Task Oriented Meta-cognitive Approach In English Language Teaching And Learning

by Mansa R. Maity, RGUKT-APIIIT, Basar.

Introduction:

English language is one of the richest languages in the world, in respect of literature and culture. English literature contains some of the finest utterances of life and conduct. In it we have the “Authorized Version of Bible”, the perfection of the English language. It is the language with which Milton tried to assert eternal providence, “And justify the way of God to Men”, the language through which Darwin expounded his “theory of evolution”, “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest”.The English language has given expression to great social ideas and great political ideas.
The first requirement for any author to produce any form of literature is to have an effective language.

ELT Newsletter, ELT Research Papers, ELTWeekly Issue#51 1 Comment February 20th, 2010

The issue of “grammar instruction” in Second/Foreign Language Learning Teaching is among the most hotly debated ones. Of course, there is no gainsaying that grammatical competence alone cannot account for what is involved in the mastery of a language. However, the reaction against grammar teaching which resulted due to the communicative approach revolution has certain inherent weaknesses. This article evaluates the role of grammar in Second/Foreign language pedagogy and subsequently goes on to show how grammar is, in fact, so important that it cannot be ignored. Hence the issue now is no longer whether grammar is to be taught or not but rather how grammar items are to be taught most effectively. With this end in view, the article looks into a model of task-based grammar teaching, which blends grammar instruction with communicative tasks so that accuracy is not sacrificed at the altar of fluency.

Grammar teaching in English as Second Language/ English as a Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) pedagogy has always been a contentious issue. In fact, there has been a pendulum swing regarding whether grammar should be taught or not. Before the advent of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in the 1970’s, for instance, grammar was in a position of domination in language education, with curricula being organized around it. However, the supremacy of grammar was questioned when developments in the field of Sociolinguistics in the seventies challenged the traditional notions about the nature of language and learning. One of the primary reasons for the rejection of a narrow focus on grammatical forms and structures in language learning was the blurring of the notion of ‘correctness’ of language thanks to the investigation of language varieties. Also, sociolinguists like the American Dell Hymes went on to put forward a broader concept of ‘communicative competence’, which drew attention to language use in social context. This had a tremendous impact on language teaching, encouraging a more critical look at language and sharpening an awareness of the need to make language relevant to students’ needs and to provide opportunities for language use in the classroom.

ELT Newsletter, ELT Research Papers, ELTWeekly Issue#49 2 Comments February 5th, 2010

The Role of Technology in Pervading English in Non-Anglophonic Regions

By Aadhi. Ramesh Babu & A.Komuraiah

 The main purpose of language is communication and we know that there are various scientific and technical inventions have been introduced for communicative purposes English language classroom.This paper gives some methodological frameworks which will make sure success for inexperienced teachers in using various communication technologies, i.e., radio and video programmers in English. We know that English is an international and global language. Sometimes for non-native speakers like India or Africa, it is a foreign or second language. When teacher teaches English for them using the devices like T.V. or computers or radio, he must be very careful. In this way Dave Willis says “several such devices, while making positive contributions to learning, are potentially dangerous if they are overused or misused by a thoughtless programme planner or teacher who harnesses their potential for effective student control rather than effective teaching.”

ELT Newsletter, ELT Research Papers, ELTWeekly Issue #38, English Language Teaching, ICT and ELT No Comments October 25th, 2009

The Use of L1 in Teaching English

by Ms Daisy

The issue of using L1 (mother tongue) in teaching English has become debatable, in fact there are no clear guidelines on it. Most of the teachers feel that use of L1 should be minimized and feel guilty if they use it frequently. But if asked why they feel so, it is difficult for them to answer.

The general assumption is that English should be learnt through English, like one learns mother tongue and not by using L1. But the idea that learner should learn English like a native speaker does, or try to think in English is an inappropriate and unachievable aim. English is a world lingua franca and what we should be aiming for today is to make our learners speakers of English. Moreover a dangerous side- effect of banishing L1 from the English classroom is the implication that somehow the learners’ mother tongue is inferior, or does not count, thus discriminating against the learners’ linguistic identity.

ELT Newsletter, ELT Research Papers, ELTWeekly Issue#36, English Language Teaching, ICT and ELT, Tarun Patel No Comments October 2nd, 2009

Anxiety in Language Learning

by Melahat Amir Jahansouz Shahi, Iran

Abstract

Anxiety is one of the most challenging obstacles to overcome in learning a new foreign language. Learners are afraid of making mistakes, of looking and sounding foolish, of being vulnerable. They like feeling smart, worthy of admiration, respected for their skills and knowledge, knowing their true personality is coming through. That can be hard to do in a foreign language, especially in the beginning. Moreover, as it is statistically demonstrated, anxiety can be a determining factor in test performance of students. Due to the apparent importance of this factor in language learning, it seems relevant to focus on this element more. This article is an attempt to provide some of the underlying points in this regard, discussing its effects on different facets of language learning, and offer some important tips for the learners to overcome the problems arising from it.

ELT Newsletter, ELT Research Articles, ELT Research Papers, ELTWeekly Issue#34, English Language Teaching, ICT and ELT, Tarun Patel 5 Comments September 18th, 2009

How to teach English Pronunciation to Non-native Speakers of English: Some Useful Techniques

by A. RAMESH BABU (Assistant Professor in English in Kamala Institute of Technology and Sciences, Huzurabad, Karimnagar. A.P. – India)

I would like to think about a few relevant questions to discuss some useful techniques of teaching English pronunciation. First, is it necessary to teach English pronunciation to non-native speakers of English, properly in countries where English is taught as a second or a foreign language like India or Africa? I think the answer is undoubtedly ‘yes’. Whatever language we speak, we should pay special attention to the sound system of that particular language. Every language has its own peculiar features different from others providing it language-specific uniqueness. In India, when we speak English, we should, as far as, like the English and not like the speakers of Hindi/Telugu/Bengali/Kashmir/Marathi or any other language.

My second question is that in which English do we speak? Should we aim at speaking R.P. (i.e. Received Pronunciation of English) or any other variety of English?  I would suggest that we should aim at speaking R.P. as long as we do not have standard General Indian English or other English and our goal should be to speak an internationally intelligible and acceptable standard of English. In a county like India, we have as many varieties of English, Urdu English, Kashmiri English, Telugu English and Tamil English etc. It is therefore necessary to speak English which is free from regional influences and which is intelligible and acceptable at the national and international levels. That is, I think, England Pronunciation.

My third question is that who should teach English pronunciation? A teacher who is systematically trained in phonetics in a reputed institute like EFLU is an ideal teacher for the purpose. Those who are interested in English literature and have a sound knowledge of the sound system of English can also teach English pronunciation effectively. We can not say that the teachers who have many certificates and many years of experiences in teaching field can teach very well but it is depend on the teacher’s hard work. But those who have no interest in English language teaching of the sound system of English, they can’t teach English pronunciation effectively.

