Exploring Teachers’ Difficulties in Teaching English as a Second Language in Public Sector Secondary Schools

Abstract

This study was conducted to explore Teachers’ difficulties in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) in Public Sector Secondary Schools. The objectives of the study were; to find out the difficulties faced by English language teachers in TESL, to analyze factors that are causing difficulties, and to find the solutions to overcome the difficulties that English teachers face in teaching English. The population of the study consists of 6350 students from 12 Govt. Boys Secondary Schools of District Rahim Yar Khan. The stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample. A 30-item self-structured questionnaire was used to collect the data and 2540 questionnaires were distributed among the participants. The researcher used descriptive statistics techniques to analyze the collected data by using SPSS. The findings of this study highlighted many difficulties faced by secondary school teachers in English teaching especially these main challenges: lack of students’ motivation (fear of making mistakes, lack of interest in learning), lack of sufficient time; and shortage of construction materials. Teachers should make an effort to motivate students to use English as a language of communication outside of the classroom, too. Activities that are geared towards children must be employed in the classroom.