I had been to an Engineering college in Avadi, Chennai with my mom for a conference where she had to present her paper. While I was too pissed off with heat, dust, filthy buses, fancy posters and silk sarees all over ( I dislike silk sarees for reasons unknown to me), I found some reason to be happy.
There was a healthy panel discussion on whether English for Specific Purpose (ESP) is a better option than teaching English by 'General English approach' for the Engineering students. Apparently, Anna University has been using the ESP approach in its Engineering colleges and they follow a definite syllabus. They claim to have analyzed the requirements for technical students and have set the English syllabus accordingly. So the whole point of ESP is to teach English for the students in such a way that their professional needs are met. For technical students they apparently teach report-writing, writing requirement specifications, communication skills required for meetings and phone calls etc.
All those who were in favor of ESP argued that students are taught English through stories, poems and plays at schools and there is no point in doing the same during professional courses. They also made a point that ESP helps the students understand why they need to attend English classes. Their opponents argued that it is difficult to analyze the exact requirements for a profession because they keep changing and that ESP will only narrow down the scope for improving skills. I initially found it hard to judge what is better but later thought that we should stop drawing these boundaries and keep things simple and enjoyable.
Anything taught at college will be useful if and only if students can have fun with it. The problem with us is that we debate on how English can be taught effectively but we don't worry much about how to make it interesting for the students. Setting a syllabus shall make students feel that the teacher just wants to complete the syllabus. There would hardly be any surprise element in the class. We are forgetting that English is a language. A language can never be taught like mathematics or physics by setting a definite syllabus. There can be no formula to memorize. There cannot be any fixed pattern to be followed. We do this mistake at schools by making languages appear like any other subjects because of which a need to again 'teach' English for professional courses has come up and while addressing that need, we commit the same mistake.
Why do students from Bangalore talk better English than those from Shimoga even if you make them study the same syllabus? It's because they read, listen and talk English more for some reasons. So it's actually an environment that you create that helps the students more than the syllabus you set. When we talk of creating an environment, we quickly think of making it mandatory for students to talk in English. Crap. Unless reading, listening and talking are encouraged, I don't see any major changes happening. The biggest challenge is to make students go mad about these. Students with almost no motivation from anyone watch movies, talk about movies, read about movies and few even write about movies. It is indeed hard to expect same kind of self motivation always but what are schools for if they cannot take up challenges? If we put half the effort that we put on making them mug up formula on encouraging them to read, write, talk and listen English, it would be more than enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there should be no exams for languages. I'm pointing out that the way language is taught and the evaluation of skills is done need to be amended. Lot of steps can be taken among which I'll list out few.
* Remove the fixed syllabus or at least hide it from students. Let there be surprises in each and every class.
* Make attendance compulsory. Yes, if I want to motivate a boy to read or write, the least I need is the boy in my class. If you make it compulsory initially and if you really are a good teacher, nothing would stop them from attending classes later.
* Let the school library have hundreds of books of all kinds and let them be rotated among students. Each student should have read a minimum of five books per each academic year and should be able to write the summary of all of them in his own words. Suppose you start this from 5th std, by the time a student comes to 10th, he would have read at least 50 books. That helps a a lot.
* Encourage discussion among groups, note down the grammar mistakes they predominantly do and correct them at the end of discussion.
* Play videos on you tube and let them catch and repeat the sentences they hear.
* Encourage story-telling, story-writing, listing new words with meanings, making sentences with new words, correcting mistakes and so on.
*Allocate marks for each of them as a back-up! Just in case if you fail to motivate them without marks.
One can find a lot of such ideas. It requires proper planning and dedication to implement them. We aren't short of experts. We just aren't ready to come up with something more challenging and new. All these can be done at home too.
I liked reading as a kid. I still do. I remember reading all the lessons in the English text books much before they are 'taught' in class. I always appreciated the different forms of sentences and words that I encountered while reading. I never practiced writing letters or reports or essays. Without my notice, whenever there was need , I used to write them more comfortable than others at class. I still regret that if only I had pulled my saturation point a bit higher and made friends with people who read and wrote more than me, I would have improved better. I feel I still suck at English. I get frustrated when I find it hard to grasp the meanings of poems that I read.
