Adopting a new pedagogy for teaching English

different approach

This time has come for teachers, students, educational institutions and parents to think seriously and formulate better methods to teach and learn English language in our schools and colleges. Last year, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) introduced ASL, i.e. Assessment of Speaking and Listening skills in senior classes.

This is the first time these skills have become part of the formal evaluation system, that too with a standardized format throughout the country. With the introduction of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), the CBSE had suggested a few activities in listening and speaking earlier in all classes, but this recent step, a timely one at that, has given a new momentum to all such activities.

But to attain the expected results we have to overcome a number of hurdles and the very first issue we need to tackle is a long standing, baseless hostility in our mind towards this extremely useful world language.

In the government sector, all over the country, majority of the schools employ the respective regional language as the medium of instruction. A minority of privileged people can only afford the huge expenses for their children to be educated in the English medium schools affiliated to the CBSE or ICSE in the private sector.


Plight of common man
While we boast of RTE and the availability of a school within a range of just one kilometre for every child, the common man and his children plod in the bleak world of the government schools without infrastructure facilities and enough number of trained teachers.

Thus, we see education, the greatest investment of the country, the very means of all-round development of the children, become a reason for the evolution of two classes. Here, unfortunately, the language also becomes the cause of a big, disastrous divide.

To save our children from this pathetic condition, study of English language should be made compulsory from primary classes. A recent verdict from the Supreme Court also agrees that medium of instruction should not be imposed; on the other hand it should be the choice of the students.

There was a time when English was taught by other subject teachers in our schools. But recently, in some south Indian states, trained English language teachers are appointed in high schools and higher secondary schools.

But this may not bring about the desired outcome since language is a habit that to be initiated at an early stage. In other words, learning a new language should begin very early. This is not enough. The teaching methodology has to be revolutionised in accordance with the principles of the natural way of language learning.

At present, we suffocate our children by compelling them to master all the four skills of language learning, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing simultaneously. Some may pick up, but the majority suffers.

This is one of the main reasons of backwardness in verbal communication skills experienced by the youngsters though they have reasonable hold on their respective subjects.
Hence, in lower classes the children should get the opportunity to listen to correct English and they should start speaking gradually. They should be exposed to reading and writing only after acquiring reasonable mastery in listening and speaking.

This will further help in assimilating basic structures, which in turn will help in avoiding, or at least minimising the number of faulty constructions in the written form later. What is needed is a meaningful, systematic exposure to the language.

Difficult procedure
It is not that easy to get a new post sanctioned in the government sector. The schools can appoint an efficient candidate with the support of the PTA or even a sponsor. The schools should also set up a language lab with facilities like a television, computer etc. to conduct effective lessons in listening and speaking.

Now-a-days, we see institutions offering courses in spoken English in every nook and corner of the cities and even small towns. The trainers people in these institutions will surely lack in spontaneity and naturalness.

But the youngsters are compelled to depend upon these institutions since as children they never got opportunity to master the language and thereby lacked in confidence. Hence there should be determined efforts at all levels to provide our children good exposure to English language, a key ingredient of almost all success stories these days. 

This is just one side of the coin. On the other side there is the other group, the group of the privileged. They study in English medium schools and prefer the SMS language.

This unhealthy trend of SMS English has adversely affected the quality of written English these days with funny spellings and abbreviations. Since one’s proficiency in English language is not tested in the entrance examinations students at the +2 level, students in the science stream completely avoid it. For the board examinations, they make the bare minimum efforts depending completely upon some guides or study materials readily available in the market.

Keeping this in view, the CBSE has introduced a long reading text at both the +1 and +2 levels. The intention was to encourage  children to read extensively. But this also is not going to work out properly, since the students prefer to download the respective movies from the net and avoid reading the text.

In these circumstances they fail in equipping themselves with the basic language skills at the required time, though they pass the examination and qualify for the next level. Hence, an effective mechanism should evolve that makes children study English seriously in the secondary and senior secondary levels.