Barriers to Teaching English Productive Skills in Online Classroom: A Study at the Private Universities in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the barriers to teaching productive skills in English in an online platform in the private universities of Bangladesh and attempt to find out the solutions regarding this issue, focusing mainly on the private universities outside Dhaka. Since English is a significant communication tool, it is indispensable to speak and write correctly in English. However, the students have often struggled to speak fluently and write well. As a result, it is necessary to find the main barriers to teaching these two productive skills. In addition, due to the COVID-19, teaching and learning have shifted from real life to virtual classrooms. The existing problems underlying teaching English productive skills have been more crucial in a virtual platform. Therefore, through questionnaire for teachers and classroom observation data was collected from six private universities outside Dhaka, and it has been found that the problems lie mainly in the inability to change the teaching methods and techniques according to the need of an online classroom alongside network issues interrupting effective communication and time management. In an online classroom, the teachers cannot involve the students in pair and group work for speaking and writing activities and provide feedback. Based on the study's findings, it is recommended that more speaking and writing practice in the classroom, interesting visual materials, constant motivation, feedback, and teachers' training were essential to overcome the challenges faced by the teachers for teaching productive skills in English in an online classroom.