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by Stanley C.C. Atukorale

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe seems to be very determined to promote the teaching of English in all schools at a national level.

This is very clear from the views Minister of Education Karunasena Kodituwakku expressed recently at his ministry on his proposed plans for education reform. Surely, this enthusiasm of the Minister of Education deserves the commendation of every right-thinking citizen of the country.

At present the teaching of English in our schools has become a big failure. As regards this failure so much has been said and written in the columns of our local newspapers by different authorities who are competent and incompetent to speak on the subject. The best way to understand the poor quality of English teaching in our schools would be to look at the way it operates. As a language it is taught, five, '45 minute' periods per week up to GCE ordinary level. Even though a student who completes high school has spent as much as ten years studying English, at the end of those years he hardly knows it. He neither can speak nor write it.

The quality of English language in Sri Lankan schools is in a very poor condition. Yet it had its heyday.

And that was not lost in the distant past. The end of the heyday was some 30 to 40 years back. The reasons for its high standard upto that point were the good teachers, effective curriculum, and a number of regular practical activities related to the English language - writing contests ("essays" or "compositions"), student newspapers, debating clubs, oratorical contests and the like. Today very few or none of these positive factors is to be found at the national level.

So many things have changed. And the changes, unfortunately, have not enhanced the quality of English language teaching in Sri Lankan schools. The modifications that have been promulgated and implemented affecting education in general and English language in particular were and are, no doubt, meant for good. Changes affecting the overall picture of education were designed in the early 1960s. The central idea was to Sri Lankanize the teaching system and localize the curriculum. Fair enough. But intentions are one thing, and actions another. The components of the "localization of educational policy" included teachers, curriculum, and textbooks. That is where the problem started.

In the haste of doing this, several thousands of teaches were recruited and appointed as pupil Teachers. They were paid a meagre allowance of hundred rupees. The curriculum was redesigned. Accordingly, new text books were printed at State Expense for free distribution.

The efforts in general produced many desired effects. But with regard to the teaching of English many things leave much to be desired. An unfortunate casualty of the process has been the quality of the English language and of English language teaching. The vast majority of teachers cannot express themselves in English. Since like breeds like, it is only natural that most of their students end up with deplorably low level of proficiency in English.

Another problem is posed by the lack of excellent text-books. Many of the text books which are now being used in our schools are run-of-the-mill type, often riddled with outright errors, defects, and deficiencies of various sorts. The free distribution of the "The World Through English' book series is not a remedy for all the ills of English teaching in our schools.

The standard of English of English teachers has very much to do with the successful teaching of a foreign language like English, though in fact, very little thought is given to it by our education planners. As for successful learning of English, such books like grammar texts, spell well books, books of idiom, proverbs, colloquials, homonyms, and slangs, are needed for frequent reference in the learning task. With the present high cost of living how can any of these teachers think of buying such expensive books despite the heed to buy these books?

A New teacher of English is expected to play the role of a facilitator in the class-room. His main task is to make his students' learning of English interesting, pleasant and meaningful. In many cases he may have to provide the model, too. Therefore, it is important that his own competence in the language be as near native as possible. But the reality of teaching English in our schools is the very opposite of this. The reason? It is very plain: how can one teach another a thing which he himself cannot do? English teaching is no exception to that rule.

All our teachers of English are the sons and daughters of this island. They are either Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim. They are not Englishmen. It is this fact which we must not lose sight of if we are to understand the human aspect of this problem.

As teachers of English, their task is more difficult for reasons of their inadequacy in handling the language of English. It is this inadequacy in the language on the part of the teacher of English that should be remedied if we are to teach English as a successful second language in our schools. For it is through no fault of these teachers of English that they became less competent in that language. It is the planners who are to blame for this messy state of things in English language teaching. of this sin they cannot wash their hands by blaming innocent teachers.

Though prepositional phrases, idioms, slangs, colloquials, synonyms, homonyms and proverbs form part of English, these things are unheard of in the lessons of these State text books. This is the quality of English that is taught to children today in our schools. The present day teacher of English is a product of this English teaching.

It is with this kind of English that the teacher is armed, though he is expected to perform miracles after being given a teaching appointment.

That they have studied English right through only as a subject is completely ignored by our education planners once they are appointed to schools as assistant teachers of English. In school they are asked to organize English Day celebrations, English Literary Associations and so on to promote English teaching in school, despite the fact that such tasks are beyond the capacity of the English teacher.

No teacher worthy of his name would like to become the laughing stock of society by trying to do things which he is incapable of doing.

It is often the practice to post new recruits to outlying schools for a period of time, may be two or three years. This is sometimes a condition of service for teachers who have been trained at public expense. Such a policy can lead to high wastage rates for new teachers. Lacking support and guidance in their first teaching posts and meeting tremendous challenges in adjusting to strange surroundings, new teachers cannot endue the isolation and drop out of the profession.

Again, promotional prospects for teachers of English serving in remote, uncongenial districts are very bleak, for lack of any facility to acquire higher skills in the English language. Learning English is not like learning Sinhala or Tamil for a person whose mother-tongue is not English. It is a very costly job for him. No language learning is possible without a better environment.

Efforts must be made to correct this myopic view of the planning process. At present we are not making any better use of the easily available resources despite this pathetic state of affairs. We have a very large army of competent and efficient English teachers who prematurely retired from service due to various frustrations. Why cannot the authorities formulate a plan to call them back to service to work on contract-basis?

Many of the frustrations of the education planners and many setbacks to education arise from the fact that they tend to ignore the human aspect.

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