I don't support ESP. I just don't understand it. English is a language that brings people together across the globe. Let's not draw boundaries for it.
There was a healthy panel discussion on whether English for Specific Purpose (ESP) is a better option than teaching English by 'General English approach' for the Engineering students. Apparently, Anna University has been using the ESP approach in its Engineering colleges and they follow a definite syllabus. They claim to have analyzed the requirements for technical students and have set the English syllabus accordingly. So the whole point of ESP is to teach English for the students in such a way that their professional needs are met. For technical students they apparently teach report-writing, writing requirement specifications, communication skills required for meetings and phone calls etc.
All those who were in favor of ESP argued that students are taught English through stories, poems and plays at schools and there is no point in doing the same during professional courses. They also made a point that ESP helps the students understand why they need to attend English classes. Their opponents argued that it is difficult to analyze the exact requirements for a profession because they keep changing and that ESP will only narrow down the scope for improving skills. I initially found it hard to judge what is better but later thought that we should stop drawing these boundaries and keep things simple and enjoyable.
Anything taught at college will be useful if and only if students can have fun with it. The problem with us is that we debate on how English can be taught effectively but we don't worry much about how to make it interesting for the students. Setting a syllabus shall make students feel that the teacher just wants to complete the syllabus. There would hardly be any surprise element in the class. We are forgetting that English is a language. A language can never be taught like mathematics or physics by setting a definite syllabus. There can be no formula to memorize. There cannot be any fixed pattern to be followed. We do this mistake at schools by making languages appear like any other subjects because of which a need to again 'teach' English for professional courses has come up and while addressing that need, we commit the same mistake.
Why do students from Bangalore talk better English than those from Shimoga even if you make them study the same syllabus? It's because they read, listen and talk English more for some reasons. So it's actually an environment that you create that helps the students more than the syllabus you set. When we talk of creating an environment, we quickly think of making it mandatory for students to talk in English. Crap. Unless reading, listening and talking are encouraged, I don't see any major changes happening. The biggest challenge is to make students go mad about these. Students with almost no motivation from anyone watch movies, talk about movies, read about movies and few even write about movies. It is indeed hard to expect same kind of self motivation always but what are schools for if they cannot take up challenges? If we put half the effort that we put on making them mug up formula on encouraging them to read, write, talk and listen English, it would be more than enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there should be no exams for languages. I'm pointing out that the way language is taught and the evaluation of skills is done need to be amended. Lot of steps can be taken among which I'll list out few.
* Remove the fixed syllabus or at least hide it from students. Let there be surprises in each and every class.
* Make attendance compulsory. Yes, if I want to motivate a boy to read or write, the least I need is the boy in my class. If you make it compulsory initially and if you really are a good teacher, nothing would stop them from attending classes later.
* Let the school library have hundreds of books of all kinds and let them be rotated among students. Each student should have read a minimum of five books per each academic year and should be able to write the summary of all of them in his own words. Suppose you start this from 5th std, by the time a student comes to 10th, he would have read at least 50 books. That helps a a lot.
* Encourage discussion among groups, note down the grammar mistakes they predominantly do and correct them at the end of discussion.
* Play videos on you tube and let them catch and repeat the sentences they hear.
* Encourage story-telling, story-writing, listing new words with meanings, making sentences with new words, correcting mistakes and so on.
*Allocate marks for each of them as a back-up! Just in case if you fail to motivate them without marks.
One can find a lot of such ideas. It requires proper planning and dedication to implement them. We aren't short of experts. We just aren't ready to come up with something more challenging and new. All these can be done at home too.
I liked reading as a kid. I still do. I remember reading all the lessons in the English text books much before they are 'taught' in class. I always appreciated the different forms of sentences and words that I encountered while reading. I never practiced writing letters or reports or essays. Without my notice, whenever there was need , I used to write them more comfortable than others at class. I still regret that if only I had pulled my saturation point a bit higher and made friends with people who read and wrote more than me, I would have improved better. I feel I still suck at English. I get frustrated when I find it hard to grasp the meanings of poems that I read.
I don't support ESP. I just don't understand it. English is a language that brings people together across the globe. Let's not draw boundaries for it.
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