Asia Pacific Journal of Education

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Reflecting on Western TESOL training and

communicative language teaching: Bangladeshi
teachers' voices

Raqib Chowdhury & Phan Le Ha

To cite this article: Raqib Chowdhury & Phan Le Ha (2008) Reflecting on Western TESOL training
and communicative language teaching: Bangladeshi teachers' voices, Asia Pacific Journal of
Education, 28:3, 305-316, DOI: 10.1080/02188790802236006

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02188790802236006

Published online: 17 Sep 2008.

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Asia Pacific Journal of Education
Vol. 28, No. 3, September 2008, 305–316

Reflecting on Western TESOL training and communicative language

teaching: Bangladeshi teachers’ voices
Raqib Chowdhury and Phan Le Ha*

Faculty of Education, Monash University, Victoria, Australia

( Received 1 November 2007; final version received 29 January 2008 )

The increasing demand for competent users of English in the era of globalisation has had a
significant impact on English Language Teaching (ELT) in Bangladesh. Among a number
of changes to improve the quality of ELT, teachers of English have been encouraged, even
required, to adopt a communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. To facilitate the
successful implementation of these changes, besides introducing local training
programmes to familiarise teachers with CLT, teachers of English from Bangladesh
have also been sent overseas, especially to the English-speaking West, for further training.
Drawing on a qualitative research study, this paper discusses the pedagogical concerns
of Bangladeshi English teachers, including those who are Western-trained, in relation to
their teaching of English. It also investigates their perceptions of the politics of the
Western Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) industry
associated with problems of pedagogical ethics and appropriacy. Based on the findings and
discussions, recommendations are offered for enhancing the quality of ELT in Bangladesh
and strategically responding to the commercialised hegemonic but necessary “evil” of
TESOL training.
Keywords: TESOL; ELT; communicative language teaching; teacher training

Introduction
The increasing demand for competent users of English in the era of globalisation has had a
significant impact on English Language Teaching (ELT) in Bangladesh. Among a number of
changes aimed at improving the quality of ELT, teachers of English have been encouraged, even
required to adopt a communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. At the risk of
over-generalising, it may be said that CLT has become the dominant theoretical model in ELT
all over the world since the 1980s. In practical terms, the approach involves providing teachers
with communicative activities as part of their repertoire of teaching skills and giving learners
ample opportunity to practise their language skills in class. Even though CLT claims to create a
democratic classroom that is responsive to students’ needs, it is often inappropriate and
incompatible, neither sophisticated nor responsive enough for the complex educational needs
and cultures of students in certain settings. This paper examines the various facets of the
application of CLT in Bangladesh and the politicisation processes that are inextricably linked to
its implementation in settings where a more teacher-centred approach is the culturally
sanctioned norm.
To facilitate the implementation of CLT in Bangladesh, along with the introduction of local
training programmes, teachers of English have also been sent overseas – almost exclusively

*Corresponding author. Email: ha.phan@education.monash.edu.au

ISSN 0218-8791 print/ISSN 1742-6855 online

q 2008 National Institute of Education, Singapore
DOI: 10.1080/02188790802236006
http://www.informaworld.com
306 R. Chowdhury and Phan L.H.

to the English-speaking West – for further training. This paper specifically discusses the
perceptions that Bangladeshi Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
teachers, including Western-trained ones, have in relation to the politics of the Western TESOL
industry, which is associated with problems of pedagogical ethics and appropriacy (Holliday,
2005; Pennycook, 1994, 1998).

An overview of English and ELT in Bangladesh

Bangladesh does not enjoy the ethnolinguistic diversity that other countries in the region have
(Chowdhury & Farooqui, in press), with 98% of its population speaking Bangla or Bengali
(Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2007). A foreign (rather than second) language in Bangladesh,
English is taught as a compulsory core subject from Years 1 – 12. Though few people use it in
their personal lives, the country depends on it for both internal and international business, and
there is no doubt about its importance in job markets, business, industry and government, with
workers increasingly expected to develop skills in English. Proficiency in English is widely seen
as a precondition leading to economic, social and educational opportunities, and providing
access to material resources. Because of the importance accorded to English and the consistently
escalating demands for English proficiency, in 2000, the government introduced major changes
to the curriculum, text and teacher training (see Chowdhury & Farooqui, in press, for details). In
spite of these changes, classroom teaching seems to have returned to the old “chalk-and-talk drill
method” (Pandian, 2004, as cited in Littlewood, 2007, p. 246).
At all levels of education, the grammar-translation method is still the norm of ELT in
Bangladesh and considerable friction between policy-level expectations and actual practice can
be felt by practitioners, such as the English teachers who took part in this study. Such practice
involves a heavy emphasis on grammatical rules, vocabulary memorisation and translation of
(mostly decontextualised) sentences. English lessons are conducted solely in Bangla or Bengali,
with little use of English. Until recently, the secondary English textbook was mainly a collection
of “prose” and “poetry”, with a supplementary grammar book in which grammar items were
presented structurally with almost no interactive exercises. The only activities involved writing
paragraphs, essays, personal letters and job applications. As Hasan (2004) reports, the emphasis
was on grammar, encouraging students to learn the language but not how to use it in a given
context. While examinations assessed grammatical knowledge, along with writing skills,
speaking and listening skills were neither a focus of classroom teaching, nor were they tested in
the exam.

Reform movements
In the face of the long-felt inadequacy of English courses, which failed to improve the learners’
skills, reform in ELT started taking place from the late 1990s. Imam reports that the government
made it clear that “being nationally competent in English is one necessary condition if
Bangladesh is to move up the long curve of economic growth from its low starting point” (Imam,
2005, as cited in Farooqui, 2006). The government, through a number of overseas development
projects, sought to introduce major changes in English language education in the secondary
education sector. In 2000, the English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP), for
example, co-funded by the Bangladeshi government and by the United Kingdom’s Department
for International Development (DFID), introduced communicative textbooks up to the Higher
Secondary Certificate (HSC) level. Chowdhury and Farooqui (in press) discuss how the ELTIP,
which was jointly run by the British Council Dhaka and the National Curriculum and Textbook
Board, attempted to improve the quality of ELT in secondary and higher secondary education
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 307

across the country. The new curriculum was a conspicuous departure from previous teaching
methods, with a marked transfer of focus from a teacher-centred to a more student-centred
approach. This method was explicitly aimed at the teaching and learning of English, facilitating
students’ acquisition of communicative competence in English through interaction and practice
of skills in the classroom. Textbooks included, for the first time, material that was not only
locally produced but also culturally familiar. The conceptualisation, creation and production of
materials were all done by local teachers.
Along with these changes, the ELTIP also conducted teacher training throughout the
country, redesigned the curriculum for secondary schools, and produced teaching materials.
Teachers were now expected to foster communicative competence in students. Although these
reforms took place in secondary education, its effects were soon to be felt in the university, with
the emergence of new courses such as the University of Dhaka’s Foundation Course (FC) in
English. The participants of this study were all teachers in this course. (For an elaboration of this
study, please refer to Chowdhury & Farooqui, in press.)