Teaching of English pronunciation lies outside the scope of English language or literature programmers or schedules in many universities in India. It is quite ironical in the sense that the moment a non-native English teacher utters a word of a sentence in the class; she/he teaches the pronunciation of that word or sentence without even knowing it. Most of the English teachers in India pronounce in General Indian English and this

insensible and unintentional teaching of English leads to the teaching of wrong pronunciation which is profusely injurious. Here are some myths about the English language:

1.      English words are not pronounced as they written.

2.      There are no rules to English pronunciation.

3.      Good readers don’t “sound out” words.

4.      Sounding out is incompatible with understanding.

5.      People who learning to sound out don’t learn a “slight” vocabulary.

If a teacher teaches in R.P, the students may not understand the words because students are habituated to pronounce in Indian English. Teachers’ mispronunciation of words or sentences is thus reflected in the speech of their students. Most of the times, English teachers are the only models to imitate for many students in the class. How can students of literature appreciate the music of Shelley’s poems when they are not consciously aware of the stress, rhythm and intonation patterns of English? Knowledge of the sound system of English not only promotes better English pronunciation but also helps in understanding and explanation of a literary text. I think it is necessary to teach English pronunciation consciously and effectively. The fact is that Spoken English has inevitably a vital role to play in the teaching of English literature. Spoken English must be taught as a part of academic discipline in our colleges and universities. If it is not, the students do not try to pronounce in R.P. We know that the teaching of English pronunciation should not be neglected, whatever be the aim of our teaching English-language or literature. We cannot avoid teaching or learning English in our universities, colleges and schools because English is a library language, link language in our multilingual country. When we introduce new grammar or vocabulary, it is important to teach our students how to pronounce the word or grammatical structure. Not only does it help them become intelligible speakers of English, it also improves their own understanding of the language.

Now our main alarm is: How to teach English in the present scheme of the things in India? To answer this important question, following are a few suggestions:

There are several theories on how to teach English pronunciation.

Most of them involve rote memorization of the pronunciation of vocabulary words and drilling. These methods can work well for some students, particularly those with mother tongues similar to English, but may leave a large portion of other classes.

The correct method for teaching English pronunciation

To teach pronunciation, start at the beginning, and break the words down into their smallest components. These are called phonemes. Phonemes are the distinct sounds that

help us differentiate words; the /p/ in pat and pan versus the /c/ in cat and can. Begin by letting students listen to these differing sounds until they can identify the various ones in class exercises. Then they can start trying to articulate on a basic level.

It is like a child learning to speak, though at an accelerated speed; phonemes are combined into words, words are strung into sentences. The process is fine tuned over time, by hearing and vocalizing the varying sounds, and intonation and syllable stress will follow. You can find diagrams of the proper way to hold the lips and tongue to properly form more difficult sounds like ‘g’ and ‘r’. These can help reduce frustration among the students when you teach sounds that are articulated inside the mouth, and watching videos of English speakers will help them to start developing proper facial expressions.

A diagnostic test, in order to detect the pronunciation problems of the students, should be conducted before teaching pronunciation. This would help in pinpointing their areas of difficulty and concentration on specific remedial measures to eradicate those problems.

Students should be taught to articulate English sounds clearly. Hence the phonetic      symbols of these sounds should be introduced to the students without going into the details of phonetic terminologies and descriptions in order to avoid confusion. This would help students consult English pronouncing dictionaries for difficult words, and avoid spelling pronunciation.

Word stress should be taught while teaching vocabulary. A change in word stress leads to a change or even loss in meaning of the word. Students should therefore be given practice, rather rigorous practice, in word stress. Since in English is both fixed and free, it is difficult for non-native speakers to decide which syllable to stress.

If you have a mixed ethnic class, have the students take turns teaching each other words and phrases from their varying languages; this will foster understanding and patience as they hear different languages spoken with foreign accents. Remember, Japanese spoken with an English or American accent will sound just as different to them as accented English does to a native English speaker. This will also help them improve their pronunciation          skills.

Get tapes of English speakers from around the world. Have the class listen to them, then to you as you repeat the dialogue. They can impersonates you and the speakers on the tapes, and see the differences as well as the similarities. These can all be fun group activities to include in your daily curriculum.

Pronouncing every word correctly leads to poor pronunciation! Good pronunciation       comes from stressing the right words – this is because English is a time-stressed language.

Here’s How:

English is considered a stressed language while many other languages are considered  syllabic. In other languages, such as French or Italian, each syllable receives equal importance (there is stress, but each syllable has its own length). English pronunciation focuses on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, non-stressed, words. Stressed words are considered content words:

Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter

principal verbs e.g. visit, construct

Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting

Adverbs e.g. often, carefully.

Non-stressed words are considered function words:

Determiners e.g. a, an, the

Auxiliary verbs e.g. am, is, are, was, were

Prepositions e.g. before, of, in, on

Conjunctions e.g. but, and, though

Pronouns e.g. they, she

Tips:

1. Remember that non-stressed words and syllables are often ’swallowed’ in English.

2. Always focus on pronouncing stressed words well, non-stressed words can be glided over.

3. Don’t focus on pronouncing each word. Focus on the stressed words in each sentence.

English word stress is fixed in the sense that the primary stress always falls on a particular syllable (with a few exceptions which are determined by the rhythmic pattern of the sentence in which the words occur),e.g.

?money   ,           ?father  ,            a?cross                  a?bout ,

a?head              a?go,                 ,millio?naire,        ci?garatte,         syste?matic,

In English, word stress is free in the sense that it is not associated with a particular syllable of a word since sometimes primary stress falls on the first syllable, e.g.

?danger,                  ?valid,             ?normal,             ?politics,            ?photo,  etc.

Sometimes on the second syllable, e.g.

restri’ction,                par?ticular,        a?way, etc.

Sometimes on the third syllable, e.g.

nume’ration,            poli?tician,         culti’vation

mecha’nician,           distri’bution..etc.

Sometimes on the fourth syllable, e.g.

Assim’ilation,          asso’ciation,    intelli’gentsia, etc

Sometimes on the fifth syllable, e.g.

Intelligi’bility,          systemati’zition,      and so on.

Sometimes words of the same root have different stress patterns, e.g.

‘Photograph,             pho´tographer,      photo´graphic    phot´ogenic,

´politics,               pol´litical,            ´politician,

´normal,                ab´normal,            abno´rmality.

Sometimes words of the same root have the same stress patterns e.g.

Pro´fession,                      pro´fessional,          pro´fessionalism,

o´rigin,                               o´riginal,

re´vive,                       re´vival,            re´vivalism,

revo´lution,                        revo´lutionary,       revo´lutionize.

Sometimes a change in the stress changes the grammatical function of the same word e.g.

´object(noun)     ob´ject(verb)    ´record(noun)      re´cord(verb)

Similarly in compound words, sometimes primary stress falls on the first element as in

´backboard,        ´grandfather, etc.

Sometimes on the second element e.g.

how´ever,             after´noon.

While teaching grammar, sentence stress and rhythm can be taught effectively. English has a stress-timed rhythm. In an English sentence, the stressed syllables occur at regular intervals of time irrespective of the number of unstressed syllables between any two stressed syllables, and the time taken between the two stressed syllables is roughly the same. Faulty stress patterns and broken rhythm normally disturb the characteristic English rhythm and distort the meaning of those sentences. This is an area which is most important as well as difficult for foreign learners of English. Hence sentence stress and rhythm should be taught carefully with sufficient practice in the articulation of contracted and weak forms in the class room; they should be trained to stress all content words (meaning bearing elements) and to leave all functional or grammatical words (non-meaning elements) unstressed in a sentence. The teacher should show the stress by making a decisive downward gesture with a closed fist to indicate the stressed syllables.

