Should English be our Second Language?

LEARNING ENGLISH: A local professor recently commented that the time has come to make English the country's second official language. The Professor's suggestion has great shock value, but it's also impractical. But there are other steps that can be taken at the national level.

Throughout its history, Sri Lanka has set a number of national goals and succeeded brilliantly in meeting them. So why not set a goal to strengthen the country's English language capability and make Sri Lanka second to no Asian country in speaking English?

And why not do what other Asian countries have done - search the world for the best ideas and techniques? Hong Kong and Singapore are former British colonies, but in 1999 both grew concerned that declining English language standards were affecting their international competitiveness.

They took a number of steps to improve English teaching in their schools, which Sri Lanka could model. Singapore sent 8,000 English teachers back to school, not just to learn new teaching techniques, but also to improve their English skills.

Let us ask ourselves a few questions.

What can Sri Lanka learn from China - a relative newcomer to the mass teaching of English - whose students already are outperforming Sri Lanka's? What lessons are there from the hundreds of US school systems that have been teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to tens of thousands of immigrants? What new interactive technologies are available to aid in language learning?

There is so much to learn from the world, if we put our minds to it.

And then we could take a look at the state of English teaching inside our borders.

Does our English language curriculum emphasise the communications skills that we need for our future?

How many Sri Lankan schools have language labs that students can use to get the virtual equivalent of one-on-one instruction?

Are our English language teachers good enough and what kind of in-service training do they need to strengthen their skills?

How many schools still follow the age-old pattern of group teaching, with the teacher standing in front of the classroom, over-analysing grammar and talking about English rather than speaking it?

How can we utilise the presence of the thousands of good English speakers who already are in Sri Lanka as retired personnel?

Finally, how effective is the English language instruction on State Television? Who is the audience, and do the programs focus on their needs?

Strengthening Sri Lanka's English-language capabilities is not the responsibility only of the educational system. Sri Lanka's corporate sector also has a key role to play. It needs to recognise the importance of international communications skills to the future.

This means encouraging employees to strengthen their English language skills through a variety of incentives and rewards. For example, companies could pay for English classes in private outside schools and also offer in-house classes in professional English. They can change their reward system - and expectations.

We see that Sri Lankan business entrepreneurs don't send enough signals to their employees that foreign language and cross-cultural skills are important. As a result, most Sri Lankan executives and workers hide behind their mother language and don't spend as much time as they should get to know the English-speaking people or English activities.

Corporate heads should indicate that this mentality needs to change, reward those who respond, and penalise those who don't.

It is heartening to note that British examinations are becoming more and more ingrained in the minds of Sri Lankan youths, but there is one major problem - these examinations measure only reading and writing, but not speaking. These are passive examinations.

They test your ability to understand what others write and say, but not how well you can communicate. So our companies need to close that gap, and employ professionals to develop a testing system to measure speaking ability of their employees and apply corrective actions.

Teaching English has always been a big business in Sri Lanka, but unfortunately it has not focused on specific professional goals. This has to change. There should be ample opportunities for the students to associate and mix with the English-speaking society. In the meantime, teaching English should consist of professionally oriented courses and materials, study programs and trips, and other English-language services.

Just a month before our Independence, Arthur Knowles, a British businessman writing to a newspaper predicted that Sri Lankans "can never be of any use outside their island and is doomed to yield to the domination of the English tongue."

That sounds harsh. If he is still alive, he would have seen that Sri Lanka has produced some of the world's greatest literature laureates in the last half-century. But the dominance of the English language outside Sri Lanka that he predicted has now become a reality.

Sri Lanka's economic future requires an across-the-board effort to strengthen its English language capabilities. This is the stark reality.