Building confidence to learn English

Speech-fronted program:

Dr Asantha U Attanayake

Recently I was invited for the English Day of a leading International School. I had to deliver a speech and I made use of the opportunity to convey some of the ideologies/perceptions I have on English language, its teaching and related issues to the audience that was present for the occasion. I focused my speech on four areas: difference between a speaker of Sinhala/Tamil and a speaker of English; English as a link; varieties of English; West and Europe and Sri Lankan identity.

Learning English, an interesting experience. File photo

All the concepts and ideas I have been propagating throughout my engagement in the discourse of English language teaching in Sri Lanka mainly after the research pertinent to my PhD have been woven and revolving around one major concept: Building confidence. That is, building confidence is central to teaching English in the Sri Lankan context and not teaching grammars or structures.

English need not represent West

I have this conception (or misconception) that international schools run on an ideology which takes the students studying in them closer to the West or Europe thereby taking them away from the Sri Lankan context.

I could very well be wrong, yet there has been nothing from the International School front (including the very names) for me to change my perception.

True, they are part and parcel of our education system by now whether we like it or not. Yet, if any organization that dedicates itself for educating the future generation of the country is of the stance that it has concerns about Sri Lankanness, from its part, as I believe, there has to be some element that represents an understanding of/openness to the masses and the culture of the common man represented through its hidden curriculum.

If any institute runs on its own agenda to represent the West and Europe, of course then we cannot as individuals raise any question about it other than showing concerns for the future of Sri Lankanness we try so much to cultivate and inculcate in the next generation through our education system, especially going in accordance with the ideology of the President.

With this preamble, one thing I want to emphasize is that that English does not and need not represent the West or Europe anymore. In the 21st Century, English language does not belong to one country, sub continent or continent any longer.

It is a global language and in Sri Lanka, it is the link language. Given such a scenario, why do we need to represent the West or Europe through the use of English? Why cannot we represent our own Sri Lankanness through English?

In the Sri Lankan context, English should be like a bridge: if we have the ability to use English, we can make use of it as a link to connect with the outside world. English can link us with the world of knowledge because knowledge sources are available in abundance in English. Books, Internet, media are some of the examples for such sources. We can make links with others using English and thereby we can get to know about others’ cultures, beliefs, habits and practices.

English as a link

By knowing about them, we need to become a set of people who are different from those who do not know English because through English, we should be able to understand others better, be more tolerant and be more open to others’ ideas.

It is a well-known fact that we give undue importance to English language in our education system to teach it as a tool for communication. The expected outcome is problematic in two ways: we teach reading and writing and expect our students to be able to achieve communicative competence; and we test only writing skills whereby we expect results in English as a tool for knowledge or source of knowledge. Since the input and the expected output do not match, we try to find ways and means to bridge the gap without seeing it widening ever. I say undue importance, because we do not try to promote our own languages as modern knowledge sources.

Geographical location

Given the economic and political ideologies in the country, one may justify the emphasis given to English as Sri Lanka, a country positioned in a strategic geographical location. While we give emphasis to the improvement of English in our education, it is equally important to find, develop and nurture our own identity through our education.

As stated earlier, in the 21st Century, English does not belong to any country, continent or sub continent in particular. It is a global language and in Sri Lanka, we need to interpret new meanings to it as the Link language.

Linkages via English are needed to reach new knowledge and knowledge sources, to link ourselves to work and other professions/professionals so that interdisciplinary discourses are possible.

We need to treat and use English as a link between our cultures and others’ cultures; between our country and other countries. Therefore, we need to find ways and means to represent our own Sri Lankan identity in the aforementioned discourses via our own Sri Lankan English. In the quest of such an identity, we need to go beyond teaching English as a tool for mere day-to-day communication.

Teaching to talk sense!

I need to give a first hand example here. This happened when I was in New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University. I was visiting a friend in the hostel and we went to have dinner. My friend went over to the counter and I was seated at a table with some students who were having their meal.

They were chatting over dinner. One student was doing most of the talking. I thought what I heard was one of the 1,652 languages available in the Indian sub continent (Nobody would turn their heads when they hear a tongue that is not known to them as multilingualism is the norm in India and monolingualism or bilingualism is never heard of.) but at the same time, there was something familiar about the language he was speaking. Then I realized he was talking in English!

Younger generation

It was an English which to me was horrible! Horrible pronunciation and he had an accent god knows from where he got it! It was not typical Indian but something close to it and at the same time something quite different.

I found it extremely difficult to listen to him yet I had no option I heard him all the same!

But alas, after about two to three minutes, things started to change! And something fascinated me. He was talking about human existence! In his horrible accent and loads of mispronounced words, he was talking about one of the most beautiful things in the world! And I couldn’t believe it; I was eagerly listening to him!

We need to learn to listen to the content of what others say and not the way they say in English. Also we need to teach our younger generations to listen to what others say in English and not to the way they say. This by any means does not imply that we should teach wrong English.

What is required is to create an understanding that when people speak a foreign/second language, there could be differences in accent, pronunciation, etc. What is equally important is to teach our younger generation is to talk sense in English and not merely “hello”, “hi” and “how are you”.

Even if we begin with that, we need to go beyond using English as a tool for communication and teach them to use English as a tool for knowledge. As stated before in this article and elsewhere, building confidence in students with low proficiency levels in English is a central issue in the teaching of English in the Sri Lankan context. In order to build confidence to learn English, it is easy to make students use the language as a tool for basic communication requirements. Yet, there should be a goal, aim in programs developed at national level to teach English as a link to knowledge and sources of knowledge which requires skills of higher cognitive order beyond the skills needed for mere basic communication skills.