Hussain Muhammad ATHAR, Muhammad Zafar IQBAL

Exploring Perceptions and Practices about Information and Communication Technologies in Business English Teaching in Pakistan

Language Reforms and potential use of ICTs has been a focal area of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Efforts are being accelerated to incorporate fast expanding ICTs to bring qualitative improvement in language instruction in higher education. This paper explores how university teachers are benefitting from ICTs to make their English classes effective and what types of problems they face in practicing ICTs during their lectures. An in-depth qualitative study was employed to understand why language teachers tend to use ICTs in their instruction and how they are practicing it. A sample of twenty teachers from five universities located in Islamabad, three from the public sector and two from the private sector, was selected on a non-random (Snowball) sampling basis. An interview with 15 semi-structured items was used as research instruments to collect data. The findings reveal that business English teaching is facilitated and improved through the use of ICTs. The language teachers need special training regarding the practices and implementation of ICTs. It is recommended that initiatives might be taken to equip university language teachers with modern methodology incorporating ICTs as a focal area and efforts might be made to remove barriers regarding the training of language teachers and proper usage of ICT.

Keywords:

Business English Teaching, Higher Education Comission of Pakistan,

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