Four-Skill Alignment in Bangladeshi Higher-Secondary English Education: A Critical Narrative Review of Curriculum, Assessment Washback, and Classroom Implementation
This critical narrative review examines why communicative curriculum intentions have not produced balanced instruction in listening, speaking, reading, and writing at the higher-secondary level in Bangladesh. The review synthesises Bangladesh-focused scholarship, official curriculum and textbook materials, policy reports, and education-system documents available up to June 2026. Sources were analysed through a structured thematic procedure organised around six interacting layers: curriculum intention, textbook affordance, assessment practice, teacher capacity, classroom ecology, and resource availability. The evidence consistently indicates that listening and speaking are marginalised because they carry limited assessment value and are difficult to enact in large, resource-constrained classes. Reading and writing receive substantially more instructional attention, but examination pressure frequently narrows them to predictable item practice, memorised responses, reliance on guidebooks, and limited formative feedback. The article refines the proposed four-skill alignment framework by treating assessment as a powerful institutional signal whose effects are mediated by teacher assessment literacy, training transfer, class size, time, materials, and institutional expectations. It avoids attributing implementation failure to teachers alone. The review recommends piloting low-stakes oral and aural assessments, demonstration-based professional development, the integrated use of English for Today, focused process-writing routines, and low-cost classroom materials. The contribution is a system-level explanation of why the four skills are affected differently and which implementation conditions must accompany reform.
English-medium instruction (EMI) has expanded across Bangladeshi higher education as a marker of academic quality, internationalisation, and graduate employability. Yet the institutional promotion of English does not necessarily translate into sustained English-medium classroom interaction or improved opportunities for students’ language development. This qualitative multiple-case study examines how EMI is interpreted, negotiated, and enacted across three private universities in Bangladesh. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with six teachers of content-oriented English-department courses and 18 final-year undergraduate students, three student focus-group discussions, and three classroom observations. The dataset was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, supported by iterative coding, memo writing, within-case analysis, and cross-case comparison. Findings indicate that EMI functioned less as a stable English-only instructional model than as a negotiated bilingual practice shaped by uneven English proficiency, time constraints, and institutional expectations. Teachers used Bangla to clarify difficult concepts, sustain interaction, and support comprehension, while students valued English for its academic and professional benefits but often experienced English-only instruction as limiting confidence, participation, and access to disciplinary knowledge. Bilingual mediation, however, rarely formed part of a systematic approach to academic-English development. The central tension therefore lies not simply in teachers’ departure from English-only instruction, but in universities’ expectation that EMI will deliver both disciplinary learning and English proficiency without adequate linguistic, pedagogical, and assessment support. Conceptualising this tension as the EMI institutional promise–practice paradox, the study argues for a linguistically responsive model that combines planned bilingual scaffolding, explicit disciplinary-language development, language-sensitive assessment, and sustained teacher support. By showing how bilingual mediation both sustains and complicates EMI, the study contributes to debates on multilingual pedagogy, linguistic equity, and institutional responsibility in multilingual higher education.
Sultana Jahan· ICRRD Quality Index Research...· 0 citations
This study aims to deconstruct the dynamics of English language learning facilitation through a Competency-Based Human Resource Management (HRM) lens at two private higher education institutions in Bekasi, Indonesia: STEBIS YPII Bekasi and Pelita Bangsa University Bekasi. The study responds to the persistence of grammar-dominated English instruction in Indonesian private universities, where classroom practices often prioritize credit-hour completion and administrative compliance over communicative competence development. A qualitative comparative multi-locus case study design was employed. Data were collected through participant observation of classroom facilitation, documentary analysis of Semester Learning Plans (RPS), and in-depth interviews with lecturers as key instructional actors and students as representatives of human capital. Data were analyzed using the interactive thematic analysis model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña, involving data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing. The findings show that both institutions experienced functional instructional stagnation caused by activity-based performance practices that neglected instructional needs assessment, student readiness, and sustainable exit strategies. The transition from teacher-centered instruction to dialogic, learner-centered facilitation helped reduce students’ mental blocks and communication anxiety while strengthening their willingness to participate in English communication activities. From a Competency-Based HRM perspective, dialogic facilitation functions not only as a pedagogical technique but also as a strategic change-management mechanism for transforming lecturer work behavior and improving graduate capacity. However, the study is limited to two private institutions; future research should involve broader institutional contexts and examine the long-term impact of facilitation-based HRM interventions on students’ communicative performance.
