Volume: 7  Number: 1  Page: 126–140  doi:10.2167/cilp090.0

English Teachers’ Choice of Language for Publication: Qualitative Insights from Bangladesh

Md. Obaidul Hamid School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, Australia

The aim of this small-scale research was to gain some understanding of Bangladeshi English language teachers’ language preference for publication purposes and the extent of the use of Bangla (Bengali), the L1, in their professional practice. Qualitative data for the study were gathered by means of a self-produced questionnaire. Results show that about three-quarters of the teachers published or would publish entirely in English because they believed that it was, among other reasons, the usual professional practice. More importantly, a number of teachers stated that they felt more comfortable writing academic essays in English. Regarding the use of L1, all 37 respondents pointed out that they used it sparingly in the classroom, and only a small number considered it a barrier in learning English, the L2. While emphasising the study’s limitations, the paper suggests that English teachers’ lack of confidence in L1 academic writing may be seen as indicating the potential direction of a slowly emerging individual bilingualism among university teachers of English. However, the paper also argues that the emergence of this potential bilingualism can be seen only at the individual rather than societal level, and, within the academic context, only in the limited domain of academic writing.

Keywords: academic communication, Bangladesh, English, Bangla

©2006 Md. O. Hamid

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