The cultural politics of the TESOL industry

The continued global demand for English language courses has seen the enterprise of TESOL
grow into a successful global industry (Pennycook, 1994, 1998; Phillipson, 1992). Auerbach
claims that TESOL programmes are “often controlled not by the structure or objective of the
program but by the specific and sometimes incidental interest of the faculty” (1995, p. 86), while
authors such as Walker (2001) have claimed that TESOL institutions, though inherently
educational in character, are essentially “service operations” where commercial success may
depend on the word-of-mouth recommendations of satisfied clients.
TESOL courses in North America, Britain and Australia (NABA) have also been criticised
for their ethnocentrism. Liu claims that these courses neglect the “needs of international TESOL
students” (1998, p. 3). Such neglect has been seen, for example, in “L2 acquisition theories and
TESOL methodologies” (p. 4), where there has been little consideration of other non-NABA
contexts, which may result in “impractical or ineffective” (p. 4) adaptations of teaching
methodologies in non-NABA countries. Likewise, Brown explores ELT teacher training
and reveals some conflicts between contemporary ELT, “particularly but not exclusively in
the ‘importing’ of new techniques associated with communicative language teaching”, and the
reality of implementing such techniques in developing countries. He argues that “cultural
continuity” and gradual changes should be “respected, by not losing contact with current [local]
practice” (2000, p. 227).
Lin, Wang, Akamatsu, and Riazi argue that the name TESOL itself “already assigns a fixed
status to the English learner, positioning the learner in a life trajectory of forever being the
‘Other’, and continuing the colonial storyline of Friday – the ‘slave boy’ learning the ‘master’s
language’” (2001, p. 22). It is always the Other who has to work hard and adjust to meet the
requirements set by the Self – the standard always belongs to the Self and the Other remains a
second-class practitioner. These colonial traits, as discussed by Pennycook (1998), can still be
found in contemporary TESOL. If Said’s position is that the strategic location of the Orientalist
is locked up in the discourse he uses in his writing, and that his unacknowledged “positional
superiority” (1978, p. 7) becomes the prerequisite for his writing, then Kachru seems to assert
the same notion by saying that when English is acquired by non-native speakers, they not only
gain power but are enslaved by the knowledge that English brings with it (1986). This also
means that, paradoxically, the learning of English is a silent and unacknowledged process of
orientalisation for the non-native speaker. This kind of education can result in the making of a
group of learners indoctrinated in the discourse of the native speaker who, in turn, reflexively
308 R. Chowdhury and Phan L.H.

contribute to the consolidation of the same discourse. However, from the data collected as part of
this study, it appears that teachers in Bangladesh were able to resist this hegemony through
idiosyncratic ways of interpreting and translating the Western teaching methodology of CLT
in practice.

Where CLT falls short

The literature is fraught with discussions on the relative merits and shortcomings of CLT, which
has often been assumed to be “the best” and much more advanced and effective than other
approaches, such as the grammar-translation method (see Phan Le Ha, 2007). Such assumptions
about the superiority of CLT, on the other hand, have been challenged by many authors who argue
that CLT, in reality, has caused difficulties, problems, frustration, dissatisfaction, tensions and
confusion for many language teachers and learners around the world (Gupta, 2004; Hu, 2005; Le,
2001; Li, 1998; Liu, 1998; McKay, 2003; Rao, 2002). The application of CLT in many global
contexts requires a revolution at all levels, from the superficial to the institutional, from the most
fundamental to the most complex, such as the societal, political and cultural. The shortcomings of
CLT, focusing particularly on cultural, pedagogical and ideological issues, are discussed below.

CLT as a form of Western superiority

The assumption that CLT is “the best” and “the way to teach” (Bax, 2003) has been associated
with the cultural politics of English and ELT and the discourses of colonialism (Pennycook,
1994, 1998), the marketisation and commercialisation of TESOL and ELT worldwide
(Anderson, 2005; Chowdhury, 2006; Pennycook, 1994), “Anglocentricity” (Phillipson, 1992),
and the native speaker fallacy (Canagarajah, 1999). These are the very factors that promote CLT
as a manifestation of Western superiority in every domain of the ELT industry. More often than
not, such impressions of CLT embedded in current TESOL are due to “‘methodological
dogmatism’ fervently promoting ‘new’ NABA methodologies, particularly those entitled
‘communicative’, while condemning tried and tested ‘traditional’ methods still popular in many
other parts of the world” (Liu, 1998, p. 4).

