CHALLENGES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH AT THE HIGHER SECONDARY LEVEL IN BANGLADESH

The present study intended to investigate the challenges in teaching and learning English at the higher secondary level in Bangladesh. The primary aim of this study was to shed new light on communicative English teaching (CLT) implementation by looking into teachers' and students’ experiences and ideas at the higher secondary level in Bangladesh. Integrating both qualitative and quantitative means of data collection, this study followed the tradition of the Mixed Methods Research (MMR) Approach. The researcher used two questionnaires to elicit quantitative data and conducted an in-depth interview for qualitative data. 50 students and 7 teachers were randomly selected from five colleges of the Kushtia district of Khulna division in Bangladesh located both in rural and urban areas for collecting questionnaire data. The researcher selected 5 students and 3 English language teachers for conducting an in-depth interview. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS-26 and the qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis. The findings of this study reveal that both the teachers face a number of challenges in learning and teaching English at the higher secondary level in Bangladesh. Hence, the findings of this study suggest that tactics and approaches, for example, providing visual aids and asking follow-up questions, are needed to optimize the usage of the target language and improve communicative English teaching (CLT) implementation in the classroom.