English: Not a distant dream for Sri Lankan students

by W. D. D. C. Abeykoon

(A review of experiences the writer had during her visit to The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh in India, on a scholarship to follow a twelve-week course in Special Teacher Training-cum-English Proficiency Course' in 2008.)

In Sri Lankan Socio-Cultural set-up English is entrenched as a status symbol and a language that holds class specificity of social elite.

This should not be so and the utility value of English should be brought to the surface.

It is praiseworthy that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken initiatives to promote Spoken/Communicative English Skills in the schools under the theme English as a Life Skill.

Through this article I wish to give my suggestions as a participant of the above course, for the success of the Road Map to promote Spoken/Communicative English Skills in Sri Lankan schools.

In this article, I would like to pay my attention to two points: the teaching of English in the Indian schools, in comparison to that of ours in Sri Lanka.

What we can do to improve English (all four language skills namely: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) in our schools, especially in the primary classes.

When I received the above scholarship to India, I felt happy because I had heard that majority of students in India could speak English well, and that I had the opportunity to learn the teaching techniques the Indian teachers practised there to teach English.

To be honest, I thought there would be some kind of special techniques practised there to enable the students to speak English in a short period of time. For example, if we take a mathematical problem, there are many ways to solve it; long ways, easy ways, shortcut methods and so on. Similarly, I thought, they practised in India a particular method like first practising a particular set of grammatical structures like past, present, future tenses in the simple, continuous and perfect forms and then moving onwards, etc.

But by the end of the first week I realized that there were no such new or special techniques.

How did I come to know this?

The course we followed had two components; Proficiency Development, that is to say to improve our own English and Professional Development that is, how to teach English.

In the proficiency component our lecturers used the existing techniques they practise in Indian schools, to improve our English.

Here the point is, the techniques they used to teach English were very much similar to those of ours. For example, if we take a listening lesson, they have pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening stages. In Sri Lanka too we have the same methodology. In speaking, they have as techniques role plays, debates, dialogues, conversations, group discussions etc. In Sri Lanka too, the same techniques are recommended for use. Whether we practise them properly or not is a question. But we know these techniques. They are not new techniques to us.

And adding to my disappointment the academic coordinator said that though 70 percent of us had come to India believing that there would be some secret techniques practised in India to teach English, and they had no such secret techniques, but only suitable techniques.

That was too true.

Two school visits

We had two school visits. On one visit we were able to observe the classroom teaching situation in Kendreeya Vidyalaya, a State School in Utpal, Hyderabad. This school is similar to one of our Central Schools situated in a semi-urban area. Three subjects, namely; English, science and maths are taught in English and the other subjects are taught in Hindi, Urdu or Thelingu. They call this type of school, an English medium school. When we hear the words English medium schools, the first thing that comes to the mind is our International Schools. But these Indian English medium schools are very much different from our International schools. They are all not prestigious schools but ordinary schools with only three subjects taught in English. But they have separate private schools where their English standard is very high.

First I went to grade nine of this Kendreeya Vidyalaya and had a conversation with the students. I randomly picked some students and talked to them. In these conversations I made use of why questions mainly because I wanted to see how they understand and respond to such questions.

In these conversations, what I observed was that the majority of students could speak English well or they could manage a conversation in English.

That was the grade nine class. Similarly I went to the other secondary classes, Grade eight, seven, six. The situation was the same. Majority of students could understand my questions and they were able to respond appropriately. There were mistakes of course, but they were able to carry on with the conversation. Now let us compare this situation with the students in the secondary classes in Sri Lanka. Can the majority of our students in central schools carry out a conversation naturally in English?

Then I met grade six English teachers. From what those teachers said, I could get an idea about the teaching and learning techniques they use to teach English in India. It is quite clear that they use more or less the same techniques and methods we practise in Sri Lanka; pair-work, group-work, discussions, presentations, etc. So the techniques are the same. They do not use some special or secret techniques to teach English. Then how come our students cannot speak, read or write English well as the Indian students do? Those teachers further said that the students when they come to grades six, they come with a vocabulary of 2,000 words. Do our children know that number of English words when they come to grade six? How and where do these Indian children learn 2,000 English words?

I went to grade five in the Primary Section. The situation was the same. The students could understand and respond to my questions well. In grade 4, grade 3, grade 2, the situation was the same. Then I went to grade 1. I selected some of the students randomly (I did this because I wanted to get a true picture of the classroom situation) and spoke with them in English. Many of these students were able to understand my questions and answer them well. According to the grade one English teacher, majority of these students do not come from educated families or have an English speaking family background. For example, the second school we visited, The Railway Girls College; student population mainly consists of the children of Class Four workers of Railway. (Class Four workers: ticket issuers, porters, helpers and so on). There too, the students showed a good performance in English. It seems as the teacher said the students have this English speaking environment only in the school and they gain maximum benefit from it.