Intonation can also be taught along with the teaching of grammar. There are rising tones and falling tones in English. Rising tones can be effectively taught while teaching Yes/No questions and falling tones can be taught while teaching statements. Like phonetics, intonation is also practicable. Unless we practice intonation, we can not use the correct tones in sentences. Grammatical functions of intonation should be taught effectively and rigorously using gestures and hand movements. Foreign learners of English are normally misunderstood because of the use of faulty intonation patterns. Sufficient practice is therefore needed while teaching intonation. Same words spoken with rising tune can be polite request and with a falling tune can be an order or a command and may lead to confusion and serious misunderstanding. A sentence can be spoken definitely, hesitantly, angrily or kindly: it can also be uttered with or without interest. These distinctions are generally highlighted by the tunes one uses while speaking. These tunes add something to the words(even though the words remain the same in the meaning without any change) and what is added is the speaker’s feelings at a particular moment. This way of using tunes can be defined as intonation. Intonation can be shown by upward or downward movements of the hands. Teachers should not explain intonation: they should demonstrate it. Facial expressions can also be exploited while teaching various attitudinal functions of intonation. Such techniques although simple, are more effective and more fun for students than complex system of written transcription.

Students should also be provided with a certain amount of training in listening and understanding different varieties of Standard English so that they are able to follow these forms of English, particularly R.P. For this purpose, listening hours could be arranged periodically with proper organization and preparatory work outside the class hours when gramophone records/audio/video cassettes of R.P. speakers re easily available all over India.

These are some techniques of teaching pronunciation in the English classrooms. There could be many more suggestions in this direction. If the proposed techniques are used effectively with that our students will speak English more clearly and efficiently with an intelligible and acceptable accent at the national and international levels. Students are normally attracted towards good pronunciation. We, as teachers, have to make the students to speak in R.P. English so that they even try to speak in the accurate English. It is a general observation that they find it an interesting activity and love devoting time and energy to learning English pronunciation. This shows an earnest desire to improve their English pronunciation. Teachers of English should not disappoint them. In fact they should exploit the students’ enthusiasm for their own success as effective teachers and to produce better English speakers. Teaching pronunciation can be a rewarding experience for yourself as well as your students, and devoting just a fraction of the class time each day will yield great results.

** ELTWeekly team would like to thank A. RAMESH BABU for contributing this research paper.

ELT Newsletter, ELTWeekly Issue#31, Tarun Patel No Comments August 25th, 2009

More Passionate Writing Assignments That Motivate Language Learners

By Larry M. Lynch

Even Ernest Hemingway Had to Learn to Write

We said in the first article of this series that there are no native writers of English or any other foreign language for that matter. Each of us, no matter what our first language is, must learn to write in a clear, logical manner that promotes easier reading. Even the legendary Ernest Hemingway had to “learn” to write. And so it is with our foreign language learners. So here in the second article of this series, we’ll continue with some passionate writing assignments which will motivate our English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners to strut their stuff on paper or the keyboard and screen without undue concern for “correctness” that might inhibit the free flow of words and ideas.

1. Compiling of Specialized Lists

How about writing a list, and then of course, expounding in detail on its content? It can be a list of anything (almost) that motivates your learners. From the “Ten Best” discos, restaurants, boutiques, bars, movies, sports cars, game web sites, video games or videos, hot entertainers or whatever else, you can derive a writing assignment piece which allows you to really “strut your stuff”, so to speak. Doing so thereby produces a worthwhile piece of writing far and above the usual “dreck” that passes for essays and compositions these days. The language learners need only to choose their topic, draft their “list”, then detail the elements of each list item to the best of their knowledge and abilities. And finally “Voila!”, a paper you can read without your soul filling with tears – or worse.

2. Help and Advice or Answers to Peer Topic Questions

How about inviting your language learners to write an “answer” to a common or at least plausible situation question? You know, kind of a “Dear Abbey” type of question and detailed answer response to the question, situation or problem. Producers turn this kind of drabble into soap operas that make millions.

“You see, there’s this really cute guy in my English class who I like but he’s kinda seeing this other girl who I can’t stand – but my best friend told me that he said he was going to quit that girl, so I’m thinking, what should I do to…?” (Remember to break for a commercial right before all the “juicy” parts)

3. Relevant Link Lists

Are your language learners internet or video game addicts? Well then, it’s highly likely they can easily come up with a list of links or websites useful to them and their “passion”. So let them! Allow them to create a list, then detail each item on it. They could compare the links, contrast them or illustrate any variety of relationships between the links they’ve chosen to write about. How did they find them? How often do they use or visit? Why? Ask for and expect details – and the unexpected. As long as it’s not a list of best porno sites of whatever, you should get some good really interesting results for this writing assignment. Just remember to set some “ground rules” for the writing and topics. If your language learners are anything at all like mine are, you’ll be glad you did!

Passionate Writing Assignment Ideas That Are Coming Up

Okay, so we’ll wrap it up for this second article of the series now. In the next installment of “Motivate Your Language Learners with These Passionate Writing Assignment Ideas“, we continue once again with some Task-Based-Learning writing ideas to keep the words and ideas flowing from the pens, pencils or computer (or even typewriter) keyboards of your English as a Foreign Language learners. If your language learners like watching videos, playing video games or enjoy one or more of a score of other performing arts, then you’ll be “in the clover” when using our upcoming writing assignment ideas. See you then.

Like this article? Well researched, well written, informative SEO articles like this one on English as a Foreign Language Writing, can drive waves of targeted, profitable traffic to your website, build your mailing list into the thousands fast and get you more inquiries, more clients, more sales and more money at a low return on your investment. Get more free information on how to boost your business using SEO niche-marketing articles to promote your products and services by contacting the author at lmlynchcreativecopy@gmail.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Larry_M._Lynch
http://EzineArticles.com/?More-Passionate-Writing-Assignments-That-Motivate-Language-Learners&id=2124479

ELT Newsletter, ELTWeekly Issue#30 1 Comment August 22nd, 2009

English Language Teaching in Rural Area

by Nutan Yadav, Lecturer Govt. College, Nalwa(Hisar) Haryana

Teaching of English over ages

Even after 40 to 50 years of teaching of English, learners in India lack competence in this language. The teaching of English in India at all three levels i.e. primary, secondary &tertiary level is still fraught with a multitude of difficulties &obstacles. Realizing the demand &importance of English, in almost all the states of India, English is taught as a compulsory language &from the very first standard, even then the outcome is unsatisfactory. Here I am not questioning on the intelligibility of our learners, they are intelligent enough as showing good result in other subjects, but feel uncomfortable with English language &those who show excellent result, is totally based on cramming &rote learning.

Reasons are many. I am channeling some to portrait a picture how English is being taught in India basically in Haryana where I belong to. When a child enters in school at primary level, he is taught English language as a subject not a language. Stress remains on formation of alphabets not on speaking or listening. To enhance vocabulary they are forced to crème a long list of words. When these learners enters at secondary level they are competent enough in writing & understanding English language but this is cramming based not on creativity  At tertiary level situation becomes more pathetic

Apart from a lack of instructional resources-a general problem in a numbers of developing countries -many more has often been the bane of the Indian education system. Class size is most often very large comprising with a wide range of initial proficiency &learning needs. Over centralization of educational policies, academic inflexibility of the system not only stifle innovative &pragmatic deviation but also create a flow with the current, pacifistic resignation among resourceful &well motivated educator. Teachers have very little to say in designing the curriculum, choosing the materials &textbooks or developing assessment technique. The only assessment that matters is the year end examination &students typically study forint by cramming answers to likely questions. Such questions &answers can be readily found in guidebooks or crib schools for which there has been a flourishing market, or the answers are abstracted from notes dictated by teachers in classes. Some students especially the ones from vernacular medium schools, insists that they find the study guides more useful on tests &exams than the class room instructions or studying their text books.

