ELTWeekly Vol. 3 Issue#105 | November 21 | ISSN 0975-3036
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Secrets Of Ehhancing Quality Of Teaching English In India
by
Madhuri Gokhale
Madhuri Gokhale has obtained her M.A, M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in English from the University of Pune. She is a recipient of the ‘Alegaonkar Brothers Gold Medal’. She received the ‘Best Professional Award’ of the Rotary International and received a scholarship to study at Ohio, USA. She was selected to represent India at ESU conference in London. Her areas of specialization are ELLT, Linguistics and Stylistics.
Abstract
In the context of global competition, improvement in teaching quality is perhaps one of the most important issues which needs to be attended to urgently. Today we need quality oriented teachers of English who would be able to transform the classroom into a wonderful place to learn. This study makes some suggestions for enriching the teaching quality. It argues that the practice of appointing a Supervisor for a new teacher as in the United States should be implemented in India. Teaching quality can also be upgraded through peer review of teaching and by meticulously studying the feedback given by students. Opportunities must also be provided to the teachers to participate in teacher training programmes and practise micro teaching. Quality is never an accident, and it is hoped that teachers, Universities and the Government would take active steps for enhancing the teaching quality.
Hargreaves and Fullan (1992) comment, ‘The teacher is the ultimate key to educational change’ (p. 23). Teachers play a very significant role in the educational scenario, and their place has remained unrivalled and unchallenged even after scientific and technological advancements. Teaching is considered to be a noble profession and according to Russell, teachers are the ‘guardians of civilization’. Teachers define and refine the curriculum and they transform and interpret it in a way that makes learning more enjoyable for the learners. Thus, it is what the teachers think and do at the classroom level that eventually determines what learners do in the classroom.
The twentieth century has seen the establishment of English as a World language due to its wide demographic and geographical spread. Today English is considered to be ‘the language of opportunities’ and due to its spread in almost all walks of human life, it is considered to be synonymous with success and power. Thus, whether one likes it or not, achieving mastery over English has become the need of the times. Today students are aware of the fact that their competence in English would enable them to confidently enter into the mainstream of the society.
In the Indian context, it is observed that in spite of learning English for several years, students do not possess a good linguistic competence. Ideally, good teaching must result into effective learning. However, several spoken English classes mushrooming in different corners of India are a proof of the fact that appropriate and adequate learning of English does not take place at school and college level. There seems to be a lot of teaching of English, but less of learning. There are several factors responsible for why students do not learn English well. However, it is felt that one of the major factors responsible for this situation is the teacher’s inefficiency.
According to William Foster, ‘Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skilful execution’. He rightly points out that for enhancing quality it is necessary to have ‘intelligent direction’. However, it is observed that in the Indian context, a college teacher is not provided with this intelligent direction. The college teachers are a neglected lot as far as their professional development is concerned. It is surprising that a college teacher is supposed to be a professional without receiving any kind of proper professional training. An undergraduate teacher in India is not required to receive any kind of training in order to become a teacher. Qualifying oneself at the SET or NET examination is a necessary step to enter the teaching profession , but unfortunately these examinations only test the teacher’s knowledge and not his or her skill. ‘Knowing English well’ is not a guarantee to ‘teaching’ it well. Teaching as an art or craft demands a rigorous study of both the theory and practice involved in it, but unfortunately this is not always the case. In our situation, teachers are allowed to teach without systematic practice of pedagogy. It must be remembered that teaching is a skill and a challenge as very often a teacher needs to play multiple roles in a classroom, role of a performer, facilitator, motivator, friend, catalyst, decision-maker, counsellor, consultant, disciplinarian, a surrogate parent and a mentor.
Thus, given the key role of the teachers in the classroom, it is imperative that professional growth of the teachers should become a top priority. One of the questions that is asked quite often is ‘Are teachers born or made?’ Some teachers may be born to teach, but in general it seems that many teachers can learn to teach. Today we need quality oriented teachers of English who would be able to transform the classroom into a wonderful place to learn. The American Commission on Teacher Education rightly comments, ‘The quality of a nation depends upon the quality of its citizens. The quality of its citizens depends-not exclusively but in critical measure- upon the quality of their education. The quality of their education depends, more than upon any other single factor, upon the quality of their teachers’. This study attempts at making some suggestions for enriching the teaching quality of teachers of English in particular, and of all teachers in general.
It is felt that the practice of appointing a ‘Supervisor’ for a new teacher as in the case of some Universities in the United States should be implemented in India. In India there is a supervisor or a guide only at the research level, however, if a new teacher has a supervisor at least during his initial years of career, it would provide an opportunity for a teacher to discuss and share his problems, worries, failures and frustrations. It is felt that a friendly dialogue with a supervisor can make this teacher more resourceful, skilful, competent and confident and thereby he can ‘learn to teach’. Every teacher must remember the fact that teaching like any other skill needs to be learnt, practised and improved upon. The job of the supervisor should not just be pointing out the limitations of the practicing teacher, but also appreciating his good work. In our system of education, a supervisor may not have much say in ‘what needs to be taught’, but he can certainly give valuable insights in ‘how’ a particular topic can be taught. Some kind of training must also be imparted to the teacher with respect to evaluation techniques. A supervisor can create awareness about the recent strategies of evaluation among the teachers so as to make them independent in the issues related to evaluation. The supervisor can sometimes even observe the classes of a teacher and later on provide some suggestions for improvement. If the supervisor plays the role of a ‘friend, philosopher and guide’, it would lead to quality enhancement. A supervisor can play the role of a compass and give direction to a teacher in the vast sea of knowledge that the teacher has to travel, so that he is able to reach his goals and destination in terms of his students’ learning and satisfaction.