Translating CLT: cultural incompatibility and the conflict of values

When CLT is applied in reality, its pedagogical values often conflict with a number of cultural,
social and professional values embedded in the practice of teaching and learning in global
contexts (Auerbach, 1995; Chowdhury, 2003; Edge, 1996; Liu, 1998; Pennycook, 1994;
Phillipson, 1992). Ironically, as Furedi notes, TESOL education is promoted through pedagogic
styles, such as CLT, designed to flatter students who are no longer expected to study but to learn;
and since complex ideas are not learned but studied, the intellectual horizon of the learner is
restricted to the assimilation of information and the acquisition of skills (Furedi, 2002, as cited in
Anderson, 2005). According to Kubota (2001), one of the many ways in which institutionalised
essentialism manifests itself is in the type of pedagogy that is promoted as the norm. Oblivious to
the culturally situated person, CLT offers learners advice and guidance about what constitutes a
discipline and what kinds of outcomes are expected of their courses (Chowdhury, 2006).
The academic is encouraged to play the role of facilitator rather than that of a generator of
knowledge. This contradicts the socially expected and felt image of the professional self of the
teacher in many countries, such as in Vietnam (Phan Le Ha, 2008).
The issue of “respect between teacher and student” is another source of conflict in
implementing CLT. In Bangladesh, hierarchy determines the nature of teacher–student
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 309

interactions, which is facilitated by mutual respect. First names and physical proximity can result
in mutual discomfort and misunderstanding. The classroom may be paradoxically at odds with the
world outside; Biggs (1997) refers to this as “the inside/outside rules” of class participation –
“Student talk is ‘outside’ (inappropriate) when inside the classroom, but ‘inside’ when outside the
classroom” (p. 17). Primarily, these cultural constraints inhibit the communicative competence of
students and limit the choices they could make outside the classroom. Also, in CLT, the student
with the best control of structures and vocabulary is not necessarily the best communicator. Due to
a heavy emphasis on the teaching of grammar at the pre-university level (Chowdhury, 2003),
first-year university students in Bangladesh generally have a modest grasp of the structure and
usage of the English language. However, the demands of the CLT class, at which the ELT reform
in Bangladesh was aimed, cannot be fulfilled with this knowledge. Edge (1996) claims that by
“deliberately moving away from a teacher-centred style of teaching”, the TESOL professional
shows “a lack of proper respect for teachers and, by extension, for elders in general” (p. 17). This is
seen as threatening the respect associated with the status of teachers in many countries. Tollefson
similarly suggests that ELT practices “must be examined for their impact upon the relationship
between students and teachers, and for their ideological assumptions about the roles of teachers
and students in society” (1991, p. 102). Holliday (1994) and Ellis (1996) demonstrate that the CLT
principle of equal teacher–student status challenges the culturally endorsed hierarchical teacher–
student relationship and the need to show respect to teachers in many countries, and thus faces
resistance and unwelcome attitudes in those countries.
In addition to the issue of respect, CLT often faces resistance from teachers and learners due
to the issue of “expectations”, as Phan Le Ha (2008) has noted. For example, many native
English teachers in Vietnam have noticed that their students tend to think that having fun with
communicative activities in the language classroom means that they are not learning anything
(Breach, 2005). According to Phan Le Ha, the cause for this mismatch of expectations
is the difference between students’ concept of learning and teachers’ perception of teaching, in
which students see learning as a serious process when solid knowledge is introduced by teachers,
while many native English teachers think that communicative activities including fun and relaxing
ones are best. (p. 92)

The study
This study was conducted with six Bangladeshi university teachers – five female and one male. Four
of these teachers had degrees from abroad (one with a PhD from the UK and a Master’s in TESOL
from the US; one with a Master’s in TESOL from the US; one with a postgraduate diploma in ELT
from the UK; and one with a Master’s degree in TESOL from Australia). The other two participants
were locally trained (with Master’s degrees in English Literature and Linguistics and ELT). Their
teaching experience ranged from three years to over 15 years. The first group of teachers had been
exposed to both Western culture and the Westernised models of CLT currently in practice.
The participants were given pseudonyms – Rina, Tania, Neelima, Bithi, Farzin, and Osman
(the only male). A questionnaire, interviews, emails and online conversations were employed for
data collection.

What are CLT principles that challenge teachers’ roles in the classroom and society?
Student-centred teaching
The participants expressed concern about what CLT expected them to be, and the conflicts of
that expected role in relation to the traditional ways in which their students had perceived them.
310 R. Chowdhury and Phan L.H.

