Success due to Bottom-up planning:

Evolving homegrown English model

Rasika Somarathna

The national road map to take communicative English skills across the country, the Presidential initiative - ‘English as a life skill’ was launched in June 2009. The program aims at the dis-empowerment of English as a privilege of the elites to be completed and instead to see the empowerment of a new ideology of English as a life skill. In an interview with the Daily News Coordinator of Presidential Task Force on ‘English as a life skill’ Sunimal Fernando outlines the novel approach taken to promote spoken English skills, its aims, progress and the future plans First part of this article was published on December 14

Q: In your opinion, why this radical decision to devolve maximum responsibility to grass root stakeholders produce desired results?

A: Our earlier attempts failed mainly due to the English education system evolving on strategies based on foreign models. Also our education planners did not consult grass root stakeholders when preparing relevant material. Thus the content produced did not meet the needs of the majority of students in this country. The material they were given to use was alien to both teachers and students.

I personally think that the curriculum we have adopted for English over the years is far too advanced for the average rural child. This is due to the fact that grass roots not being consulted while preparing such curriculum.

They were also not concerned about its impact on the ultimate beneficiary of their exercise, in this case the child. What they did was to put forward a list of quantifiable activities to appease the Accounts Department. There is no doubt that the money must be accounted for, but the main purpose of your exercise should be the impact of your efforts on the child. This is the approach we took. In line we encouraged the academia and planners to give what the grass roots wanted. The Master Trainers with the assistance of academia developed new teaching techniques and material which were specific to Sri Lanka.

Also we have taken a decision to make any intellectual material developed through public funds to be made public property. They would be made available on the Internet and other relevant communication modes. We always went for a joint approach, a bottom-up approach.

I think this could be food for thought not only to the school system in our country but to the public sector as a whole. I think a joint approach on all matters could pay rich dividends and supplement growth in all fronts.

Q: Could you tell us how the national initiative ‘English as a Life Skill’ came about?

A: President Mahinda Rajapaksa wanted the dis-empowerment of English as a privilege of the elites to be completed and instead to see the empowerment of a new ideology of English as a life skill. He wanted English to be a straight and simple tool of communication stripped of its historical baggage, a skill for employment and a vehicle for reaching the outside world of knowledge. He wanted English transformed into a common property, a resource owned by all.

With this vision in mind, the President in 2008 asked me if I would take over the task of driving a national initiative to give expression to a pledge he made in the Mahinda Chintana, to take Spoken English language skills across the country.

He told me to identify the reasons behind our former failures and prepare a homegrown model to suit our needs.

I first went to the people who mattered most, the teachers in villages who taught English to schoolchildren. I with the help of others had friendly informal discussions with teachers, all round the country.

After engaging in this exercise from November 2008 to April 2009, we felt that we had sufficient knowledge and material to work out the framework of a homegrown model.

On the advice of the President, a Presidential Task Force was created to spearhead the initiative, ‘English as a Life Skill’ in which I was the coordinator. Later we developed the road map which was launched on June 24, 2009. A strong national cadre of 80 Master Trainers trained at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad was established, with 320 assistant trainers to help them.

In the spirit of the President, we learnt from the people. As a result, it was grounded on Sri Lankan experience with contributions coming mainly from the English teacher community of this country. The concept ‘English as a Life Skill’ was crafted by the Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunge. Throughout, Secretary Weeratunge was a tower of strength to the initiative which has been hailed as an all round success in the short span of its implementation.

Q: What were the main lessons learnt and steps taken to rectify identified anomalies?

A: We started using various methods to alleviate this fear psychosis. One was a huge national campaign to encourage speaking English our way. Any language has a spoken or informal variety and a formal or written variety. The informal variety is the focal variety that is the variety to which your emotion, experience, all related to your environment and culture, can be expressed. So in the standard British English you cannot express the emotion that you derive from your local environment. For example the emotion when saying that is a Jak tree is different when saying that is a kos tree.

So to innovate we have to borrow words from our own language. It is to be precise is to make a Parabasa a Swabasa. English is a Parabasa and our intention is to indigenize it by making it a Swabasa. For this purpose we have to allow grammar innovations. Sri Lankan English is essentially an informal or spoken variety. The written variety comes as international Standard English. International Standard English is an evolving one.

At the moment it is a fair mix of standard British English with US English as well as Indian English. Our policy is that a person should first be able to speak to have confidence to write. So our intention is to rid this fear of speaking English.

For long we adopted the stupid method of forcing our children to speak the standard British English, which is foreign to us. English is all within us. Our job is to rid the fear factor to let it surface.

Q: Who are the major stakeholders in this exercise?

A: Education Ministry is the major force. Our job as the PTF is to guide and support them. We work in a very cordial manner. All our energies are directed at achieving the ultimate objective. Education Minister Bandula Gunewardena has been a tower of strength. The decision of the Education Ministry to establish a Presidential Program Unit too is highly appreciated. A steering Committee too is to be established to consolidate and facilitate the interaction between PTF, Presidential Secretariat and the Ministry.

Also the Government of India has given us a lot of assistance. The WB, ADB and the BoI too have assisted us. Director and Educational Assistant Secretary Anura Dissanayake too have lent us enormous assistance in obtaining funds.

Q: Can you elaborate on the changes and achievements to date?

A: During the period, 90 percent of the 22,500 English teachers of the country were trained by the Education Ministry and the nine Provincial Ministries to teach Communicative English to our students.

Measures have been evolved to test listening and speaking skills in English from the O/Level examination in 2012. The country’s first comprehensive Teacher Guide for Spoken English was produced.

An apex level Sri Lanka India Centre for English Language Training (SLICELT) with modern technology and local and Indian resource persons was established at Peradeniya with Indian assistance. Similarly nine Provincial Centres for English Language Training (PSLICELTs) with state-of-the-art teaching technology, residential facilities for 80 trainees and local and Indian resource persons in each Centre has been mooted. A teacher guide on ‘Sri Lankan English Standards’ Phonology, Vocabulary and Syntax (including Grammar, word order and idiom). A 100 hour curriculum with teaching aids for a certificate course in basic English for general public was developed. These are some of the achievements.

Q: What are the major activities proposed for implementation in 2011?

A: Completing the training of English teachers, further training of relevant resource personnel, administering the 100 hour basic English course to 9,500 school principals in the country, educational officials at all levels, establishing nine Provincial centres of English, two mass media campaigns, are some of the programs.

Q: What are your thoughts on the impact of the program on a long term- basis?

A: With the progress of the initiative I have no doubt that a national level attitudinal change and commitment to speaking English the Sri Lankan way would be established. A new cadre of skilled rural based English teachers to confidently take over the country’s English teaching enterprise.

The emergence of new teaching tools and material would be another benefit. Self-confidence, belief and the determination to use English would improve significantly.

Language based social anomalies would be alleviated. All these facts combined would be a catalyst to the country’s economic and social development. Finally one day English teachers might lose their jobs (in a lighter vain).

Concluded