English Phobia among the School Children of Rural Areas in Bangladesh

Abstract

In this era of information and communication technology, English is a lingua franca. So, it goes without saying that learning English is essential for us and we must learn English well to keep pace with the advancing world. Despite a lot of efforts to boost up teaching and learning of English after independence, there has been no noteworthy improvement in the field. English, a compulsory discipline from the elementary to the tertiary level in Bangladesh now, is always a subject triggering tremendous phobia among the rural school children of our country irrespective of past and present. As a consequence, most of the students do badly in English. The deplorable situation prompts the researcher, an English teacher of a rural college, to conduct a study on it. The methodology of the study is the dovetail of theoretical and empirical study. The researcher develops the theoretical part of the thesis with relevant materials from a variety of books, papers, articles and magazines relating to the topic. The substantial data for the empirical study are gathered through field survey employing schedules, FGD and observation methods. The thesis is organized into five chapters. The first chapter of the highlights the -background environment, of the research problem, statement of the problem, analysis of the problem – environment justification and rationale, feasibility, practicality, contributions, encapsulated research methodology, the outline of the research along with its scope and limitations plus necessity and its objectives coupled with research questions. The second chapter encompasses a review of relevant literature, which manifests the relationship between phobia and English language learning. Chapter III deals with the research methodology. Chapter IV sheds light on analysis of data and results. And Chapter V, the final chapter, wraps up the thesis yielding some recommendations for the improvement of English language teaching and learning in Bangladesh dispelling English phobia and giving some hints for further research for future researchers keen to work in this field.