Teaching methods

To enhance this situation, these five year old grade one students are provided with a textbook and a workbook of English. I was able to observe two lessons in the English periods in both the schools. The English teachers followed the teaching methods as stated in the Note to the Teacher, English Reader for Class 1 (Pupils) English Textbook) published by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. An extract of the note is as follows: The material in the Reader has been arranged under three sections.

Section I introduces the pupils to reading words through the phonic approach. In the classroom the teacher reads each word pointing at the picture;the pupils read after him several times, in chorus, groups and individually; and then the pupils read the words without the help of the pictures.

In section II, each lesson introduces one structural item (sometimes two). The Reader suggests a few situations for presenting the item, followed by exercises for practising its use. In the classroom the teacher introduces the item through situations, orally; he then gives the pupils practice in reading and writing and then the teacher gets the pupils to do the exercises orally firstand then in writing.

Section III contains Reading Passages, each followed by a set of comprehension exercises. In using these passages the teacher first reads the passage aloud;the pupils read the passage aloud; then the pupils answer the comprehension questions; and finally the pupils do the other exercises, orally first and then in writing.

This technique takes us back to our first few Sinhala/Tamil language lessons and how we learned to read the Sinhala/Tamil words. This building up of words or word formation is a very important skill in language learning. If the used technique is effective we must not simply condemn it as an outdated method.

I was able to go through some of the grade 1 students writing books.

Among the activities there were exercises such as fill in the blanks, matching, writing the correct answers, etc. They consist of

Question and Answer exercising; Who was Raja's brother Lal was Raja's brother, etc.

Opposites; up - down, big - small, friend - enemy, etc.

Gender; girl - boy, mother - father, he - she, etc.

Singular and Plural; basket - baskets, tree - trees, chair - chairs etc.

Hard words; bangles, enemy, holding, etc. (Hard words are difficult words) and also Dictation; words such as teacher, school, football etc.

When the basics of English language are established in such a way no wonder the students show good performance in all the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Interviews

In my interviews with the grade 1 English teachers it was revealed that among the teaching technologies and methods they use to teach English to these five-year- old children were the play-way method, rhymes, stories, songs and mostly, drilling and repetition. Their main intention is to enable the students to be familiar with the English words and structures thoroughly. It is stated in the Pupil's Textbook English Reader Class as one of the aims:

The main aim of teaching English in the early years is four fold i.e., to develop in the pupils (a) the ability to listen to English spoken by his teachers and classmates, and understand it: (b) the ability to speak English with his teachers and classmates in asking and answering questions as well as discussing simple topics of interest to them: (c)the ability to read prescribed textbooks, stories and other reading materials and understand them: and (d)the ability to write simple English in answering questions and generally expressing himself.

In some schools, there is a Pre-Primary section and in such schools teaching English begins with the pre-primary children, even before grade one. There are two levels in these pre-primary classes; LKG - Lower Kindergarten (Starting at the age three plus) and UKG - Upper Kindergarten (starting at the age four plus)

At the LKG, the teachers introduce the English alphabet and simple words to students. When they introduce simple words they give more emphasis on the introduction of the vowel sounds. For example:(See Fig:01)

Once they have introduced this simple word-formation using phonic approach, they move towards construction of simple sentences.

For example:

The cat sat on the mat.

The pet hen had ten eggs.

The big pig hid in the pit, etc.

This is the foundation of English and the Indian children get this foundation at the age of three plus.

At UKG, the basic grammatical structures and small paragraphs are practised.

For example;

This is s book.

That is a pen.

These are books.

Those are pens, etc.

This is a school.

There are chairs and desks.

There is a teacher.

There are children. etc.

So when they come to grade one they have already acquired the basic foundation of English language. Gradually these children develop the four language skills namely; listening, speaking, reading and writing as they pass through the primary classes from grade 1 to 5. When these students reach grade six, as the English teacher of Kendreeya Vidyalaya said they possess a vocabulary around 2,000 words, can write grammatically correct sentences, can read and understand texts. By now they have acquired an age-appropriate mastery of language. The standard of their secondary English books is very high. They have a well planned curriculum from grade six to grade eleven. The books are designed very carefully.

The writer is a lecturer at the Mahaweli College of Education ,Polgolla.

To be continued