Neelima, for example, said that it was almost impossible to expect “student-centred teaching” in
the Bangladeshi context:
I was actually thinking within our context and it is not possible for our classes to be totally student-
centred; because of the limitations that we have it is simply not possible and . . . even their level is not to
the standard where they could continue with simply student-centred learning . . . There’s still got to be
some kind of guide to instruct the students. Student-centred teaching was a lot more than what we could
do, like students would be the ones to select the texts, students would be the ones to correct the texts and
teachers would just . . . It is not possible to bring into action CLT in its true form . . . in its original.
Neelima also mentioned that culture is an important factor in defining the nature of student–teacher
interactions. One of the reasons why students feel inhibited in student-centred interactions is that
teachers do not adequately encourage students to participate due to the culturally situated role of the
teacher. This view, albeit true, is also paradoxical because, as she mentioned earlier, students see
the teacher as a “father figure” – nurturing and authoritative at the same time:
Yeah our culture is [the reason] – it’s definitely there if you question it, because students are there to
accept everything the teacher is saying.
Clearly defining the traditional approach to teaching as anything but communicative, another
participant, Rina, expressed:
I see myself as a teacher who tries to strike a balance between the traditional approach to teaching
and the communicative one. Somewhere in between . . . but I try to be communicative.

A democratic classroom
From the participants’ collective responses, it was also apparent that while they all wanted to “break
the ice” between the students and the teachers, they were not entirely willing to give up their
authoritative and somewhat distanced role of the traditional teacher. The reason for this was
elaborated by Osman who, echoing another participant, said that it was a matter of culture; he felt that
it is better to allow students to pay the respect and maintain the distance they are comfortable with.
Asked if he thought it was possible to simultaneously maintain discipline and be
communicative in the classroom, to strike a balance between the teacher as facilitator and friend
against the more authoritative role, Osman argued:
I don’t think CLT is undisciplined . . . What we probably need is something in between
communicative and our traditional way of teaching the students. For example, we can’t or shouldn’t
give them extreme freedom and at the same time we should not ask them to follow our
“school-master” type way of doing it. That means giving them the impression that you are the
teacher guru and they should not say or do anything that doesn’t fit in the scheme. I’m saying we
can’t be 100% communicative; that is, I should know what they should do, not them.
This last comment is very intriguing because it seems to deny students knowledge of the
teacher’s orientation to teaching and its objectives. While, on the one hand, it is a practical
decision considering that students may not feel comfortable with the more learner-centred
communicative approaches to language teaching, on the other hand, ignorance of lesson
objectives could result in further enhancing the distance between student and teacher.
Commenting on the same matter, Osman continued,
Invite your students to take the responsibility of their learning, and you’ll see the result. They take it
as a weakness on the part of the teacher.

How do these teachers deal with issues of cultural appropriateness in teaching materials?
Since all the participants invariably hinted at some degree of communicative effort in their
classrooms, it was necessary to find out how they helped their students adjust to the cultural
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 311

content. They were asked to identify their most common strategy for dealing with culturally
“inappropriate” material. Options included “censorship”, “explanation”, “adaptation”,
“avoidance”, and “other”. Explanation appeared to be the most common strategy among all
six participants. Other answers included adaptation (Neelima, Osman) and avoidance
(Osman). All the participants showed enthusiasm and concern about the often-felt but
often-neglected daily pedagogical experience. They all revealed the contradictions and
paradoxes inherent in their pedagogy, based as it was on the values of different cultural
traditions.

Recasting: how teachers adapt rather than adopt

From the data collected, it was clear that adaptation or reinterpretation is a natural part of the
innovation process – “teachers mould innovations to their own abilities, beliefs and
experiences; the immediate school context; and the wider sociocultural environment”
(Carless, 2004, as cited in Littlewood, 2007, p. 244). This is similar to Widdowson’s (1989)
observation that “the influence of ideas does not depend on their being understood in their own
[terms; usually], it depends on their being recast in different terms to suit other conditions of
relevance” (as cited in Littlewood, 2007, p. 246). These “essentially defensive strategies”
(Littlewood, 2007, p. 246) are counterbalanced by many reports, which echo Li’s (1998)
advice for South Korea: not to reject, but to “adapt rather than adopt” (as cited in Chowdhury,
2003, p. 296). As central agents of policy implementation, classroom teachers exercise a
number of strategies when it comes to practice.

