role of the teacher is to facilitate the communication process among the all the participants in the classroom. Students are the active participants in the classroom. It depends a lot on the work of the teacher, on how experienced the teacher is, on how motivated he/she is to get involved with the process of teaching / learning that are going on in the class. Teachers need to use the authentic materials and communicative activities properly. Situations have to be created to use the language authentically and meaningfully which will be useful outside the classroom later on.

Only a few teachers got some in-service training. The teachers are not aware of the importance of the training programme.

The data indicated that few teachers attended these training programmes which were mandatory. But they were not of much help. They failed to realise that the teacher is the ultimate key to educational change and school improvement. Teachers define and refine the curriculum; they interpret and transform the curriculum in a way that makes learning more manageable for the learners. Hence, it is imperative that professional growth becomes the top priority. Teachers should constantly develop not only their knowledge o f the subject matter but also their knowledge of pedagogy.

Many of the teachers felt that they need to have professional training and learn new techniques to make the classroom teaching more creative and interesting. Teachers need to keep pace with the rapid developments in order to be familiar with new knowledge and techniques. Teacher development is a vital component as it fills the gap in training by giving teachers opportunities to reflect on classroom practice, gain insight in to teaching experience.

Almost all the teachers wanted to undergo an in-service training programme and understand the Communicative Approach and use of it.

The data revealed that the teachers were ready to learn the techniques of communicative teaching as it engages learners in pair and group activities, requiring negotiation and co-operation between learners, fluency based activities that encourage learners to develop their confidence, role plays in which students practice and develop language function, along with judicious use of grammar and pronunciation activities. Teachers can learn how to handle the activities such as role plays, interviews, information gap games, language exchange, surveys, pair work etc and motivate the learners to acquire the language skills efficiently.

All the learners agree with the statement underlying the importance of willingness as a factor in successful professional development.

This result strengthens the agreement on the fact that the best source to start course in professional development is the teachers themselves since it would not be meaningful and successful unless the teachers are willing to develop professionally.

Another theme, which underlies teachers’ professional development, is self-initiation. If teachers feel free to test new ideas or techniques in practice and therefore take the initiative and action for their own development, they will be less dependent on the school they work for. Hence, their professional development efforts will be more meaningful.

Most of the teachers agree that they should improve their professional skills and knowledge without too much dependence on the institution they work for.

Reflection and evaluation of self to improve professionally are also favoured by the teachers; they should be involved in the evaluation of their teaching skills and knowledge.

The majority of the respondents agree that they should help each other, evaluate teaching to identify problems, strengths and weaknesses and produce solutions to solve problems. Keeping up to date with new ideas and changes is another theme that is explored under the title of professional development. Almost all the respondent agree that they should be open to new ideas and changes and they should try to keep themselves up to date with changes and improvements in ELT.

These results suggest that teachers acknowledge the importance of professional development. They have positive attitude towards the main themes underlying the issue like the necessity of the motivation and willingness in teachers’ self-initiation, collaboration and evaluation as well keeping up to date with new ideas and changes in the field.

Most of the teachers expressed the usefulness of in-service training programme. In-service training can provide input from experts and enhance teachers’ practical skills and help resolve problems. The training programme raises teachers’ motivation and re-kindles their enthusiasm for teaching.

In-service can be a crucial strategy in the implementation of a curriculum or other kind of change. For e.g. if a new educational policy mandated an unfamiliar teaching or curriculum approach such as competency – based instruction or content –based instruction, training would be an ideal format for preparing for the change.

The data of the teachers’ questionnaire indicated that the English teachers of the Municipal Corporation School felt the need of attending an in-service training and learn the techniques of communicative language teaching.

The respondents felt that they need to change the methodology of their teaching at present and adapt communicative language teaching which will be useful in their own professional development and also be helpful to the learners in their learning process of English at school level.

