The SLELTA conference and its implied message

by Dr. Wilfred Jayasuriya

The acronym refers to "Sri Lanka English Language Teachers Association." They had their international meeting (originally sponsored and held by the British Council a couple of decades ago) at the BMICH on 15th to 17th October 2010. It was chaired by Professor Arjuna Parakrama of Peradeniya University and Professor Manique Gunesekera of Kelaniya University. There was a floating population of attendees, mainly English teachers, of about 100 in number. A quaint "innovation" was the holding of the plenary sessions in a pol athu maduwa named "mediriya" with strong air conditioned chill, perhaps symbolic of the theme of Sri Lankan English, about which the speakers waxed and waned.

Cambridge University

A major presence there was Sunimal Fernando, the Special Adviser on English to the President Rajapakse. Fernando was the very embodiment of cordiality and personal involvement. The speakers included both the learned and experienced conference wallahs and the up and coming exponents of the Microsoft Power Point way to make your point with quotes, research outcomes and references. The formality of the documentation appearing on the screen was a clear demonstration of American influence in the writing and research field, which on earlier occasions were less technologically mediated in presentation.

To one like me, involved in teaching and writing in English for a couple of decades the ambience was very "conducive" to a sense of sharing and togetherness in a common enterprise.

I had been fortunate to be lifted from bureaucratic but stimulating, often wearying, activity in the public sector administrative machine to a participatory role in academic work, first as a coordinator and then as a student and teacher. As the years go by, this transformation is a very welcome event even though George Bernard Shaw says, through one of his characters, that "those who can, DO; others TEACH." There was something in that too and perhaps we need as we grow older to convey our sense of being in the world to others who are willing or forced to listen to us. This meeting allowed that form of activity. What were the experiences that teachers had as individuals, which were part of a common enterprise and what did they mean? Teachers became listeners and listeners became teachers.

What was it all about? I would be bold indeed to claim a comprehensive or even an adequate summary. I remember some things and that's what I will talk about. Apart from the vexed question of what is Sri Lankan English-is it "not pot," ispecial or RP (received pronunciation), nammadal or goday , British or American, what the hell is it?

There was the question of "skimming, scanning and all that" which, though American prescriptive reading techniques, were subjected to scrutiny in the regular Leavesian mode of the old Peradeniya English department of Ludowyke, Passe' and Doric et al, and declared to be BS! There were some voices raised in protest at this peremptory dismissal of modern American learning theory.

Wasn't Chaomsky saying that grammar is an inborn and inherent quality of the human being, and that if an infant or child could understand and speak without being taught grammar, why cannot a reader skim or scan a text and understand it? And be communicatively competent? But was that what the learned lecturer was trying to say? No one was sure so save it for another day.

Quite a lot came from teachers in outstation universities like Sabaragamuwa (located in Belihul Oya or Vavuniya etc), where rural folk, especially the Sinhalese were not receptive to learning English as a language, when it interfered with their major priority of studying in Sinhala to pass the next exam that faced them. What if, instead of studying English as a language, which was mostly what the talk was about, the rural youth studied their subjects in English i.e. English was the medium as it was before the Education Act of 1960.

Would they not enjoy that? Was that not the kaduwa or sword which they yearned to inherit instead of the kinissa or the dagger (Sinhala) which was not a weapon of war, a mere hand to hand combat weapon? Had the English teachers got it right when they placed the emphasis on communicative competence in English when what the rural students want is to study in the English medium, read and write, even if they don't talk it properly, so that they can compete with the town based elite and wrest the big jobs, the big social positions from them? Of course, as every one knows (and as Professor Parakrama made no mistake in saying it) every move in the "English game" is in the nature of a cat and mouse game between the elite and the non elite, where the cat merely plays with the mouse and never will the mouse overcome the cat. Professor Parakrama called it the "colossal failure of the ELTs."