Explanation
Neelima described it as a “kind of a cultural shock” for students to encounter unfamiliar cultural
material. She provided an anecdotal experience of how she was required to teach William Carlos
Williams’ The Wheelbarrow, a supposedly “easy poem”. The explanation of the poem was
difficult from the very start, when she realised that the students were not familiar with “the
meaning of the title word itself”. She had to explain it by using the equivalent Bangla word
thelagari. Osman gave another example of what happened when a culturally unfamiliar concept
was introduced in the class: at the start of one session, when he asked his students what they did
on the “weekend”, the students were all silent. Osman explained that this was not surprising
since, unlike in the West, weekends in Bangladesh are not set aside for outings and partying.
Bithi, however, disagreed that the cultural content in the Foundation Course textbooks was
incompatible. She argued that though “cultural unfamiliarity . . . becomes a major problem in
teaching English literature”, she had not encountered the problem in ELT:
I use explanation as a strategy for dealing with cultural difference, because often what they need to
come to terms with their assigned reading material is a familiarity with literary and historical
backgrounds, and the quickest way of dealing with is to fill them in. This enables them to grasp the
material better so that the acquisition of language skills is not hampered.
Neelima, on the other hand, felt that this cultural “gap” posed a significant problem in the course
she taught and required a slow process of familiarisation:
Since you are reading different texts of a different culture, you also have to understand and get
acquainted with the other culture. It’s easier if students get things that are familiar with their
own culture, so that they can understand and connect themselves and get engaged with the text.
We could design materials using local texts, local articles and then insert components of
the target culture into it. Before introducing to them texts from England or America, it’s
better if we introduce things from our part of the world in order to get students to better
understand them.
312 R. Chowdhury and Phan L.H.

Adaptation
Adaptation appeared to be another common strategy in dealing with culturally inappropriate
material in texts. Though this seemed to be practical and manageable enough for the
teachers, the problem was that every teacher had their own way of adapting discussion
topics. As a result, students of different groups did not appear to have received equal or
uniform treatment of the discussion topic. Osman’s favourite strategy seemed to be context-
changing:
[Adaptation] is not always difficult because we are dealing with adult learners, after all. I think these
are very common strategies which language teachers frequently use in the EFL context. Like many
teachers, I try to explain any such matter first of all. Sometimes I adapt it, which means I may change
the context or something.

Avoidance
Avoidance appeared to be another strategy that was practised. Two participants mentioned
avoidance as a way of dealing with cultural elements in texts. While both teachers felt there were
alternative ways of approaching the subject, they thought it was best to avoid it at times,
considering the time that would need to be spent explaining or adapting.
I may avoid the whole issue if I feel that it’s not important at all or it does not have any pedagogical
value. Sometimes it is not worth the time. (Farzin)
Farzin gave an anecdotal example, where she avoided a time-consuming discussion of an
unfamiliar topic:
Like we had this chapter on this student driving a truck/bus to bear the expenses of their education.
This sort of thing is alien to them. They are so used to their father’s paying the tuition fees in most
cases and also to tutoring students at best, so they cannot think of driving a truck or bus and studying.
I actually dropped that chapter because of it being culturally irrelevant. And also when we are
teaching them about writing essays, when we are practising to write topic sentences where they
choose from given ones . . . There are a couple of things like, the conditions of working in an apple
plant, consumer’s group etc . . . which we don’t have in Bangladesh as yet.
Avoidance of culturally inappropriate material did not appear to be a common practice
among these teachers, and those who used it were judicious about the situations in which
they did so.

