Abstract:
Over the past decade, many countries such as India, Pakistan, and Kenya have started to
teach English as a second or foreign language at a very early age. In the Sri Lankan
school education system, formal English education starts from Grade 3. Yet, for grades
one and two, English is taught under the program, Activity Based Oral English (ABOE)
aiming at improving English for conversation. Along with ABOE, in 2013, a special
English program was initiated to teach English for grades one and two of the government
schools in Wattegama Education Zone. The books, The Radiant Way and New
Millennium which were mainly used to improve reading and writing were used as the
primary teaching materials. The purpose of the study was to investigate the challenges
and issues encountered by the teachers in conducting this program. The data were
collected from twenty five (25) teachers of fifteen schools (15) through interviews
conducted over the phone and were analysed qualitatively, putting the recordings into a
paper, defining themes. The findings revealed the lack of teacher training to teach English
to pre- primary/ primary stages as a major issue. The mismatch between the assigned
books in certain aspects hindered the teaching process. Changing the materials/text books
according to the choice of the teacher without informing the authorities, teaching writing
despite the authority’s advice not to do so, the lack of importance given to the
improvement of listening skill, the lack of a proper syllabus, and facilities were some
other issues. The study suggested actions to be taken to overcome these issues which can
improve the program to be implemented island wide such as, providing adequate teacher
training, setting up a proper syllabus, better supervision system to maintain the
consistency of the program, providing adequate facilities for the schools, appointing
experts in the field to do a survey of the program to decide whether writing should be
introduced at such an early stage.
Keywords: Activity based, Challenges, English as a second language, Primary teaching