5.2.5 Findings from the Observations of Lessons

Findings drawn from lesson observations are divided into three parts –

Remarks on Pre- observation of lessons (drawbacks in teaching)

Changes observed in Post – observation of lessons

Effect of in-service training programme on the teachers’ performance

Remarks on Pre –observation of lessons

Following are the drawbacks noticed in the pre-observation of lessons –

Teaching of English was totally teacher centred.

Most of the teachers used translation method to explain the lesson. It was more of Telugu class.

Students were very passive and distracted in the class.

No communicative activities were undertaken by the teacher.

Students’ participation was taken very less in teaching learning process.

Lecture method was used.

Teachers did not use any teaching aids for teaching English.

Black-board was used only to write meanings of the difficult words.

There was no rapport between the teacher and the learners.

Most of the teachers dictated the notes and the pupils copied it without even knowing the meanings and the spellings.

Teachers were less enthusiastic.

Teachers did not use any authentic material (realia) in the class.

It was noticed that teachers did not motivate students.

Most of the time teachers were the centre of information resources.

Changes observed in Post-observation of Lessons

After the in-service training programme, guidance was given to the teachers and they were motivated to use the communicative activities in language teaching. The following improvements were noticed in post-observation of lessons.

Most of the teachers developed the confidence while teaching English.

The classes were more active and the lessons were more enthusiastic.

A shift from teacher centred to learner centred class was observed to some extent.

Teachers used more English in the class.

Teacher became the facilitator, guide and motivator encouraging the students to take active part in the class.

Teachers used real objectives like news papers, advertisements, pictures from magazines, objects found in and outside the classroom.

Teachers could manage the class.

Students’ errors were overlooked.

It was observed that teachers’ interest in teaching English was developed to some extent.

Some of the teachers used more communicative activities like role plays, group work, pair work and some language games.

It was noticed that teachers started motivating the students t o participate in the classroom activities and learn the English language.

Teachers showed lot of interest and enthusiasm to teach English and persuade the students to participate actively in the language class.

There was a satisfactory improvement in the level of the learner – teacher rapport in the class.

Effect of In-service training Programme on the teachers’ programme

There was a significant difference between pre-observation and post-observation lessons. In-service training programme helped the teachers a lot. Teachers showed a significant change in the performance of lessons. The lessons conducted after the in-service training programme was more effective than the previous ones. The post-observation lessons showed a remarkable achievement in their performance, it was considered as the positive step towards the use of communicative language teaching. The teachers were able to persuade, diagnose, analyse, interpret and implement the communicative activities in the classroom to some extent. Teachers became aware of the individual difference among the students in the learning process and reinforced them to take initiatives in the language classes.

Findings from the Discussion with the Headmasters

Headmasters/headmistresses’ remarks were as follows –

Most of the headmasters/headmistresses expressed that the teachers of English followed traditional translation methods to teach English.

Teachers were not adequate enough to teach English confidently. They feel insecure. Hence, they use mother tongue most of the time in the language class.

Teachers are not aware of communicative language teaching activities.

Lecture method is used in most of the language classes. Hence, students get bored and distracted in the English class.

The teacher himself/herself is a barrier in the English class as he/she does not want to change the typical traditional mind set.

Schools do not have adequate teaching aids to provide them to the English language teachers.

Teachers should be confident while using English language.

Findings from the Expert teachers’ Interviews

The expert teachers’ remarks were as follows-

The teachers’ role should be a facilitator, role model and guide in the language class to help students develop effective learning habits.

Teachers should be able to design the techniques to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purpose.

English should be used in the language class.

Use of translation should be limited.

Audio-visual aids like realia, pictures, over-head transparencies, audio-tapes, videos, and computers should be fully utilized.

Teachers should be aware of the individual differences among students in the learning process.

Appropriation and encouragement should be given to the students to reinforce their initiatives in the language class.

Teachers should develop their own reference material.

Teachers should attend more in-service training programmes to explore their beliefs, pose questions and gain new knowledge and skills.

Teachers should seize the opportunities of taking part in the training programmes and try to refresh their knowledge both theoretically and practically.

