EXPLORING PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: A CASE STUDY OF DISTRICT KARAK, PAKISTAN

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17792347

Abstract

English is an official and a high stakes language in Pakistan despite the conventional based classroom activities, which are founded on traditional and examination based learning, preventing the development of communicative competence (Ahmad et al., 2013; Warsi, 2004). The paper explores the kind of pedagogies being embraced by the English teachers in postgraduate colleges within the District Karak in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as the extent in which the pedagogies are well integrated in the existing approaches to teaching English as a second language or ESL. It relies on the mixed-method design, and data has been collected via 12 English lecturers in each of the three forms of the classroom observations, structured questionnaire, semi-structured interview design.

The findings indicate that most educators speak English commonly in the classroom despite the integrations of using technology to provide pronunciation though the most prevalent grammar-translation and lecture style of instructions are still in use by many teachers (Chang, 2011; Jilani, 2004). Only in the case of a communicative language teaching (CLT) or blended approach to instruction, a minority of them tend to do so in a systematic way (Ahmad and Rao, 2013; Littlewood, 1981). The information that was uncovered by the questionnaires revealed that 83 percent of the teachers responded that they used English fluently in ESL classes, 83 percent responded that they use technology in the normal, and 90 percent replied that they interacted and evaluated students regularly. However, fifty percent of the teacher requirements were to continue working through the old methods and low percentage of 15 percent was reported as teachers who were utilizing the new pedagogical techniques such as CLT. Poor formal training, high classes, poor language background of the students were a few of the challenges that were exposed in the interviews (Akram and Mehmood, 2011; Kabilan and Izzaham, 2008). As the paper concludes, the special teacher education and the support of the institutions should be used to provide the equilibrium between old and new practices to promote the ESL education and ESL learning in the District of Karak.