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by Vijaya Jayasuriya

We often deplore the very low standards of teaching English in our schools - (No. of candidates who scored less than 40% in O/L English: 1996 - 83.5 p.c.; '97 - 89.4 p.c.; '98 - 80.15 p.c.; '99 - 76.7 p.c. - adapted from Exams Dept. statistics.)

A local classroom - emphasis on “ competencies”

Yet an incurable optimist might argue with apparent justification that our students can 'do something' in English at the point of leaving school. This is indeed quite a logical and also topical argument now that what is emphasised as the major goal of education is 'mastering competencies' in various subjects.

These competencies can however be categorised as low-order and higher-order (and may be even middle order as in cricket!), thus with regard to English, being able to discern a basic sound unit as representing a decipherable meaning unit denotes a competency in the skill of listening while in reading it may be understanding a cohesive marker such as yet, though, hence etc.

When certain teachers claim that their students can "do something" in English, how we can interpret it in terms of this 'state of the art' and highly mainstream construct called 'competencies' has to be centrally spelt out before affording any merit to the argument. Examining the authenticity of this 'being able to do something worthwhile' in English on the part of our students is the aim of this article.

Stressing the 'competencies' theory as the patently stated goal of education is quite compatible with the rapidly changing trends in a world where a wide spectrum of skills is required for our future generations to be usefully employable.

Apart from specific knowledge and skills in science and technology including computer literacy, something indispensable for a successful employee in whatever sphere in the modern world is being an effective communicator using languages, particularly foreign languages as a result of the world shrinking into the so-called 'global village' necessitating anyone operating as a cog in the macro - machine of everyday living. Hence the more or less feverish interest among employers particularly in the ever-expanding private sector beating a path to the doors of youth who have developed this talent to even swashbuckling extents so that business is made facile and smooth.

'Oracy' - a term that came into vogue in language teaching comparatively recently means - '..ability to express oneself coherently and to communicate freely with others by word of mouth. The development of these skills is seen as an important goal of childhood education together with literacy and numeracy..' (Chambers Encyclopedic Dictionary: 1994).

It is indeed an asset for any individual to possess in these trying times when diplomatic negotiation as a means of settling disputes, unbridled delivery in analysing issues, ability to impress authorities in lobbying for demands and fluent and beautiful (euphonic) speech in teaching as well as persuading clients have turned out to be invaluable skills. English language with its intrinsic glamorous appeal when spoken with ample panache is being widely used in various fields of activity where skills of persuasion and settlement are very much a sine qua non.

Do these skills constitute the repertoire of our students at the point of leaving school? If they were equipped with such higher order competencies our schools English teaching programme would be a marvellous success. They may be able at the very most, to manage an "interactional short turn' (e.g. Q: What's the time now? - A: It's nine o' clock') and not by a long shot a more business like 'transactional' one: (Q: What is the mouse used for on the computer? A: The mouse is operated by hand to move the curser on the screen.

To come out with the former expression most of the students even in most leading schools in the provinces will not have practised their oral skills. - When once I took up a Year 13 science class (as the teacher was late coming) in one of the biggest schools in Kalutara district, only 2 out of around 40 students were able to answer my question; 'How far is Panadura from Colombo?' They had by this time got over the ice breaking stage and also had even enjoyed some dry jokes I had told them. The isolated variable therefore was their oral skills, the utterance required to answer being just 'twenty-eight miles'.

The question was a very low-level and any student should have ventured to respond to if they had gained enough oral practice in the class during lessons of English - or, of course, had they been from English - as-a-first-language backgrounds. ('First language' - chronologically one's first language and/or the language of dominant use - Stern H.H: 1983).

In hundreds of similar schools I have visited during my official rounds the situation is equally pathetic - few students braved any confrontation using a little English. What then exactly is meant by the claim about our students being capable of 'doing things' using English when they go out into the society - or even the world of work? This may probably be certain competencies of very low level reading a signboard in English extracting information from a railway time table, understanding a few lines of instructions on a phial of medicine etc. in the skill of reading, while in listening and speaking it may be, for example, learning the departure time of a flight from an airport announcement or other skill units (or language functions) such as greeting (eg. G' morning) leave taking (eg. See you later; bye etc). Few would have the linguistic resources (plus the skill) to sustain a 'transaction' consisting of several utterances to be able to manage complex social situations listed earlier on, making them effective candidates for the world of work.

Why cannot the school groom such competent communicators in English during the span of 13 years of schooling with not less than 4 hours of teaching each week? This is an important question that deserves to be addressed if we are not taking lightly the millions of rupees spent each years for various programmes, projects etc. in order to improve the standards of teaching English.

The issue involves to a great extent the goals of teaching English as a second language formulated in curriculum planning which is heavily influenced by stereotyped assumptions as well as available teacher competency levels that always tend to determine the outcomes of programmes.

These mostly untested assumptions and arguments may take into account points such as the heavy restriction of time available for English in the school time table. Yet much more than largely assumed constraints militating against the implementation of a vibrant teaching programme what looms large is an execrable lack of initiative on the part of those who determine policy at higher levels.