The politics of TESOL

With regard to the political element of TESOL training in the West, the participants gave quite
diverse opinions. While four participants showed an awareness of a power relationship and a
corresponding neglect of the real needs of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries in the
international training of TESOL today, two of them were quite unsure about how to describe it.
It appeared that these two participants did feel an inadequacy, but it was more of a vague feeling
rather than a critically felt conviction. Some of the words that they used to describe this political
play were “hidden agenda”, “brainwashing”, “prescriptive” (Osman), “sale of English” (Tania),
and “at their mercy” (Farzin). Noteworthy, too, is the fact that the two participants who did not
believe in the politicisation of TESOL (Neelima, Rina) were both trained in the West, while the
two locally trained teachers (Bithi, Farzin) both sensed some sort of power play. Noted Osman:
What I mean is perhaps the Westerners are trying to be more descriptive than prescriptive. That’s
why they are showing interest to see what actually goes on in different classrooms and on the basis of
these practical authentic data; they can suggest methods which could be more practical and
applicable.
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 313

Farzin used the term “rich countries” and later, in her answer to another question, she talked of
the socioeconomic factors that affect language learning. This also gives rise to the consideration
of the kind of Western training – whether it is tailored to suit the needs of international students,
and the relevance of the type of courses offered.
A sense of naı̈ve helplessness echoed from the words of Bithi (who was locally trained), who
saw the political element as something we cannot do away with:
The BC [British Council] Dhaka does not offer a TESOL degree. To an extent, I do feel that local
needs are ignored in TESOL degrees abroad, but at present there is no viable alternative in
Bangladesh.
Osman shared the same sense of helplessness:
The real needs of the EFL countries are neglected in the process to a great extent . . . because more
often than not, the talks and proceedings are prescriptive, not descriptive . . . Hopefully, these days
there is a growing interest in the West in investing what actually goes on in the classroom . . . but you
can’t blame the West for that . . . they are not going to talk about your real needs if it does not benefit
them . . . and we, the Eastern students, are yet to raise our voices.
Some comments appeared to be based on the participants’ own experiences in the West, coupled
with their knowledge and interpretation of the extensive, even if sometimes confusing, literature.
Osman commented:
I think any such training has some definite goals and motives which the proceedings try to
achieve . . . and these issues may reflect some hidden agendas which may be communicated to the
participants . . . There is some sort of brainwashing going on implicitly . . . The ideas and issues that
are raised and talked about in the training are usually Western, not Eastern or whatever.
The participants were also asked to comment on whether they thought that the real needs of the
developing EFL countries were neglected in the process of this politicisation. Osman, who was
trained in Australia, said that it could be safely generalised that the training was “prescriptive,
not descriptive”. He went to the extent of saying that English had been taking the form of
neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism:
TESOL can also be considered an industry . . . an international company . . . The books that are
written in the West have their markets in the developing nations . . . Obviously the culture contained
in those books is Western culture, which very often influences the readers or learners . . . Any
training in ELT or TESOL will try to infuse the hidden agendas of the West.
Farzin added:
Definitely there is [a political element] because they, the West, will select the area they are interested in
for me to pursue my higher studies, which may not be necessary for my teaching conditions here; on the
other hand, the area which needs to be worked on here may be rejected by them simply because it cannot
be applied to/used in other rich countries like theirs; so we are at their mercy, I would say.
The degree of this somewhat bitter realisation of the politicisation of TESOL training in the
West, however, appeared to be balanced by a newer retrospective realisation of how people
gradually get used to the thought processes through which Westernisation manifests itself.
Recalling his own experience in Australia, Osman mentioned that he had been “conservative”
when he first went there; he had never seen an English movie prior to that. These, along with
other similar comments, were interesting in part because they appeared to view politics as
imbued with conscious intentions of power imposition and as interactions determined by
differences in values.
Rina did not see politics as an issue in Western TESOL training, though she acknowledged
that the needs of developing countries were neglected. She argued that the element of critical
understanding is often neglected when the West is held responsible for it, and that the adoption
of Western techniques is the key to successfully utilising Western knowledge:
314 R. Chowdhury and Phan L.H.