The English was introduced in colonies like India basically for the study of the literature and culture, the market value for literally study has gone down steeply in the present day world. English for professional purposes like facing interviews, writing resumes, writing reports, conduction campaigns, writing letters, participation in meetings, seminars, conferences and discussions is demanded; English for communication is the mantra everywhere. English literature which was once centering of the cultural enterprise of the empire has lost its hold on English as a technology-oriented communicative tool. But unfortunately the university system of India is not sensitive to the changing needs of the society outside. Departments in English in Universities and colleges have not cashed in on the changes that are taking place in the world. When the outside world is using English for international and intercultural communication and technology purpose, universities and college in India still follow the Macaulayan syllabus and teach texts like The Spanish Tragedy (16th Century) Everyman in His Humour (1596) The Alchemist (1610) or some ancient texts that neither the teachers nor the students understand or are interested in. What shall we say? Is a tragical or comical?

Overall English teaching situation is not much different from what it was 40 years ago. A very few teachers can fully understand or mentally related to what they teach or even wax eloquent about. A cursory examination of the literary college students reveals that they are still studying many of the same authors popular in post colonial time : Oscar Wilde, H. G. Wells , Somerset Maugham, O’ Henry, A G. Gardner, Milton, Shakespeare, Shelley and so on. The randomly chosen questions from some of the recent university examination demonstrate how English syllabi are still dominated by selections from literary classics universally taught in the days of yore.

1. What is Shelley’s message in his Ode to the West Wind?

2. How does Emily Dickenson present death?

3. Justify the title Great Expectations?

Both Ramanathan (1999) and Lukmani (1992) comments that

” … the content of the literature based text books is often unrelated to the lives and experiences of the students studying them , resulting in ‘ students ‘ feeling of cultural dissonance between themselves and the topics portrait in the literature  [and ] feelings of alienation from text with overly western theme”.

( Ramanathan page 225 )

The lake of any significant changes in the English language curricula, teaching methodology, examination system, persistence of the Herculean task of teaching English in very large classes is truly saddening. The overall picture in the post modern India of today seems hardly any different from the post colonial yesterday. There seems to be three strands of student in higher education sector.

1. A majority of students graduate regional – language – medium school with some books or rote knowledge, but little communicative ability in English. They then enter English medium institution of higher education and struggle with varying degrees of success to cope with the English language requirement of higher education.. Most managed to develop English largely formulaic and cliché – ridden, to meet the English related demands of their education and of the career they have been forced to choose.

2. A small segment, having graduated from English medium school (in Indian jargon “convent schools or expansive public schools ” ) enter in colleges with a glib fluency in English and enjoy an initial advantage as well as some social power over their peer group. Most of these students have acquired their English proficiency at the cost of alienation from their native language and culture &to dissociate themselves from their native language is even a matter of perverse pleasure &social self importance for some of them.

3. As for the much large group of students from regional language schools who enroll in colleges where all subjects are taught in the regional language &where English is only one of the subjects, they  can &often do, go through college with very little use of English &  end up pursuing career which requires only a minimal use of the language.

Teaching in rural area

Rural students are very much affected by this diseased ELT system. There is great mismatch between urban &rural students. Urban students somehow manage to learn &use English quite well in the context in which the language is used in India in spite of this deconstructing English language teaching. They are third generation learner having spot &co-operation from parents, environment &atmosphere. But rural students are first generation learner who takes English as foster language &through out life not able to cope with it in spite of their best efforts. However they might be able to write as per requirement but speaking remains out of their range. They learn without knowing what they are learning. Linguistic research says this is why a feeling of backwardness itself embosses among these learners. Most students find it difficult to understand the substance of the prescribed literary selection. The typical method of teaching consists of the teachers reading of the text in the small portion, explaining its meaning &allusions &figure of speech in simplified English or in regional language &an occasional discussion of grammar points with a question or throw in.  The teaching is rarely student centered &most students have neither the chance nor the motivation to actively participate. English is taught as an academic subject ¬ as a medium or mode of active, constructive communicational intellectualization.

Many other factors make the learning of ELT more diverse in rural area

• Rural students are deprived of technology as enjoyed by urban or university students. Lack of technology, books &other things become an obstacle in their learning process. In urban colleges there are language labs, computers, LCD projector, CD players’ tape recorders, microphones &many more instruments that create an atmosphere of learning but in rural areas they lake even classrooms for proper teaching &the proper supply of electricity. . If somehow some colleges manage to get, they do not have regular staff for maintenance. More over teachers are not so competent to handle these instruments as they don’t have any such training.
• At the name of audio visual they have only chalk &blackboard, centuries old method of teaching. No doubt a teacher can teach more effectively &creatively with chalk &duster as research says but with such a big class of hundred to one fifty students she/he feels him/her self handicap.
• Haryana Government has started EDUSET with Soft Skill program to provide an atmosphere of learning English &communication skills but all these effort are fruitless until &unless something innovative should be done in class room teaching.
• Rural students do not get the opportunity to interact with other renowned personality or peer groups The other reason is that other subjects are taught in Hindi or in vernacular languages. So like other subjects, students take English as a subject not a language. They don’t put their effort to learn it as a language. The problem is not with tertiary level but from the primary &secondary level. The fact is that the roots are rotten. That’s way so many policies are made but all are failure. A teacher has to use mother tongue to make them understand. A language teacher is well aware that their students bring to the language classroom a variety of attitude, experiences &strategies as well as variety of beliefs &he/she has to handle them. But he/she feels him/her self helpless without teaching aids. He ultimately has to adopt translation method to handle this unwilling crowd.

Mother tongue influence can also be seen in the students with rural area background because they were not given proper pronunciation drill from the primary level. So what ever they speak, vernacular effect can be observed very easily. For e.g.  School-/sku:l/     Book /bu:k/       Student /setu:dent/  etc. At tertiary level it’s impossible to correct these learners

In ELT we wish to train our students

1.  To hear & understand English

2.  To speak in the language & be understood

3. To read in the language& understand what they read

4. To write in the language &to understand.

The four aims of teaching English correspond to four language skills or language ability. These are Listing, Reading, Speaking &writing

The purpose of all language teaching is communication in the language being taught whether receptive oral (Listening), productive oral (speech) receptive written (reading) &productive written (writing). These four skills are the foundation on which language learning is built. If this foundation is strong, then the structure erected on this will be safe &useful. These language skills are to be developed in sequential order. These are interdependent in the sense that failure to acquire one will lead to a general failure in learning the language.

But the curriculum at tertiary level in Indian does not develop these skills. More over the method by which this syllabus is being taught, don’t develop these skills in students in sequential order. In our classroom teaching stress remains on writing as our evaluation system is writing based. Whatever students write in their annual exam is the assessment of their whole year learning. Our classroom teaching only enhance our students listening ability as the maximum time is spent in teacher’s lectures and students participation remain almost zero. Maximum teachers adopt translation method so students do not have the drill of listening, speaking, writing and reading as teachers use vernacular language considering the level of learner.

One can not fail to notice that the advantages &the power inherent in English literacy are enjoyed primarily by the urban middle &upper class& remain inaccessible to those who are educationally disadvantaged because of their economic situation.

Atkinson 1999, who  has also studied this situation in India ,observed that students from rural area are typically excluded from the kind of access to enjoyed by their urban  social-middle class counterpart; consequently, they are in effect, denied important benefits of English known students. These students who are not sufficiently literate in English are essentially unable to participate in a number of domains such as global business. English proficiency &access to English may also be a strong factor in the polarization between urban &rural communities. It’s not that students from rural area don’t realize the importance of knowing English. As Krishnaswami and Sriraman(1994) point out

“Indian students’ have figured out that knowing English opens up opportunities not only for pan-Indian mobility, but also for more lucrative &satisfying careers overseas.”

