The paper aims to explore how far English textbooks in Pakistan embody Pakistan and its culture. In this connection, the reading passages and pictures/images of the textbooks taught at secondary level in the government schools of Punjab were analyzed. It was a mixed method study and the specific method employed was content analysis. For this purpose all the reading passages of both the textbooks were firstly categorized and quantified into three categories; Source Culture/s, Other Culture/s and Neutral and then the cultural elements of Source Culture/s were discussed qualitatively using an adapted checklist. The results of the study reveal that the English textbook of class 9 has 12 passages out of which 75% have Source cultural elements, 8.83% have cultural elements of Other Culture/s and 16.66% are Neutral. As far as the English textbook of class 10 is concerned, there are 13 reading passages out of which 23.07% have Source cultural elements, 15.38% have cultural elements of Other Culture/s and 61.53% are Neutral. The findings of the study show that English, being an international language and as a result of globalization, has become compulsory for people belonging to different countries to learn it. However, in order to retain their identity, they try to appropriate English language to underpin their own culture/s through English language used in the textbooks of Pakistan.

This paper analyses the management of foreign languages in the language planning of Afghanistan after the fall of Taliban. The analyses assess the suitability of foreign languages performing developmental and peace-making roles in domains where distribution of power is contested by the Afghan ethnolinguistic groups. Primary data of the paper comes from a questionnaire based survey and followup interviews. Analysis reveals the presence of various modern languages such as French, German, Russian and English in Afghanistan. The acceptance of foreign languages especially English is overwhelming in Afghanistan. Among foreign languages, English happens to be the most vigorous and promising language. However, a significant portion of Afghans oppose the growing influence and power for the foreign languages in Afghanistan. The paper notes, an uneven spread of English as the dominant foreign language in Afghanistan. Therefore, foreign languages' role in development and peacemaking may not be achieved due to lack of equal access. The paper recommends a wide-range of interventions to help in making foreign languages a resource for development and peacemaking. The intervention includes social, economic and political equality and equal opportunities in learning of foreign languages. It is also emphasised that the promotion of local languages is not to be affected by the availability of foreign languages.

This descriptive study investigates the failure in the English subject to find out the causes of failure in the English subject in Government High Schools for Boys in district Mardan, so viable suggestions to overcome the failure rate in the English subject in district Mardan, KP Pakistan are proposed. The population of this research is all public high Schools of district Mardan, which were 380 in number. 64 schools were selected through Stratified sampling technique. Questionnaire as research instrument was used for data collection. The collected data was analyzed, interpreted and results were shown in percentage in tabular form. The findings of the study highlighted the failure (33%) in English, (02%) Urdu and (04%) in Pakistan studies. Causes of failure like lack of qualified and well trained teachers, overcrowded classrooms, non-availability of language laboratories and A.V Aids, inappropriate teaching method and lack of Principals’ supervision were identified. At the end provision of qualified and competent teachers, facilities like language laboratories and A.V. Aids, principals’ Proper supervision of classrooms for teachers’ better performance are recommended.

The current research explores the linguistic identity of Pakistani Academic writing register of Research Articles. Previous quantitative works on Pakistani academic writing have been insufficient due to unrepresentative data and lack of internal and external comparison. This study discovers the language of Pakistani research articles as an academic writing register by investigating the statistically significant linguistic variation among the disciplines of Pakistani Research articles, using Biber’s (1988) five textual dimensions. The results of the study exhibit Pakistani academic research articles language as highly impersonal, non-persuasive, explicit, nonnarrative and informational.

English is a global language and it plays its role as the second and official language in many countries. Untrained teachers, rote learning, grammar translation method and overcrowded classrooms are the factors which affect the process of language learning in the school sector. The study was designed to analyze reading preferences of literary and language habits of Teacher Educators of RITE colleges and faculty members. The sample of the study comprised 119 faculty members i.e. teachers' educators of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Responses were collected through a questionnaire. It was found that reading material has a positive relationship with the preferences of faculty members and teacher educators. It is suggested that faculty members may be provided with a variety of reading material and sources for their professional grooming of teaching.

This study aimed to determine the effect of peer tutoring (PT) in enhancing students’ writing skills during English textbook taught to the students of Grade XI. The true experimental research pre/post-test design was used. The sample of the study comprised of 70 male and 58 female students containing each 35 male peer tutoring group (PTG) and non-peer tutoring group NPTG as well as each 29 female PTG and NPTG after matched before intervention. MCQs related to writing skills developed as a tool for data collection process. The tool is used in both pre and post-test for PTG and NPTG. The difference in both groups was calculated using statistical analysis. Linear regression predicted the effect size of male PTG 16.376 points higher (r = 0.860) than NPTG as well as female PTG 12.183 points higher (r = 0.813) than NPTG. These results indicated that PT technique enhanced students’ academic achievement.

Reading is an important tool for getting access to information which provides a base to the learning process. Comprehension is a basic pre-requisite for reading to be meaningful. Various reading strategies have been associated with better reading comprehension. The current experimental study conducted in the Pakistani context explored the effect of teaching reading strategies on reading comprehension of students in the subject of English at the higher secondary school level. The experimental pretest-posttest equivalent research design was adopted to conduct the study. The sample consisted of 60 higher secondary school students of a private girls college in Mansehra, Pakistan. Findings indicate that teaching reading strategies have a positive impact on the reading comprehension of students at the higher secondary level. The study has important implications for teachers, students, curriculum planners, policymakers in the field of education and school leaders.

Metacognitive awareness of reading strategies measures how readers of a text engage with it and think about their own reading processes. This paper presents the findings of a descriptive study on the metacognitive awareness of reading strategy use on the undergraduate students of Lahore, Pakistan. The study makes use of the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), which is a selfreport instrument, and has 30 items on a 5-point Likert scale; it was administered to 500 public and private sector universities students. Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed for analysis through the use of SPSS, version 22. The results reported that problem-solving and support strategies are equally preferred over global strategies. Results of the t-test revealed that students from the public sector demonstrate greater strategy awareness than those from the private sector in all the subscales of MARSI, while no overall significant difference between Humanities and Sciences was found.

This research aimed at analysing the Grade VIII English textbook of Punjab Textbook Board against one of the five competencies, the Reading and Thinking skills and identifying the satisfaction level of Grade 8 students with their textbook for the fulfilment of this competency. The main parameters of the content analysis were Competency (C), Standards (S), Benchmarks (B) and SLOs. The data was collected through content analysis (of the textbook) and survey questionnaire. The student satisfaction level was measured with the help of an instrument comprising 10 statements on a 5-point Likert scale. The questionnaire respondents were 1440 students of Grade VIII studying in public schools of Lahore. The results of content analysis and student survey showed that the textbook partly meets the requirements related to the selected competency. It is therefore recommended that the English textbook of grade VIII should be updated in congruence with the SLOs of the selected competency.

This article describes the syllable of Pakistani English (PE. It compares the syllable of PE with British English, in the light of concepts of syllabic (Chomsky and Halle, 1968), syllabification, template, syllable pattern, model of syllable structure, phonotactics and syllable weight. In the end, the following differences in syllabic phonology of PE and British English are summarized: In phonotactic constraints, one difference is found that is in the syllable of PE cluster of three consonants i.e. /s/, /p or t or k/, /l or r/ is allowed only in monosyllabic words, whereas word internally this cluster is not permissible. So, [ek.sklIUd] becomes [eks.klIUd] in PE; the weight of the syllable in PE is not only based on the quality of vowel but also the quality of consonant; in PE every syllable must contain vowel as a nucleus.