The needs of the developing countries are not specifically catered. However, there is awareness that what
is taught is not absolute or final, and can be tailored to suit the needs of local contexts. Course content and
methods can be adjusted to apply what is feasible and appropriate for a particular situation.
The participants discussed power relationships embedded in English and TESOL training,
showing their awareness of diverse opinions about this issue. Interestingly, their words
expressed their views of power as both positive and negative, reflecting the cultural politics as
well as the linguistic power attributed to English and ELT. Said Neelima:
It is a power relationship, definitely . . . It initially started with a political idea at the very beginning
of our history – when English was introduced, it was not to educate the Indian people but to colonise
them. But with globalisation, and with English being a more international language now, it’s . . . I
wouldn’t consider it as that much a political thing, but more of a necessity.
When we are taught in the West to be English teachers, there is also the underlying understanding
that we would accept their way of doing things, learning things; but there is also on the other hand
this idea that we are not really accepting everything that they are offering from their culture. They’re
also giving us our own understanding of what we do of our situation and our problems. We are
learning English from English-speaking people, but nevertheless, being non-native speakers, we are
also providing our own experiences to the teaching context. So ELT or TESOL is not just the
teaching of English and English culture, but also the teaching of English within other cultures within
other communities. So this exists today throughout the world – not just within English communities.
English in our society is a foreign language, but still it is a necessity, it has its global values. Without
English, we really can’t make it with the other world.
Rina also noted:
I am not sure about the political element, but maybe there is some truth and it is reinforced when you
read authors like Pennycook and Phillipson. I think serious attention is not paid to the specific ELT
needs of the developing countries.
Tania added:
I never really thought about the political element in the international training of TESOL
professionals. Definitely it promotes the “Sale of English” but under the existing political situation of
the Third World countries. Can it be changed? As long as USA, UK, Canada will continue to give us
aid, the scenario can’t be changed. If you talk about the real needs of EFL countries, then they
themselves should identify their needs and act accordingly, instead of relying on others.
The participants’ concern about the politics and power underlying their TESOL training supports the
arguments about English and TESOL being used as commodities, spreading Western values through
aids programmes, neglecting the needs of developing countries, and carrying on colonial missions in
new forms (Liu, 1998; Pennycook, 1994, 1998; Phillipson, 1992). Their comments point to the
importance of having access to Western TESOL and English. However, they also reveal the
linguistic hegemony of English; it “can be understood as referring to the explicit and implicit values,
beliefs, purposes, and activities which characterise the ELT profession and which contribute to the
maintenance of English as a dominant language” (Phillipson, 1992, p. 73). This “consciousness of
the ELT profession”, as Phillipson (p. 73) puts it, is confirmed by these Bangladeshi teachers’
perceptions. As “English provides linguistic power” (Kachru, 1986, p. 1), these teachers seemed to
have appropriated it pedagogically and linguistically to serve themselves and their students.

Conclusion and recommendations

The paper has discussed Bangladeshi teachers’ perceptions of pedagogical appropriacy, power,
and the politics associated with CLT and Western TESOL training. In light of their perceptions,
this paper offers the following recommendations with regard to enhancing ELT in Bangladesh and
strategically responding to the commercialised hegemonic but necessary “evil” of TESOL training.
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 315

First, adaptation courses for Western-trained teachers of English on their return to

Bangladesh need to be conducted to help them clarify and readjust their professional goals and
identify students’ and their own expectations in a local context, which is also changing while
these teachers are overseas. These courses can also provide opportunities for these Western-
trained English teachers to acknowledge and legitimise the knowledge and skills of students and
other teachers, and to explicitly negotiate what they perceive as meaningful and appropriate
pedagogy with students and other authorities.
Second, regular professional development courses, not necessarily led by native English
speakers, can be conducted for teachers of English in Bangladesh. In these courses, teachers are
introduced to new trends in English language teaching. They may also be asked to showcase
practices that are effective in their teaching contexts and are encouraged to express their
concerns about their teaching and exchange ideas and suggest solutions to better their teaching.
These courses need to be supported by the authorities to empower teachers to carry out changes
where necessary.
Very importantly, in light of the cultural politics as well as the status of English as an
international language, these courses need to equip teachers with knowledge about the
importance of making explicit to students the politics and power embedded in English while
offering them optimal access to English through teaching and extra-curricular activities. Teacher
training and professional development courses already in existence, such as the ELTIP and the
Australian government-funded VIDA-ELTT (Volunteering for International Development from
Australia – English Language Teacher Training), have adequate resources, in the form of both
course content and personnel, to address the training proposed by this research study.

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