Even after a year of including listening exercises in the English textbooks as part of the national secondary curriculum for schools, the government is yet to provide audio CDs that are supposed to complement these exercises. Without the audio CDs, students are unable to practice and complete their listening exercises.
Schools teachers told the Dhaka Tribune that due to the lack of audio CDs, they have to sometimes entirely skip the listening exercises.
“There are some tasks in the English books on listening but audio CDs have not been provided for these. We cannot teach students without them.” said a teacher in a school in the capital.
“Students often get confused about what to do with these tasks, but we have no other option but to tell them that the exercises will be practiced after the audio CDs are made available, and hence skip them for now,” he added.
National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) officials said they were not sure if it was possible to publish the CDs before 2015.
“The listening text was included in curriculum with a view to improving school children’s’ proficiency in English speaking and listening,” said a curriculum expert, who was involved in formulating the new curriculum, while talking to the Dhaka Tribune.
“The Bangla medium students have a very poor standard in terms of listening and speaking, so these exercises were introduced to overcome the weakness,” he said.
“But now it seems that these exercises have become useless as audio CDs are yet to be produced,” he added. The listening exercises were introduced in English Paper-I textbooks from Class-VI to Class-X from 2013.
When contacted, NCTB Chairman Shafiqur Rahman said a recent meeting of the board has decided to start formulating the audio CDs.
“We are working on it,” he added.
When asked whether it is possible for the board to provide students with audio CDs from 2014 academic year, he said NCTB is trying its best to do so, but cannot make any promises.