#67, Research Paper: ‘Emerging Need of Nationwide Training and Development of English Language Teachers of Primary Schools’ by Pratap Kumar Dash

Emerging Need of Nationwide Training and Development of English Language Teachers of Primary Schools

by Pratap Kumar Dash (Ph.D. ,P.G.D.T.E.,P.G.D.C.E), Assistant Professor of English, Faculty of Education, Brak Sebha University, Libya

Abstract

The paper focuses on the importance of ELT in India at present. Then, it points out the current practice of teaching of English at Primary level nationwide in general; the specific problems; and its consequences. Then, it proposes a long lasting, effective, modest and dynamic training programme for the teachers of English language for establishing a strong and solid  background among the pupils at Primary stage equivalent to the Native speakers of the language for achieving a special position in the world .

Introduction:

There is a popular saying that it is better to manure saplings earlier than to take care of trees later. In the context of language learning and teaching, this saying can be applied too. It is better to take care of the language learning of pupils and language teaching to pupils when they are budding but not brooding at a later time. For this, the role of the language teacher is very important. In the words of Jeremy Harmer, a language teacher is not only to teach but to act as a ‘facilitator’. The teacher has to perform the “Roles such as prompter, resource, or tutor…” (Harmer 2001:57). He goes on defining a language teacher as a ‘controller’, ‘organizer’, ‘assessor’, ