LEARNING OF ENGLISH- A GLOBAL PROBLEM

LEARNING OF ENGLISH- A GLOBAL PROBLEM

The English language has been growing rapidly and it has attained the stage of a trillion dollar status. It provides foreign job opportunities in India itself. Nevertheless its significance has not been understood by the Indian teachers and students. It is very poorly taught and learnt and tested by the authorities and this haphazard system of teaching and testing pulls down the quality of Indian education to its lowest level. It continues to be a global problem and all the developing countries are affected by the poor teaching and testing of it. Hence English language has become a killer –language and every year more than 2000 students attempt suicide as soon as the results are published.

“Cabbage in; cabbage out” is the modern saying about the computer. In the same way “Like the teacher, like the student” is true in teaching and testing of English in India. Testing the testers should be done by the educators to improve the overall improvement of the testing of English in India.

Kendriya Vidhyalaya and NavothayaVidhyalaya students do well in their competitive exams and even Matric and other English medium students could not compete with them. Why do the central school students thrive and other local first-generation students fail even in their English tests?

The rural learners of English fail miserably in their English and their lives become doomed forever. They develop a psychic fear towards the language and it dwells with them till they live. If this problem is not solved in the school itself our entire higher education system would be spoiled. There should be a change of mind among the English teachers and they should come forward to teach English with new zeal, new material, new methods and new testing system.

The English language is a survival skill and a practical life tool and it is not taught and tested like a skill but a knowledge subject. Here setting the question paper based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives would not hold good. The English question paper should be set based on the four skills of the language, Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing (LSRW).

The English question paper at the school level at present contains the following items.

1. Short Answer questions

2. Objective type questions

3. Filling up the blanks and

4. Essay type questions

These questions need blind memory-based learning and are soon forgotten as soon as the exams are over. These questions are based on the skills of reading and writing. The basic skills of listening and speaking are completely ignored in the testing of English.

The fluency and proficiency of English of students are not tested and they have not got anything to test. When those students go to foreign countries especially English speaking countries, the universities expect the students to get a pass certificate in any one of the English as a foreign language testing system conducted by Cambridge University

E.g

International English Language Testing system (IELTS)

The Multi-National Companies (MNCS) test their candidates’ knowledge of English by personal interviews, debates, group discussion etc. Most of our students fail in these tests because of their lack of exposure to the skills of listening and speaking in their school and college lives

R.K. Bansal, the Father of Indian English pronunciation observes that

“We must try to improve our students’ proficiency in Spoken English by developing their skills in listening and speaking along with their knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and usage.”

The above statement is true and in all the International testing systems of English, the first test will be on the skill of listening and then follow the other skills like speaking, reading, and writing.

E.g. TOEFL (Testing of English as a foreign language)

The English Teachers in schools should come forward to enrich their English. Learning a language is a skill and a habit. The easiest way to learn English and teach it to their students is to listening to radio news and take motes repeatedly. Thus the teachers can self-test their own English

In the class rooms audio-visual instruments like radio, television and tech should be used to improve their skill of listening and speaking. These electronic gadgets are very useful to improve the students’ skill of listening and speaking. The testing and assessment of English should be continuous. Class tests, weekly tests, and term tests should be conducted without fail. This will help both the teachers and students to improve their English. The language skill should become a part of the students’ life. They should be encouraged and guided to listen to news readers’ English throughout their lives and test their English