Azmy Muhammad Habiby, Owin Jamasy Jamaluddin, Arham Muhammad Robbani et al.· JPI: Jurnal Pustaka Indonesi...· 0 citations
Writing feedback is essential because it helps learners recognize weaknesses, refine ideas, and revise texts purposefully. Yet secondary-school feedback often remains focused on surface errors rather than argument, organization, evidence, and critical engagement. This study investigated how critical writing feedback was implemented and perceived in Ethiopian secondary-school English classrooms and examined its contribution to students’ writing quality, critical engagement, and revision practices. A qualitative descriptive design involved 12 purposively selected English teachers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and 24 non-participant classroom observations using validated interview and observation guides. The data were analyzed through iterative processes of data reduction, data display, conclusion drawing, and verification. The findings showed that feedback was predominantly teacher-led and concentrated on grammar, spelling, vocabulary, punctuation, and sentence construction. Higher-order feedback on ideas, coherence, argument, evidence, audience, and organization occurred less consistently, although teachers with process-writing experience used more dialogic questions and explanations. Students responded more positively to specific, respectful, and example-based comments than to vague symbols or corrective markings. Peer feedback, self-assessment, conferencing, and multiple-draft revision were limited by large classes, examination pressure, restricted time, uneven proficiency, and teacher workload. Teachers perceived moderate improvement in language accuracy, organization, critical engagement, and revision when feedback was prioritized, explained, and followed by redrafting. However, many revisions remained superficial. The study concludes that critical writing feedback is most productive when it is dialogic, criteria-based, emotionally supportive, and integrated with opportunities for revision. Teacher development and assessment policies should recognize feedback as a learning process rather than final correction.
Thoric Ahmad, Ahmad Javed Hassan, Mohammed Meraj et al.· Journal of Language Studies...· 0 citations
This study adopts teaching-learning-assessment integration as the analytical framework and employs a theory-driven lesson interpretation approach to examine how assessment literacy manifests in a junior high school English writing lesson on composing an advice email. The analysis focuses on four dimensions: alignment of objectives, task and criteria design, formative feedback, and reflective instructional decision-making. The findings indicate that assessment literacy is not a technical competence confined to testing and grading, but a professional capacity embedded in routine pedagogical decisions. In this writing lesson, the teacher integrated assessment into the entire teaching-learning cycle by aligning learning objectives with assessment criteria, designing a communicative writing task, embedding peer evaluation and teacher feedback into the writing process, and reflecting on instruction based on student performance. The case illustrates that assessment literacy serves as a bridge between curriculum requirements and classroom implementation, supports students' view of writing as a continuous improvement process, and contributes to teachers' professional growth through ongoing cycles of practice and reflection. Based on the findings, suggestions for enhancing foreign language teachers' assessment literacy are offered, and the limitations of a single-lesson analysis are acknowledged.
Liting Li· Educational and Humanities· 0 citations
Communicative language teaching has been adopted as the official orientation of English language curricula across much of sub-Saharan Africa, yet the conditions that the approach presupposes are frequently absent from the classrooms in which it is mandated. Tanzania presents a demanding test of the approach. English becomes the medium of instruction at the point of transition to secondary schooling, most learners arrive with limited command of it, Kiswahili functions as the national lingua franca alongside more than a hundred community languages, and classes are large while teaching materials are scarce. This review examines what can defensibly be claimed about the operation of communicative principles under these conditions, with particular attention to the material dimension of implementation, meaning textbooks, supplementary and authentic resources, and the ways in which such artefacts are used, adapted or circumvented in practice. Literature was identified through structured searching of multidisciplinary, education-specific and African scholarly sources, and evidence was appraised for design adequacy, transparency, contextual specificity and consistency with independent findings. Three findings emerge with reasonable confidence. First, the recurring account of failed implementation rests on a version of communicative language teaching that its principal theorists have long abandoned, so that documented departures from an activity template are weak evidence about communicative principles as such. Second, the material base functions less as a delivery vehicle for method than as a constraint that shapes which interactional possibilities exist at all, and locally developed language-supportive materials show promise that remains inadequately evaluated. Third, the Tanzanian evidence base is dominated by small qualitative and self-report studies concentrated in accessible regions, with almost no learning-outcome data and no replication. Priorities for research are identified accordingly, together with the design features that would allow the field to move beyond documenting non-implementation.
Stephen Syepwa Mwashihava· Asian Journal of Education a...· 0 citations
Curriculum reform is a global priority, yet a persistent policy–practice gap remains, which, in very broad terms, shows misalignment between policy intentions and classroom realities. Drawing on a model‐guided systematic review, this article synthesizes 23 peer‐reviewed empirical studies (2015–2024) in foreign language education and propose the
Situated Acceptance and Implementation Model
(SAIM) as the framework for examining how contextual structures, motivational dispositions and behavioural processes interact in shaping teachers' engagement. Our findings reveal that acceptance depends primarily on curriculum clarity, teachers' beliefs and perceived classroom relevance, whereas sustained implementation hinges on
Institutional Governance
,
Instructional Infrastructure
and assessment–curriculum alignment. The analysis also reveals that systemic barriers such as high‐stakes testing, top‐down mandates and ambiguous policy communication limit reform sustainability, while teacher autonomy and collegial collaboration function as critical enablers. Surprisingly, theoretically central factors like
Teachers' Perceived Self‐Efficacy
and
Reflective Learning Orientation
have received little to no attention, which points to a significant research gap. Also, most studies focus on aspects related to implementation, with acceptance‐specific evidence being sparse and seldom reported separately. Based on these findings, we discuss theoretical and practical implications as well as further directions for curriculum planning in language education.
Feng Wang, F. Suñer· Curriculum Journal· 0 citations