College students when interviewed were well aware that knowledge of English can help them gain access to educational opportunities &careers abroad in English speaking countries.

No doubt urban students also have same syllabus, methods of teaching and evaluation system but they manage somehow by parental support, extra classes and with their peer group but rural students are not able to cop with them and that’s why they remain backward. This curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation system have negative effect on students and that’s why they don’t attract towards this language as they are not able to grasp with it.

Suggestions

No doubt there’re lots of drawbacks in our present education system. It is not in tune with current scenario Even then we cannot be stand still. System of teaching can not change overnight. Hard work is the requirement of time. Teacher’s positive attitude & their use of innovative method of teaching can provide a reliable bridge to the process of learning English in rural area. Taking in consideration the learning background of the learner, if a teacher designs his/her method & she may get in implemented more successfully.

Ø  Modern requirement seems to get satisfied by following the learner centered approach which view language learning acquisition as a process of acquiring skills rather than a body of knowledge.

Here teacher is a facilitator -a person who manages the environment &material which will help the students becomes autonomous learner.

A learner centered approach facilitates learning through techniques involving in activities. A learner has to be given some mind engaging task. This allow greater peer interaction, which is more effective in acquiring features of information use in language; which are often not available in a formal teacher centered class. This generates the ability to manipulate language in social context which is an important feature of communicative competence. .

English teachers can not confine themselves with centuries old translation methods or text books they themselves have to be very creative to save the degrading standard of ELT in India. This we can do by adopting situational method of teaching. In the way learner get involve &they do not feel bore. For example

Ø  To improve student’s vocabulary we can ask them same sounding words as Mat, Rat, Cat, Pat, Bat, and Hat etc.

Reward, Award, Sword etc.

Hut, Cut, But, Nut, etc

Ø  With in groups we can ask them to tell the words related to classroom, hospital, Post office, Bank, Kitchen, etc.

Ø  Fill the blanks as

N o_ o _ n

N o _ u_ n

Ø  Certain games as

Marks

Group A         Group B

3                                         4

4                                         3

5                                         1

2                          2

C	U	P
L	A	U	G	H
E		T	P

There are many more ways.

Ø  Same sounding words but different meaning as

Allusion , illusion, accepted, excepted, Our Hour, very, vary etc

Ø  In spite of telling word to word meaning to the literary part prescribed in the text book teacher can involve learners in certain activities related to it. As dividing the class in four groups’ one group may be asked to collect information about writer, other to about the period when it was written, third to write summary &the last one to compile the matter of all three groups & prepare a presentation.

Ø  While teaching stories a can write difficult words on the blackboard &describe them when they come in the context .Later on teacher can ask learners to narrator same story in past time or in future later on teacher may highlight nouns, pronoun adjective ,adverbs etc. in the same  story.

Ø  Time to time a teacher may give small tests to the students based on all four drills as speaking, listening, reading, writing, as project works ,reciting competition, spelling competition. For e.g. Rat, Telephone, Enough, House, Examination, Nation, Number etc.

Ø  English language can be divided in different sections as poetry, prose, communication English, grammar phonetics etc. each teacher may be asked for about his/her interest before giving him the section to teach. A teacher can do justices if he is interested in the matter &more over if have mastery in it because teaching English is skill based not knowledge based.  Here purpose is to hone four skills of the language not providing the learner knowledge about the language.

Ø  Again an English language teacher has to be innovative &be receptive to adopt new technology or method to make the teaching process effective. It is clear that computer can not be the supplant of the language teacher but the role of language teacher has been changed &they have to transform themselves to meet the challenges at global level. They can not confine themselves with centuries old translation methods or text books they themselves have to be very creative to save the degrading standard of ELT in India &particularly in Haryana.

Conclusion

In order to bring revaluation in English language teaching, reoriented program &updated knowledge is the requirement of time. More &more technology should be used while teaching language to create the interest of students. Teaching of English has to be views as mastering of language skills ¬ as a portion to be covered.

Works Cited

Dash, Neena. Teaching English as an additional language : Atlantic Publication

Sheorey Ravi. Learning and teaching English in India : Saga Publication, New Delhi.

Krishnaswamy, D., Krishnaswamy, Lalitha. The story of English in India : Foundation Books

Ellis, Rad. Understanding Second Language Acquisition : Oxford University Press.

Gupta, R. S. English in India , Issues and Problem : Academic Foundation

Stern, H. H. Fundamental Concept of Language Teaching : Oxford University Press.

P. G. Certificate Course Material from the English and the Foreign Language University, Hyderabad.

Stevick. W. Earl, Teaching and Learning Language : Cambridge Publication

Gatenby : English Language as a Foreign Language : London Publication.

ELT Newsletter, ELTWeekly Issue#30 6 Comments August 19th, 2009

An Exploratory Outlook in the Use of Vocabulary Notebook

by P.Dasharatham, V.Sudhakar Rao, Dr.V.Srinivas and K.Yugandhar

Teaching learning vocabulary is a major concern in ESL class. Role of learners and their involvement is the crux in acquiring the word power in English language. Vocabulary notebooks play a vital role in promoting vocabulary acquisition besides learner autonomy. After the use of language laboratory for teaching learning language skills, several studies showed evidence for the effectiveness of vocabulary instruction on computers. Prominent scholars like Lyman-Hager, Davis , Burnett, & Chennault computerized reading and non-computerized reading. Computerized readers consult printed glosses drawn directly from the computer program. The results showed that the students who worked with the multimedia program were able to obtain significantly better scores than the non-computerized readers. Both readers need several resources for learning vocabulary such as concordance, dictionary, cloze-builder, hypertext, and a database with interactive self-quizzing feature, to facilitate learners’ deep processing. The participants are encouraged to insert vocabulary information (e.g., example sentences, parts of speech, and definitions) on a collaborative on-line word bank by themselves, and the gain of their vocabulary knowledge is examined in a posttest. What ever may be the mode of learning vocabulary the learners need to follow his / her own learning style to improve the usage of  words. observed vocabulary acquisition under two conditions:

Vocabulary notebooks play a major role in feedback functions, automatic scoring, through multiple-choice items, fill-in-the-blank items, and cloze passages to check learners’ progresses of vocabulary knowledge. These activities are effectively used by learners to compensate for the limited contact time in class and to enhance individual vocabulary learning. From cognitive psychology, the principles of ease of perception (information must be easy to receive), differences (difference and changes attract and maintain attention), and position of information (position of information affects our attention to and perception of it) are employed to vocabulary learning (Alessi & Trollip, 2001). All of the three principles indicate that the presentations of important instructional points should be noticeable so that learners are able to gain information in an effective way. In the field of Second Language Acquisition, these principles are closely related to the Noticing Hypothesis proposed by Schmidt. This hypothesis places emphasis on learners’ selective attention on input during instruction, and it is claimed that learners must consciously notice forms as well as meaning in the input in order for the acquisition to take place. The input during learning teaching are documented in the notebook for memory and ready reference later. The matter arranged in the book is also arranged in the minds of the learners and can be used for their communicative needs.