I would add "but was it their fault?" Professor Parakrama's speech was a superb unfolding of the dialectics of the language issue. After all didn't Kannagara pass the free education bill to give Sinhala and Tamil youths, who already enjoyed free education in Sinhala and Tamil, also the chance of free education in English? And how soon this "pearl of great price" was snatched from the hands of the non elite by the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 and the Education Act of 1960! After that it has always been a case of throwing pearls before swine. The non elite were always not worthy and so why should they be educated in the English medium? Just give them English as a language. That'll keep them happy. But they see through it. It is not the kinissa (English as a language) they want but the kaduwa (English as a medium.) This is my instinctive understanding.

There is apparently some good news, however, though this may be just another ploy. The politicians are actually thinking of amending the Education Act of 1960. How come it is being done so secretly? Is it like the constitutional amendment committee chaired by Professor Vitharana? Maybe there is some good reason. They may perhaps be interested to hear that in 1988, in a survey done in an island wide GELT program of 6000 pre University students, located in their home areas, two questions were asked at the end of an exam, after 6 months of learning.

1/Would they agree to make English a compulsory subject for the GCE A Level, to enable University education to be improved? The answer was a emphatic NO! Such an exam would give a great advantage to the town based elite who inherit English to enter the University by competition.

2/ Would they like to study in the English medium in the University? The answer was an emphatic YES! The rationale is equally obvious. It would make them equal to the town based elite.

Professor Parakrama spoke about English and equity and though he did not talk on this particular point his conclusion was nevertheless the same.

Meanwhile the elite (shall we say the rich or the well to do?) have by a sleight of hand been able to get English as a medium into schools, outside the Education Act of 1960, by invoking the Board of Investment (BOI) law, and thereby setting up "international schools" and "extension campuses" of foreign English medium universities.

As a transitional step to overhauling a crippled education system this was good. The government has already, from 2000 onwards, been approving teaching in non BOI schools in the English medium but it has not taken off. One surface reason is that teachers are not competent to teach in English nor will they learn English as an extra chore if they can earn their salary while not doing so.

But what if they are given a bonus if they successfully make the effort? And can the English teachers ("the colossal failures") shift from teaching language exclusively to the students, to helping teachers who already know their stuff in Sinhala / Tamil to convert their knowledge into English, by dialog, peer work, group work etc?

One of the barriers to teaching in the English medium is to expect the fledgling English medium teacher to perform at the same level as he/she did in Sinhala / Tamil and to get students to reach grade standards, rigidly set by the education department, in English, as they were reached previously in Sinhala / Tamil media and syllabi. (One of the most amazing sights was, when at a meeting in the Education Ministry, held in the late 1990s / early 2000s, the then most senior official present was publicly, then and there, placed in charge of implementing the English medium program and he promptly and proudly said, "I'll start by translating the Sinhala textbooks into English!" He was concerned about standardizing. Not about infusing the immense knowledge available in English into the curriculum. But he himself had studied in the English medium.) If one accepts the thesis that education in India, when it is in the English medium, is of a better standard than what we have in Sri Lanka, when it is in the Sinhala / Tamil medium and that is why India is so much ahead of us, then we must be flexible in reaching the goal, as President Rajapaksa has been in reaching the goal of winning the war against Eelam. Rigid grade standards must be removed and made relevant to the enterprise of converting into the English medium, so that, in the not so longer run, education will improve by the infusion of English. As an analogy the "self sufficient" economy of Sri Lanka, of the 1960s and 70s, was given a creative shock by the "open economic policy" from 1978 onwards. Is there any reason to doubt the validity of this premise when India's recent history has proved it beyond doubt?.

India never gave up English and though Nehru intended to make Hindi the unifying language he did not stick to it but allowed English and all the regional languages to thrive, allowing English to be the unifying language as well as the language of development.

In small ways, in some private schools and affiliated universities in Sri Lanka, experiments to introduce English as a medium or a partial medium have worked well because of the flexibility available in regulation and funding, in small units unlike in the huge bureaucracy of the government education monolith. Make no mistake, however.

The entrenched education power holders in the state and even non state sectors will resist education in English as a medium to the last. Hopefully, this will not be true of the English language teachers who participated in SLELTA 2010.

They will be given a more creative, more appreciated (by the students) role in moving the education system into the English medium and will become part of a great equity creating activity.

What Professor Parakrama, implied when he called ELT and ESL "colossal failures" I have stated explicitly, by indicating how they can be the pillars of success.