Creative material for teaching English
Prof. Sunanda MAHENDRA
The state concept of learning and teaching of English as a second
language is appreciated and commended by many teachers. This concept
underlines the learning as a life skill which ought to be more creative
and resourceful than it exists today in the classroom. Over the years
teaching of not only English but also other languages, have been
experimented and as a result quite a number of books known as readers
and companion readers entered the scene. The publishers hand in hand
with the educationists experimented on various methodical creative forms
of books that could be utilised by the teacher and the student. There
were 'guidebooks' and manuals, which underlined the various segments
commencing basically from grammar to sentence structures.
Going through a general classroom text one would see, units and
chapters, with topics and headings which goes as parts of speech, common
and proper nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, prepositions and
conjunctions, pronouns, etc. One cannot argue that learning these basic
rules of grammar are unimportant or unwanted. But the times and trends
of learning and teaching have over the years changed the same patterns
into more creative forms, with the strict dissociation of studies in
linguistics and the study of literature, as two disciplines. This
resulted in a wide range of the emergence of a wide range of workbooks
and 'activity' books and also supplementary readers, that could help the
teacher and the student.
This segmentation was followed by another trend that included aspects
such as vocabulary, sentence writing, paragraph writing, expressive
writing, report writing etc. With the advent of audio visual media in
the field of study, the teacher and the student had the chance to
utilise tape recorders, slides and other technological methods. This
proved the way for the teaching of English as a creative skill, which
had a wider spectrum than it used to be.
The term creative teaching and creative learning emerged as a result
of the use of better designed readers as well. In the first stage after
the post second world war, scene, a number of supplementary readers
appeared. One of the finest series was titled as A L Bright story
readers designed to help build a better understanding of world known
literary works such as Arabian Nights, which included Sinbad the sailor
as well as Ali Baba and the forty thieves. Some of the major works such
as Robinson Crusoe, came as abridged works limiting the vocabulary
building skills of the student.
The series of books as I came to know later was the brainchild of an
English publisher named Allen Lane who was also the father of the pocket
edition Penguin books known by the English reader all over the world.
In India there appeared quite a number of English teaching books
which were designed mainly for the Indian English student at college and
university level of education. One of the pioneer work books which was
widely used was known by 'Desk Work' written by an educationist named
Ross. Side by side grew an English teaching tradition pioneered by
English educationists who visited and stayed in India over a period.
These books included titles such as 'First Aid in English', 'Radiant way
to English', 'Good English', How to use it', 'Steps to learn English'
etc.
Most of these guidebooks were designed to suit the ascending order of
the school classroom. These books also came to be used as classroom
texts which not only taught grammatical rules, but also helped enter
into other subject areas. One other text designed in India, and imported
to our country, was known as 'Prose selections' where the reading
material was more oriental and possessed a creative flavour. I remember
one stimulating essay titled as 'Gandhiji in London'
In this essay selected from Mahatma Gandhi's biography the reader may
find the hardships and struggles encountered by Mahatma in order to
build a vision of his own. Then there were several essays on subject
areas that envelopes folklore, science, technology and explorations.
Over the years the teaching and learning methods to study English as a
second language had changed. With the use of Radio, there came a series
of educational progress titled as English by Radio' (EbyR). This series
was meant to teach English as second language addressed to various
cultures.
The content of the program as I understood from the participation for
the series designs, by the World Service of BBC, in London the necessity
was to help build a tradition of 'Spoken English' though the term is now
inadvertently used in many situations. Followed by the success of EbyR,
the television series too came to be. This series was titled EbyTV
(English by television). By and large, the teaching of English as a
second language gained grounds later as a business deal devoid of its
profoundity. English teachers were trained in our country especially by
the training college in Maharagama, which over the years utilised
various teaching trends. But I am not too sure as to what happened in
the eighties and nineties with the advent of English units attached to
the universities.
As teaching material for the promotion of English teaching, the
parallel texts too had come to be designed. The main intention of such a
series is to lay a text in English or any other language and to present
the translations of the same on the opposite page. This trend is being
experimented already with Italian, French, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu,
Chinese, Japanese and several other languages. The reading material
could be drawn from such sources as folklore, science, and other
literary sources like supplementary reading material not only help build
a teaching and learning culture but also help build better insights to
the world in a wider sphere.
The writer of this column commenced his career as an English tutor
attached to the then Vidyalankara University. He later obtained
eligibility in English, the study of comparative literary studies from
University of London, UK, while serving the BBC as a managerial program
producer of the World Service. |