THE INTEGRATED APPROACH IN ESL AND EFL CONTEXTS: THE PRACTICE IN GHANA AND GUINEA-CONAKRY

Abstract

A key concept of the English language syllabus for both Ghana and Guinea-Conakry is the integrated approach (as opposed to the segregated-skills approach) to the teaching of language skills. Like the communicative language teaching method, the integrated approach exposes English language learners to authentic language and challenges them to interact naturally in the language. The designers of English language curriculum in Ghana and Guinea-Conakry believe that the receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing) skills are interrelated and hence complementary, and they must not be taught separately. Teaching language skills separately in a language learning setting has been defined as the traditional approach to teaching a second or a foreign language. Teachers of English in Ghana and Guinea-Conakry are expected to move away from the traditional approach to the integrated approach to language teaching. This paper aims to find out whether teachers of English in Ghana and Guinea-Conakry are familiar with the Integrated Language Teaching method and are being employed in the ESL and EFL classrooms in Ghana and Guinea-Conakry respectively. A classroom observation and a semi-structured interview were conducted with 24 English language teachers from 4 junior high schools and 8 senior high schools in Ghana and 5 teachers of English from Saint-André Catholic School, Guinea-Conakry. The findings showed that there was a disparity between the curriculum developers’ expectations and classroom practice in Ghana and that the selection of teaching methodology was highly influenced by the thought that the students had to sit for high-stakes tests but not that they had to attain communicative competence. However, in Guinea-Conakry, teachers used the Integrated Language Teaching method because speaking is tested.

 

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