Organization of Learning Materials in Vocabulary Notebook

Organization of  the material in vocabulary notebook is done in three stages. In the first stage, the basic aspects of vocabulary knowledge, such as a target word, word segments, pronunciations, word class, and synonyms and antonyms, example sentences with translations, are organizeded by the learners. The content of the first stage were presented in two sections, which became a place for learners to familiarize themselves with the target word and to obtain detailed vocabulary knowledge. The second stage is a place to practise and to try out the vocabulary knowledge obtained in the previous stage, which is created based on the active learning principle from cognitive psychology. In order to facilitate learners’ active learning and deep cognitive processing, two types of activities are incorporated in the second section: (a) spelling practice and (b) practice questions with feedback. In the second activity (practice questions), three types of questions are further integrated: (a) question of meaning, (b) question of grammar, and (c) question of spelling. The information that the learners provided in the second stage are stored in log files as process data. The first two stages are consecutively presented to learners, based on the belief that all the aspects of a word should be learned at once. After understanding the content of a word in the first stage and practising and testing the newly obtained vocabulary knowledge in the second stage, the learners are directed to the final conformation pages for main meanings of the word in the third stage. The main purpose of this stage is to reconfirm the newly learned word before proceeding to the next new word.

Incidental and Systematic Vocabulary Learning

In the first stage, basic aspects of vocabulary knowledge, such as a target word, word segments, pronunciations, word class, and synonyms and antonyms, example sentences with translations, are provided to the participants. However, the method of presenting the content differed in the two materials. The acquisition of vocabulary for native speakers able to acquire lexical items “incidentally” as they encounter them in speech or writing of other people. Here “incidental” means that people are able to learn vocabulary in a natural manner through reading or listening without being told to focus on the vocabulary in the input.

The incidental vocabulary learning is the dominant way of acquiring vocabulary knowledge for native speakers. On the other hand, the process of incidental vocabulary learning has been found to be weaker for language learners in several research studies. Hulstjin & Laufer conducted a study to investigate the vocabulary retention rates in the order of three different tasks. They found that vocabulary retention was highest in a composition task, lower in a reading fill-in task, and lowest in a reading task. Laufer also tested incidental vocabulary learning in reading with Jewish, Arabic, and Russian learners of English, and concluded that the vocabulary retention of the reading group was significantly worse than those of the composition group and the sentence writing group. Moreover, Paribakht & Wesche investigated learners’ reading process using introspective and retrospective think-aloud methods, and found that learners tended to ignore a large portion of the unknown words appeared in reading texts. These three studies clearly suggest the difficulty of incidental vocabulary learning for language learners. Regarding a possible reason for this phenomenon, Ghadirian and Kitajima stated the difficulty of guessing or inferring word meanings from reading texts, and argued that contextual information does not necessarily guarantee vocabulary learning for second language learners. Vocabulary notebook provides opportunities to remember the incidents related to the newly acquired words. This helps learners to convert passive vocabulary into active vocabulary.

Contrary to these three studies that showed ineffectiveness of reading tasks for vocabulary learning, there are several L2 studies that reported significant results on incidental vocabulary learning. However, the retention rates of incidental vocabulary learning is obtained through the effective use of vocabulary notebook.

Various Learning Styles during Vocabulary Acquisition

Over the last few decades, more than twenty learning styles have been identified and there seem to be three main categories: (a) cognitive, (b) physical (sensory), and (c) affective. While keeping vocabulary notebooks, the following features or elements are preferred in these learning styles:

Analytic vs. global. The first pair of cognitive learning styles is the global and analytic learning style dichotomy. Analytical learners focus more on details, logical analysis and contrasts, while global learners focus on the key points without being anxious about detailed concepts, enjoy guessing meanings, and communicating. In addition, analytic learners are distinct to obtain information more effectively individually, prefer setting their own goals, respond to a step-by-step presentation of materials, while global learners were distinct to learn more effectively through concrete experience and by interaction with other people.

Regarding global learners, Felder (1993) and Felder and Henriques (1995) also mentioned that they take in information in unconnected (non-linear) fragments, achieve understanding in large holistic leaps, and grasp the total picture before understanding. In the field of educational psychology, more detailed explanation of these learning styles have been described. In an empirical study that investigated the influence of gender and age on learning styles, Le Cornu (1999) argued that analytic learners are the people who take a step-by-step approach by moving to the next topic when the first is mastered, who utilize a critical reasoning which involves analyses and questioning, who look for logic and use structure information, and who seek to identify contrast features by forming and using specific hypotheses. Global learners, on the other hand, are defined as the people who quickly seek to establish a frame of reference, who have a wide focus of attention, and who seek to understand the topic as a whole, aiming to build the overall picture from the start.

Field dependence vs. field independence. The next dichotomy in the cognitive learning styles is field independence and field dependence (FI/FD), which are defined as the degree of ability to separate insignificant details from significant details. In general

learners classified as FI have ability to overcome the embedding context of a field and to perceive certain parts of the field as discrete from the surroundings. Learners classified as FD are, on the other hand, influenced by the field elements and complexity of surrounding area, and are not able to isolate key factors in the field easily. In addition, Oxford and Skehan mentioned that FI learners select analytic-based and logic-based learning strategies, and that FD learners are sensitive to the social context and prefer auditory learning that involves social interaction. Brown also noted that FI learners are generally more independent, competitive, and self-confident, while FD learners tend to be

more socialized and more empathic, and be perceptive of feelings and thoughts of other people. Reid also described both FI and FD learners in a similar manner.

Reid defined FI learners as the people who learn effectively step by step, or sequentially, beginning with analyzing facts and proceeding to ideas, and described FD learners as the people who learn more effectively in contexts, holistically, intuitively, and who are especially sensitive to human relationships and interactions. Regarding the use of visual effects and field dependency, Chapelle argued that FI learners have the ability to disembed or restructure visual stimuli. Worley and Moore also stated that FI learners adapt to all types of visual presentation better than FD learners. In an empirical study that investigated the effect of color-coding (black-and white and color materials), Dwyer and Moore found that FI learners outperformed FD learners in receiving color-coded structures, and concluded that color-coding illustrations apparently provided an insufficient structures for FD learners.

Reflective vs. impulsive. The last cognitive learning style dichotomy is reflective and impulsive, which are also described as systematic and intuitive, or concrete-sequential and intuitive-random. Reid described reflective learners as the people who learn more effectively when they have time to consider options before responding, and impulsive learners as the people who respond immediately and take risks. Jamieson, in an empirical study that investigated the relationship between cognitive styles and ESL success, also described these learning styles, and mentioned that reflective learners are more concerned with accuracy when responding and take more time to reach a decision, while impulsive learners tend to reach decisions and report them immediately with little concern for accuracy. Brown explained that reflective learners tend to make all the considerations in problem solving with extensive reflection, while impulsive

learners make a number of different gambles on the basis of their hunches. In addition, Carrell and Monroe described reflective learners as the people who pay close attention to step-by-step task requirements, and impulsive learners as the people who focus on futuristic possibilities, general concepts, abstract thinking.

Visual vs. auditory. The next learning style dichotomy, visual and auditory learning styles, belongs to sensory learning styles. There are, however, three other main sensory learning styles that have been identified in the literature: (a) kinesthetic, (b) tactile, and (c) haptic. Aa kinesthetic person is defined as a learner who learns more effectively though touch (hands-on), a tactile person as a learner who learns more effectively through body experience, and a haptic learners as a person who has both kinesthetic and tactile modalities. Learners with these learning styles use the notebooks with their ways of learning. However, every learner cannot restrict to only one / particular  style of learning and all ways are interrelated and interdependent.

