Secondary English Curriculum in Bangladesh: Discourses, Enactments and Student Investment

This thesis investigates the dominant discourses of the secondary English curriculum in Bangladesh, teachers’ curriculum enactments and students’ investment in learning English. Qualitative data from the curriculum, teachers and students reveal that top-down imposition of global concepts, such as learner-centred education and communication-oriented language teaching, has led to resistance, fabrication and limited acceptance of the global concepts at the level of enactment. Students’ investment in learning English is constrained by classroom instruction and shaped by encouragement and fear received from significant others. The findings imply a need for locally-sensitive reforms involving teachers and students in the policy process.