Challenges of Teaching English in A Multi-Lingual Setting: A Survey at Government Secondary Schools of Muzaffarabad

Abstract

The major focus of this study is to highlight the problems that are faced by the teachers while teaching English to the secondary level students of Government schools in Muzaffarabad which is the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, a northern part of Pakistan. This is a region of various languages and teacher has to teach in the classroom having a blend of students with various linguistic backgrounds. Though being a multilingual is advantageous over monolingual, but it is challenging for the teacher to teach English in a multilingual setting. This study aims to look at the challenges of teachers while teaching English in this situation. Questionnaire and observation checklist was used for data collection and analyzed through excel sheet. Purposive sampling was used to select 10 teachers, including 5 males and 5 females, from 6 different Government schools of Muzaffarabad. The findings of the study show that in a multilingual classroom negative attitude of students towards English is the biggest challenge for the teachers to cope with. Students cannot concentrate on stress, intonation and pauses when English, a stressed-time language meddles with the syllable-timed language like Urdu. Along with that underdeveloped skills of students that are required in order to learn a language is yet another big hurdle for the teachers. Teacher faces time and curriculum coverage pressure. Furthermore pedagogy and examination system does not meet the requirement of current age. It is suggested that lesson planning is helpful in minimizing half of the problems that are highlighted in the current study, so teacher should plan it before entering the classroom and there should be innovation in the teaching styles and students’ assessment criteria. There should be a practical use of English in the classrooms. Homework should enhance the learning capacity of students.