According to Reid, visual learners in general learn more effectively though the eyes (seeing), and auditory learners learn more effectively though the ears (hearing). More specifically, Reid added some characteristics of the two learning styles. For visual learners, reading, studying charts, seeing words, instead of listening to them, taking notes, and learning alone, were identified. For auditory learners, hearing words, reading aloud, listening to oral explanation, hearing audio tapes, lectures, and class discussion, and conversing with others were listed. In a similar manner, Brown argued that visual learners prefer reading and studying charts, drawings, and other graphic information, and that auditory learners prefer listening to lectures and audiotapes. Felder and Henriques also pointed out learning methods through visual means (books, video, movies, lists, diagrams, and manuals) for visual learners, and learning methods though discussions, spoken presentation, debates, audio tapes, role plays, lectures, and meeting for auditory learners. In addition to these features, Ehrman and Oxford mentioned that visual learners prefer a quiet place and like to work alone, and Kinsella added social and collaborative characteristics for auditory learners. Both the learners find comfort in improving their vocabulary with the effective use of the notebooks.

Thus, vocabulary notebooks enable the learners feel the responsibility for their own learning. The notebooks also are the reflections of the teacher’s guidance in improving the learners’ vocabulary. No two notebooks at the end of the academic year are the same, as they reflect the variations in acquisition of vocabulary by different learners.

References

J. Hulstijn and B. Laufer. “Some empirical evidence for the involvement load hypothesis in vocabulary acquisition.”  Language Learning 51 (2001): 539 – 58.

J. M. Reid. “The learning style preferences of ESL students.”  TESOL Quarterly, 21 (1987): 87-111.

L. C. Jones and J. L. Plass. “Supporting listening comprehension and vocabulary acquisition with multimedia annotations.”  The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002):  546 – 61.

P. Bogaards. “Lexical units and the learning of foreign language vocabulary.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23 (2001): 321 – 43.

P. L. Carrell and L. B. Monroe. “Learning styles and composition.” The Modern Language Journal 77  (1993):  148 – 62.

S. Knight. “Dictionary use while reading: The effects on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition for students of different verbal abilities.” The Modern Language Journal  78 (1994):  285 – 99.

S. M. Alessi, and S. R. Trollip.  “Multimedia for learning: Methods and development.” Boston , MA : Allyn & Bacon, 2001.

T. Cobb. “Breadth and depth of lexical acquisition with hands-on concordancing.”

Computer-Assisted Language Learning 12 (1999):  345 – 60.

ELT Newsletter, ELTWeekly Issue#30 2 Comments August 19th, 2009

Bridging the gap:  Vernacular medium to English medium

Sunil Shah & Surendra Gohil, Lecturers, H.M. Patel Institute of English Training and Research, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Dist: Anand , Gujarat – INDIA

Abstract:

“CAN A CHILD STUDY IN A HINDI/VERNACULAR MEDIUM SCHOOL TILL CLASS 4 OR 5 AND THEN BE SHIFTED TO A GOOD ENGLISH MEDIUM ONE?” is a question asked by a parent in the ‘Sawal’ section of the website http://www.ibibo.com. This is also a concern of many other parents in India.  This paper seeks to answer this question with the help of a study, wherein the researcher has prepared and tryout  some material based on Functional English to develop oral competence of the students of class IV and V who are at zero level  or near to zero level competence. In such a task it is obvious that  structural approach may not prove to be fruitful, hence  the researchers  prepared and tried out  some materials based on Functional English for initial level of language instruction.

The  significant questions which the paper deals with  are as follows:

• Can the students at zero level be taught through Functional English?
• Is there significant improvement in students’ oral skills through the material prepared?
• What are the difficulties for compiling and preparing material for the zero level language

instruction level students?

• What should one keep in mind while preparing materials at the initial level of language instruction ?

Introduction:

The medium of instruction is very important at every level of education and more so during the elementary education, as that is the time when a child is exposed to the vast world of knowledge. It is a long held debate in India whether the medium of education should be the  universally recognized English language or the regional language. There are pros and cons of both the options. While English is important when one grows up and goes into a professional life, regional language has an advantage of being easily understood, thus helping the students grab the right information and understand better. Educationists around the world have debated this issue but to no concrete result. In India, with its  multilingual background, there cannot be one accepted  medium of instruction. Though Hindi has been accorded the status of the  national language, it is yet to gain a whole-hearted acceptance in  many parts of India like South and East India. Thus, many state-run schools follow the language of their region to impart education. However, in urban India, English is the preferred medium of education for obvious reasons. Even people from economically weaker backgrounds and those who do not speak English themselves prefer to send their children to English-medium schools.

The prime reasons are preference of English as a medium of instruction in higher education and its worldwide acceptability. There are no good professional courses available in regional languages. Thus, it is believed those who study through regional languages tend to lag behind to those who have studied in the English language. Studies have been conducted worldwide to find out a better medium. Purists reckon that language is not just a means of communication but also a cultural window which introduces one to the social and intellectual surroundings. Language development leads to educational development, which in turn leads to national development. Till a long time, the medium of instruction in India was the dominant regional language from primary to the high school level. English was only introduced as a subject after the primary level. English as a medium of instruction throughout schooling was only found in a few schools. This trend worked in the favor of many but gave inferiority complex to a lot others. People who could not speak or understand English started feeling that they were no good. The point is highly debatable.

However, when it comes to higher education and especially the professional courses  English medium is a must. It would not be proper to think that streams like Engineering, Medical, MBA or any technical course can be imparted in a regional language.  When we talk about professional courses in vernacular medium the problems which we come across are acceptability and terminology. There are not enough terms in the regional languages that can define the concepts in these fields. Also, even if one were to get this education in the regional language, he/she cannot use it professionally as the whole world does no understand the same language and they end up becoming misfits.

This discussion leads us to   further discussion about whether a child studying in Gujarati or Vernacular medium  be shifted  English Medium from  class IV or Class V .

“CAN A CHILD STUDY IN A HINDI/VERNACULAR MEDIUM SCHOOL TILL CLASS 4 OR 5 AND THEN BE SHIFTED TO A GOOD ENGLISH MEDIUM ONE?” is a question asked by a parent in the ‘Sawal’ section of the website http://www.ibibo.com. This is also a concern of many other parents in India.  This paper seeks to answer this question with the help of a study, wherein the researchers  prepared and tried out some material based on Functional English to develop the oral competence of the students of class IV and V who had had no exposure to English language or were  at zero level or near to zero level of English language competence. In such a task it is obvious that   structural approach may not prove to be fruitful, hence the researchers  prepared and tried out some materials based on Functional English for initial level of language instruction.

The  significant questions which the paper deals with  are as follows:

• Can the students at zero level be taught through Functional English?
• Is there significant improvement in students’ oral skills through the material prepared?
• What are the difficulties for compiling and preparing material for the zero level language

instruction level students?

• What should one keep in mind while preparing materials at the initial level of language

instruction ?

The research was taken up  at Swaminarayan Vidyapith[English Medium  Girls School CBSE], Karamsad. The school also encourages admissions to students from vernacular medium (Gujarati) in class IV and class V English medium.  The English language competence of these students is at zero or near to zero level. These students are admitted on the basis of their aptitude towards learning.

It is also misleading to think that such children will only learn simple language, such as colours and numbers, nursery rhymes and songs, and talking about themselves at the initial stage. Of course, if that is all they are taught, that will be all that they can learn. But children can always do more than we think they can; they have huge learning potential, and the foreign language classroom does them a disservice if we do not exploit that potential(Cameron,2001). Hence it is extremely necessary to prepare and try out materials to help such learners in bridging the gap of 6 years. The researchers prepared some materials which they got validated from experts, which would help such students to develop the required communicative competence.