This has been pointed out by respected veterans in the field ever since English was relegated to the limbo of a second language with the introduction of vernacular medium of instructions in schools in late fifties.

The late Doric de Souza, one time politician-cum-brilliant English scholar and university English Department don stated in a series of articles he wrote in a bid to unravel the hotch potch the ministerial bigwigs were making grappling with the new 'second language situation:

"....In acquiescing in an inferior programme conducted by unqualified teachers in village schools while a better programme is conducted in the old English schools. The dept. has been guilty of serious discrimination..... The level of a pass in English on the compulsory test (suggested elsewhere) at the GCE O/L will have to be defined by the competence that can be induced in the average pupil over a six year period (Grade V to X) if a new programme is conducted on the lines I suggest, with qualified teachers in all schools, I believe the general level of achievement will be far higher than at present...... The Teaching of English: 'The Ceylon Observer' 18.4.69 - 28.4.69).

What we can gather from these words of wisdom, even disregarding the idea of the 'compulsory test' which never saw the light of day, is the feasibility of achieving much better standards of English even in the context of English as a second language.

What are the shortcomings of our teachers of English, making them incompetent to produce good communicators from their teaching? There are three vital requirements for an effective teacher to satisfactorily achieve their teaching goals: knowledge of how to do it, their own linguistic resources as a basis and lastly the skill of doing it efficiently. As for the theoretical knowledge, there is a vast amount of literature produced from applied linguistics research studies that emphasize the indispensable nature of oral interaction among students in the English classroom if they are expected to develop their communicative.

Ability in that language.

Three major schools of thought have influenced classroom practice of English during the past half century and they all take into account the value of interaction by the students in the acquisition of their target language. Even the long-discredited Behaviourist thinking acknowledged the value of 'exchange' of utterances in their major construct stimulus-response in reinforcing linguistic structure in the human mind.

The Mentalist paradigm of language acquisition that emerged during 1960s and 1970s also postulated that external 'input' is essential to 'trigger' the operation of what they called the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) - an internal programming of language structure that every human being naturally possessed.

It is the currently most influential 'interaction' theories mainly put forward by researchers like S. D. Krushen and Michael Long that emphasise the highly complex role of teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil talk in the English classroom. Teacher is the main operator in-charge of language input and interactional modifications that are required to get her students to process and internalise units of target language.

This highly complex role of the English teacher should form the bedrock of the formal training a novice teacher acquires during all forms of institutional training on which they are supposed to 'cut their teeth.'

Unfortunately, however, this hardly appears to take place even in our premier college of education which has turned out to be just an ostentatious white elephant. In a recent visit there what I was confronted with was the very impressive concrete statue of a student almost devouring a book under the shade of a tree, a misleading facade belying the stark reality, for what I learnt minutes later was the very antithesis - after 2 months of registration the new batch had not commenced their formal training - while the routine one-month language course too had proved to be hoax.

Lack of training in 'classroom dynamics' ( - the often unpredictable way things turn out within the classroom) that teachers should gain particularly during their institutional training accounts for failure of most of them to operate as effective practitioners. One such aspect that is tragically neglected is very much important for a good teacher to generate student interaction is the manner of eliciting responses to questions. Eliciting answers is a process that pervades the whole lesson in various rhythms and requires the teacher to use sophisticated techniques to conduct her 'talk' with students in such a way as to ensure optimum student participation in the 'ding dong'. This necessitates a high degree of presence of mind on the part of the teacher analogous to that of a driver manoeuvring his vehicle along a street full of traffic.

Most of our teachers unfortunately do not display such alertness to generating classroom interaction and just keep on conducting a model of 'talk' of their own being utterly careless and slothful of its consequences. Once a question is asked it is the foremost duty of the teacher to ensure most of the class would venture at least a single word answer.

The teacher should have a full store of classroom language to paraphrase or simplify her questions in case students cannot just get the hang of what she asks and this is something that the native speaker often tends to do in order to make herself understood in case of a breakdown of communication - hence called 'foreigner talk'.

Conducting brief sessions of 'small talk' with students has a lot of advantages in promoting Oracy in students - it motivates them creating a sound link between real life and often drab lesson materials, builds up confidence in students by being able to use the target language in lively discussion and also ensures excellent rapport with the teacher. Oracy in English is a useful skill gaining currency in all spheres of activity where human relations matter a great deal and glamorous and flamboyant speech with ample fluency invariably carry the day.

If authorities are really serious in teaching English to the masses our endeavours should focus on making them fluent speakers which only would enhance their potential in the type of future world where diverse fields of activity such as governance, administration, commerce, education and even aviation will be dominated by such robust personalities.

Yet as matters stand at the moment with regard to teaching of English the offspring of the ordinary man does not appear to have such prospect in their future careers.

(The writer is a Retired Deputy Director of Education in English and former Lecturer in English at Pasdunrata College of Education)

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