Communicative Competence of Female English Subject Teachers of Secondary Schools in District Mardan, Pakistan

Abstract

Communicative competence of English Subject teachers is essential for teaching English effectively. The present study aimed to explore the communicative competence of female English Subject Teachers of Public Secondary Schools in District Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The main objectives of the study were to find out the existing level of the communicative competence of English Subject teachers in Secondary Schools, investigate the ongoing practices of English Subject Teachers in their classrooms, and explore problems of female English subject teachers in developing communicative competence in secondary school students. A quantitative research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted of 130 Public Schools of District Mardan, where 364 female English subject teachers are working. The study was conducted in 86 randomly selected sampled Public Schools of District Mardan by contacting 191 English subject teachers. A questionnaire comprising 49 questions was administered to the 191 English subject teachers. The main findings of the study show that a majority of the English Subject teachers did not possess the required communicative competence; almost all of the teachers did not adopt the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach. For developing the communicative competence of learners, physical resources and facilities were not available for developing the listening and speaking skills of the students.