5. 3 Implications of the Findings

It is believed that that the research results reported here have significance to teachers, school leaders, teacher training institutions, teacher development experts and policy makers, researchers and other stakeholders in the development of teachers.

Professional development is considered as context-specific and long-term process in which teachers are trusted, respected and empowered as professionals. Teacher development activities are sought as more of collaborative activities portraying the social nature of learning. Schools that facilitate learning and development of teachers exhibit characteristics of a learning organization culture where, professional collaboration, collegiality and shared leadership are practiced.

The findings of the study presented above have implications for the following people.

5.3.1 Implications for the Learners

A. Listening Skills

Based on the findings of the study, the following implications are made for the learners to learn the listening skills.

Listening Skills have to be made a compulsory examination component

Keeping the changing status of English in view, measures should be taken to improve the teaching and learning standards of English in Municipal Corporation Schools of Vijayawada, A P. Listening skills need to be incorporated in the examination system so that the learners will be able to learn to comprehend not only during the examination in listening skills but also listen to English News, Sports commentary, announcement in the Railway station, etc.

Instructional model for strategic training in listening skills

Too often, teachers do not seem to distinguish between teaching and testing listening skills. Teachers very often resort to testing rather than teaching. Consequently they become inactive in the classroom. Instead, they need to teach listening comprehension deploying proper strategies to make them strategically smart listeners. Therefore, the following steps need immediate attention:

Identifying the needs and purposes of the listeners using appropriate tools.

The teaching of listening skills should integrate three important processes (bottom-up, top-down and interactive) and provide the learners enough strategies and make them effective listeners.

Teaching listening skills is not just playing the tape and asking questions to the learners. The learners need to be prepared for listening, trained in processing input, and made them go beyond the text. Each session should be divided into a pre-listening session, a while listening session and a post-listening session and the following needs to be addressed in these sessions-

Fostering language and strategy awareness

Previewing the tasks and keywords

Using visual clues

Negotiating the learning objectives among learners and the teacher

Moderating mismatching background knowledge

Utilizing linguistic and non-linguistic inputs

Promoting independent listener efforts

Accommodating social aspects

Integrating other skills

Maximizing learning opportunity

Appropriate training for the teachers

In the case of teaching listening skills, a teacher has to perform varieties of responsible roles. For e.g. needs analyst, syllabus designer, material designer, planner, counselor, mentor, facilitator, team member, investigator, motivator, and language analyst are a few to mention. Teachers need to be given proper training to perform these roles well.

L2 listening competence is a complex skill that needs to be developed consciously. Listening is the root cause for the development of other skills of language. Any short coming of listening will affect the development of other skills eventually. However, to overcome the listening short coming the following remedies will be helpful for the L2 listeners.

Guiding students through the process of listening not only provides them with the knowledge by which they can successfully complete the a listening task; it also motivates them and puts them in control of their learning (Vandergrift, 2002)

Teaching listening comprehension should not be ignored. It may be taught in the following manner: i.e. how to understand a context, how to deduce meaning of an unknown vocabulary in a context, and how to understand the contextual/situational meanings of words.

Learners can be provided opportunities to listen to the sound discrimination, recognition of minimal pairs (Cut, put), recognizing morphemes (free and bound morphemes), recognizing syllables in words, recognizing silent letters in words, identification of parts of speech, etc. Will help to build up listeners’ ability to discriminate L2 phonemes, morphemes and phonetic variation of sounds.

Teachers should create situations to the learners to listen to different current vocabularies and allow them to write down the synonyms and antonyms for those words. Further, practice of finding equal L1 words for L2 as well as translation of sentence from L2 to L1 and vice versa will help to develop the linguistic competence of the learners.

Listening to the news on radio, watching TV programmes, and documentary films will certainly help to understand how the native and non-native speakers use the English language. It helps them also in understanding the dialectal variations of the language.

Listening to the public announcements will help to strengthen the socio-linguistic knowledge of the students.

Listening is an active process since the mind actively engages in making meaning. It is therefore, the duty of the teachers to ensure that the materials they use are comprehensible to the learners.