Use of English textbooks vital for uniformity
by W.M.J.B. Wijekoon
A great deal has been said and written about teaching/learning of
English as a second language over a long period of time. Needless to say
that the most prominent mode of language teaching/learning is
teaching/learning it in classroom setting in which textbooks are
inseparable elements as most ESL (English as Second Language) learners
do not have access to second language acquisition in natural settings.
Quite interestingly, a cavalcade of methodologies and approaches have
emerged and disappeared, which undoubtedly connotes the importance,
difficulties and paradoxes stemming from second language teaching and
learning. However, it is quite well understandable and obvious that in
any denominated methodology or approach, textbooks are of primary
importance in language teaching/learning in classroom setting.
Use of textbooks
The teachers of English as a second language in government schools
for many years have been, most of the times, assigned to teach it with
the help of textbooks. Insistence upon the use of the textbooks may
perhaps be due to the agreed principles of education, maintaining
uniformity of teaching standards countrywide for the sake of
administrative purpose, and/or sometimes to facilitate the teacher as
well as teaching. However, teaching of masterpieces of literature as
textbooks by means of paraphrasing and criticism is different in this
respect. Not only teachers, but also some people belonging to older
generation who had received minimum education in English medium in
colonial and near post-colonial eras are seen to have used textbooks to
make their children understand and practise basic sentence patterns of
English language. Hence, textbooks are sine qua none in the classrooms
of teaching ESL. Those prescribed textbooks, however, in turn, become
targets of criticism from academic and intellectual quarters and the
replacements too are frequent as a panacea, a self-idealized stratagem
and as a subterfuge into the bargain.
Different perspective
So, this endeavour is to look at textbooks from a different
perspective in terms of the popular new outlook of language i.e.,
Universal Grammar. One interesting factor that prompts one to think in
terms of this Universal Grammar, is the 'mental grammar' and 'syntax'
explained therein and the differences in parameters of languages. The
question here is that should those differences of parameters of the two
languages be taken for granted in designing textbooks. For example, in
designing of ESL textbooks for the students whose mother tongue is
Sinhala or Tamil, should not the parameter differences of those
languages from that of English be considered? This point may be
substantiated by the Head Directionality Parameter, as the Head
Directionality parameter of Sinhala is ' head-last, complement-first,
specifier-first, head-last' whereas in English it is 'head-first,
complement-last, specifier-first, head-last' which makes it difficult
for the Sinhala speakers to acquire phrase structure patterns of English
(English Phraseology). Hence, shouldn't there be a specific strategy to
instil 'mental grammar of phrase structure of the target language'
within ESL learners. The other important factor that had not been
considered is the word order patterns of the languages, namely the
target language and the first language.
Second language
The Sri Lankan students in government schools learn English as the
second language, not as the first language, and therefore it is very
hard for them to get the new pattern of word order of the target
language internalised getting out of the fossilised word order pattern
of the first language. Here, the question arises why the designers of
ESL textbooks have not taken this difference, i.e., word order, for
granted. English language is an SVO language in which morphological
inflections are poor, whereas Sinhala and Tamil languages are SOV
languages in which morphological inflections are rich. Tensed agreement,
for example, in tenses and aspects of English more or less 'syntactical
bindings with inclusion of derivatives of be and verbal inflections',
when it is more or less morphological(verbal) inflections in Sinhala and
Tamil.
Aren't these factors left untouched?. And therefore it would be
necessary that complexities involved in textbooks designing, in this
regard specifically in designing activities and lessons, be unresolved
productively to instil and internalize 'second language syntax' within
ESL learners. Once the writer of this article saw a poster displayed in
public places like Railway Stations close to Gampaha, which said that
"English is easy to speak - why not join his class". (May God save his
students!). The problem here is crystal clear. This so-called veteran
tuition master had not been able to properly reset and fix the Pro-Drop
parameter/Null Subject parameter of Sinhala in the process of
acquisition of the use of expletives, or perhaps the Verb Movement in
English syntax.
However, recently, the generative approach to explanation of second
language acquisition has become a favourite approach to provide a viable
and sustainable outlook to see whether the principles and parameters in
Universal Grammar are available for second language learners. But it is
very hard to establish whether anybody has so far looked at textbooks in
the syllabuses of ESL with a view of building up of 'mental grammar of
syntax' (Hawkins 2000) within learners. If such were the case, it would
be felt necessary to look at the second language syntax of ESL textbooks
from a generative perspective. This article, in other words, is then
simply to form an argument about whether the ESL textbooks are able to
build up mental grammar of second language syntax of English, or more
specifically is an attempt to assess whether those lessons and
activities in ESL textbooks can set and reset parameters, and fix new
parameters in the process of learning and acquisition of ESL
effectively.
Generative studies
Recent developments in generative studies in first language
acquisition founded by Chomsky (1965, 1968, 1970 and 1972) have led to
explanation of the second language acquisition (Epstein 1998, Flynn
1987, 1988, Clahsen 1988, Musken 1988, Swartz 1986, Matohardjono 1988,
Vannikka and Young-Scholten 1988 and Hawkins 2000 etc.). The principles
and parameters set out by generative syntax of Universal Grammar of
Chomskyan theory is characterised by human inborn capacity to acquire
first language through the language faculty of human mind. It is argued
that the UG fully constrains, partially constrains or does not constrain
second language acquisition. However, Epstein, Flynn, Flynn and O'Neil,
Matohardjono, Swartz, Gass, Statcher, Krashen, Terrel, Dulay et. al. and
Hakins formulate seemingly tenable arguments to prove 'full access/full
transfer' of UG in second language acquisition. More importantly, the
interesting factor that arrests attention is Universal Grammar, which is
itself a testimony for its validity and importance. Thus it is quite
understandable the UG is the central concern in second language
acquisition whether or not it transfers. The languages of Sinhala and
Tamil, the first language for about 90% students out of total student
population in Sri Lanka for whom the textbooks are designed to teach
ESL, are more or less diglossic. The written forms are more rhetorical
and formal when the spoken forms are less rhetorical and less formal.
Differences
The null subject parameter/pro-drop parameter, phrase structure
patterns (head directionality), word order patterns, may be the basic
parameter differences of the three languages, whereas the presence of
inflectional morphology, for example, subject verb agreement in all
tensed inflections of all the three languages, though different in
nature, may be explicated as the principles in UG. However, due to these
differences and relations, the learners need, though unintelligibly, to
set and fix the command relationships, government, binding, and
movements in Whs, verbs and subjects; and adjacency and subjacency in
order for them to internalise the grammar of English.
The common errors in the repertoire made by Sinhala and Tamil
speakers learning ESL may be attributed to the above mentioned
parametric differences; that is impossible to be discussed and analysed
here due to obvious reasons. However, given the argument that Universal
Grammar constrains second language acquisition for parameter setting and
fixing, it certainly needs to be considered in textbook designing. But,
it is hardly to be found an analytical review of textbooks from the
point of view of parameter fixing for forming mental grammar of second
language syntax. Emphatic attention in the forums and workshops for
designing of ESL textbooks has been focused on the cultural impact,
approaches to language teaching, methods and methodologies of English
language teaching, correct language productions and correct
pronunciation etc. along with the hackneyed terms such as accuracy,
fluency and competency, the common jargon in the Communicative Approach
to second language acquisition that stood very prominently in 80s, fully
brushing aside the fact that those methodologies have been contrived out
of developments of linguistic theories of second language acquisition,
perhaps without the knowledge that probably the latest one is the
Principle and Parameter framework.
To be continued
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