Objectives of the study:

The researchers undertook the project with the following objectives.

1.      To prepare material based on functional English, which will be helpful at the zero level of language instruction.

2.      Try out of the material prepared for the initial levels of language instruction.

3.      To find out the effectiveness of material based on Functional English at the initial level.

Variables:

In the present study, the Material prepared by the investigator is manipulated as  the independent variable to verify its effect in the development of the  oral skills the sample group is assumed to be dependent variable.

Limitations of the study:

The present study includes preparation and tryout of   some material based on Functional English. These prepared materials covers only limited topics and techniques. The researchers  focused  only on developing oral skills and not other skills related to general competence of English. The study is limited to a few samples only, namely a group of 25 students admitted to  class IV and V with zero or near to zero level of competence in English. The study  only covers the geographical area under Swaminarayan Vidyapith , Girls School. The duration of the experimental teaching was that of thirty hours including the input session.

Research methodology:

The present study is experimental in nature. The researchers followed the One group pretest-posttest design.

Materials for teaching the beginners:

Teaching absolute beginners requires the teacher to pay special attention to the order in which new language is introduced. The teacher lesson plan plays an essential role in making sure that new language is introduced slowly and incrementally. This 20 point program provides a syllabus to take students from speaking no English at all, to being able to fulfill basic communication needs including; giving personal information, and describing their daily routines and the world around them.

Obviously, there is a lot more to speaking English confidently than these twenty points. This 20 point program has been designed to provide a strong base on which to build while, at the same time, providing learners with the most important language skills they will need to get going.

When teaching absolute beginners, it is very important to proceed methodically building on what has been introduced. These exercises will appear very simple.  But we should remember that the students are taking very little steps to quickly establish a base on which to build. To  begin teaching absolute beginners it is important to use gestures, pointing and what is often called “modeling”.

Some of the teaching points included in the course are as follows:

- Introducing oneself/ others

- Identifying items or people in the classroom and the school

- Introducing  and asking for identification.

- Seeking information

- Basic Greetings

- Personal Information

- Telling the Time

- Talking about their Daily Routines

Methods of data collection:

• The investigator followed the following method for data collection
• Internal pretest (prepared by the investigator)
• Internal posttest (prepared by the investigator)

The researchers  prepared the questions  to check the oral skills at the initial level, the researchers took the pretest in the form of audio-recording of the  responses. The marks were allotted as per the marks allotted to questions asked by the researchers at the time of actual  audio -recording. Following the treatment of the material produced by the investigators posttest was taken in the same manner as the pre-test.

Analysis and interpretation of data:

The data were analyzed on the basis of the scores obtained by the sample group  in pretest and posttest. Several types of statistical parameters were used to verify the validity of the findings of the experiment. They were-

i.                  Measures of Central Tendency or averages- the mean, the median and the mode;

ii.                  Measures of spread or dispersion- S.D.;

iii.                  Measures of relationship- correlation, C.V.;

The data was analysed on the basis of the scores obtained by the students in the pretest and posttest. Simple statically methods were used to interpret the data.

Highlights of the analysis :

• The mean scores made by the students in the pretest are 3.6 and post experimental test 11.6.
• There is a difference of 8 marks between the pretest score and posttest score which is positive.

• Mode of the score showed positive increase of +7, where as Median showed positive increase of +7. ( Mode pretest=5, posttest=12, Median pretest =+5 and posttest=12)

• There is a high standard deviation ( 3.588 ) in posttest score compared with low standard deviation ( 2.638 ) in pretest score. The standard deviation is seen high in the posttest as some of the students who did not do well in the pretest have done extremely well in the post test.

• The correlation of coefficient between scores of pre and post experimental test was positive and worked out at + 0.364.

• Coefficient of variation is also low ( 30.93 ) in post test score compared with coefficient of variation in pretest score ( 73.277 ).

• All the students of the sample group have improvement in their score in post test. However there is difference in level of improvement in all the students.

Observation by the investigator:

Although the learners were new to the language they actively participated in the different activities conducted during the tryout of the materials for the initial level of language instruction. Initially the students were not comfortable with the new language they were learning but different games and activities motivated them. However, it was the brighter students who took initiative in answering the question and participation in class. But gradually all the 25 students started taking active interest in these classes.

The results show that all the 25 students have shown improvement .However, there were a few students who were not able to cope with the  level of the class. The reason behind this could be lack of effort on the side of the learner.  One of the students confessed that they were listening to the language for the first time. It was observed that the students were gradually gaining confidence to use the new language.

They were more involved and seemed motivated in learning English Language. Add the end of day 7 of   they were able to use language more confidently and fluently than they have thought of.   It was observed that the learners made a conscious attempt to talk in English language with their  peers. They were able to comprehend each others language. Other qualities as cooperation, negotiation, consensus making and leadership developed as they worked together. Communication was not only with the students but also with the teacher.

At the end of the treatment it was observed that the  students were able to communicate in a purposeful manner appropriate to the context. They were found more enthusiastic to use the language with these teachers of other subjects and their seniors. Their stage fright   decreased as some of them were able to perform well in the school assembly. They also appeared to listen to each other more carefully.

Suggestions for further research:

Materials for the Initial level of language instruction should be prepared in consultation with the needs of other faculty teachers also. Through such a coordinated effort materials will become more relevant for the learners. These materials will teach language items but students should feel that they are learning something relevant to their studies. More materials should be prepared which will take care of other language skill i.e. listening , reading and writing. These materials which are for the initial level of language instruction will be liked by the students if it is related to their subjects and needs. Such material should be prepared and tried out as it will helps the students to bridge the gap between them and  English language as they have not got the exposure to the language in vernacular (Gujarati) medium schools.

Conclusion:

This study was undertaken with the aim of   preparation and tryout of some materials based on Functional English at the initial level of language instruction. The researcher did face some bottlenecks while carrying out the experiment.  Based on the observations, taken during the tryout of materials the researchers drew some suggestions.

During the research the researchers faced few problems. The difference in their level of understanding was a barrier as the researchers had to make some changes in the procedure of tryout of materials. These difficulties helped that the researchers how to prepare such materials, which steps to follow and how to teach students at the initial level of language instruction in a better way.

The study proved  to be useful for both the investigator and the students. These materials were useful  to develop the oral skills of the students. These  materials provided the learners the confidence which is required to learn a new language. This study will be useful for not only practicing teachers but also for future researcherss and material producers.

References:

Brumfit, C. Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1984.

Cameron, Lynne. Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Finocchiaro, M. and Brumfit, C.J. The Functional-Notional Approach from Theory to Practice.  Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1983.

Johnson, K. and K. Morrow. (eds).1981. Communication in the Classroom. Longman  Group Ltd, London.

Das, Anirban. ” How important is the medium of education.” 03 July 2008.

< http://find-read-discover.com/articledetail//How_important_is_the_medium_of_education>

About.com. March 2005. The New York Times Company. September, 2007 <http://esl.about.com/od/absolutebeginners/Teaching_Absolute_Beginners.htm>

Nunan. “Challenges in Teaching Young Learners”.April 2005.

<http://www.nunan.info/presentations/challenges_teach_young_learners.pdf>

*** ELTWeekly Team would like to thank Sunil Shah & Surendra Gohil for contributing this research paper.

ELTWeekly Issue#29 1 Comment August 12th, 2009