Classroom Management of Spoken English Language Courses in Private Universities

Abstract

English spoken courses have been included, due to the current uprising demands, in the curricula of private universities in Bangladesh, regardless of any faculties. However, very few studies conducted on the classroom management of spoken English language courses, especially at the tertiary level. Teaching and learning being interlinked to each other, classroom management, by drawing a congenial environment, plays a vital role to the purpose of both teaching and learning to its fruitful end. It is, therefore, essential to explore the managerial styles and strategies practiced in spoken classrooms. The study is anticipated to be helpful for teachers, researchers and course-designers altogether to make them realize the importance of classroom management at tertiary level as well as at other levels of education in Bangladesh. During the course of the study, ten universities were visited. Data were collected through observation of twenty English language classes and interviews of ten English language teachers. Moreover, there were total of 218 students divided into 27 focus groups who were interviewed to collect the required data. In order to examine the data, two theories had been applied—one was about style and the other, was about strategy as mentioned in the section of theoretical framework. Upon analysis of the obtained data, the research findings indicate that authoritarian style and improper preventive strategies were being applied to handle the managerial matters of spoken courses that lead to an ineffective environment for learning speaking in English as a language skill. The investigation concluded with a couple of recommendations for new measures, which ideally will refresh the teaching of speaking skill in private universities with far more prominent extension and achievement.