Teaching quality can also be upgraded through peer review of teaching and by meticulously studying the feedback given by the students. Learning to teach can be a collaborative activity. By developing a sound dialogue with peers one can certainly upgrade one’s teaching skill. Every good teacher is always open to suggestions and if a teacher positively thinks and incorporates the suggestions made by his peers, the situation would change drastically. The challenges of a language teacher are multi-dimensional and so we must help each other to grow and excel in our profession. So friends, let us allow some of our peers who are excellent teachers of English to peep in our classrooms and play the role of an observer. These days internet is a boon to teachers, it has enormous potential for interactions among teachers across the globe, and so teachers must make an optimum use of this facility. Modifying Shiv khera I would like to say, ‘Teachers don’t have to do different things, but they have to learn to do things in a different way’, and a sound dialogue with peers can help us a lot to learn this technique.
A student is always at the centre of the learning process and is the best judge of every teacher. Today several management schools have a system for assessing the teacher’s performance at the end of every class where questions related to the teacher’s interactional traits and his personal and professional characteristics are included. It is felt that even at the undergraduate level a teacher can ask students to give feedback at least once a week, so that this becomes a chance for the teacher to introspect. It is felt that a teacher can surely benefit a lot from the responses coming from the students. In fact, the students’ body language in the class is also a good feedback for the teacher and every teacher must study it systematically.
It is true that bodies like National Assessment and Accreditation Council have brought about a substantial transformation in the educational scenario by keeping an eye on the teacher’s activities, his/her feedback given by the students and the different innovative ways of teaching that he is involved in. However, the question is ‘Do we really need bodies of this kind?’ If teachers themselves realise that they have the major responsibility for their own development, if they monitor their own performance, if they pass sleepless nights reading and preparing themselves for their classes, I think the face of Colleges and Universities would automatically change. After all, if we want to change the system, the change has to begin with us! Rabindranath Tagore has rightly said, ‘A teacher can never truly teach unless he is learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame’. If teaching is to be a genuinely professional enterprise, which it ought to be, it calls for continuous experimentation and evaluation by the teachers themselves. Teachers should develop the honesty to examine critically their own practices and experience, and confront their failures as well as successes. They must realise the fact that learning to teach is a lifelong journey. Teachers can always get support and guidance from professional journals, experts and specialists, but they must take the first step forward.
It is felt that opportunities must be provided to the teachers by the Government and the Universities to participate in the teacher training programmes conducted by experts from different parts of the world, and they must get an opportunity to practise micro teaching. In our Universities, every teacher is expected to participate in some orientation and refresher courses, but in most cases, these courses turn out to be mere formalities and not great learning experiences for the teachers. Usually in such courses, the focus is on theory and not on the practical aspects of teaching. In addition to these theoretical aspects, in-service programmes should be organized to enhance the knowledge, hone the skills and refine the attitudes of the teachers. If teachers get a chance to experience the practicality of the method, they can use the recommended method in their own classroom. In the age of explosion of knowledge, the knowledge acquired recently becomes outdated and anachronistic within a short span of time and so training programmes must be organised. As learning is an ongoing process, such programmes need to be continuous, and not one-shot affairs. When a teacher stops learning, education stagnates and so teachers must always possess the desire to learn something new.
Today a lot of audio-visual material is available on different websites and also in the form of CD’s, and for making classroom teaching more effective, learner friendly and enjoyable, the teacher must make himself familiar with all the possible materials that can enhance the learning process. The teachers can get some valuable tips and clues by watching these CD’s and they can try carrying out some of the activities suggested in this material. For example, a company called Acoustic Engineers in Pune has prepared ten video lessons on how grammar can be taught effectively, and the teachers must make use of all such material for developing their teaching skill.
Teacher performance is one of the most crucial inputs in the field of education. If a teacher is well taught, all will be well with our educational standards. It is hoped that all teachers of English would embark on a lifelong journey for developing professional competence and they would continuously undertake a wide range of activities to improve their performance as a teacher. It is felt that the war of quality in Schools, colleges and Universities can be won with the help of small remedies suggested in this study. I would like to conclude this paper with a view expressed by two psychologists. According to Good and Brophy (1987),
‘A Perfect teacher does not exist. All of us can refine skills, discard ineffective tactics and develop new ones. None of us will ever be a perfect teacher, but all of us can become better teachers than what we presently are….This, the continual process of improving our teaching skills, is the essence of professional teaching’ (p. 524).
References
Doff, A. (2002), TEACH ENGLISH, Cambridge University press, Cambridge.
Good, T. and Brophy, J. (1986), EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: A REALISTIC APPROACH, Longman, New York.
Hackett, P. (1997), INTRODUCTION TO TRAINING, University Press (India) Limited, Hyderabad.
Hargreaves,A. and Fullan, M. (1992), UNDERSTANDING TEACHER DEVELOPMENT, Teachers College Press, New York.
Lewin, K.M. and Stuart, J.S. (1991), EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: CASE STUDIES OF CHANGEMAKERS, The Macmillan Press Limited, Houndmills.
Richards, J.C. and Renandya, W.A. (2006), METHODOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CURRENT PRACTICE, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Weimer, M. (1993), IMPROVING YOUR CLASSROOM TEACHING, Sage Publications, California.
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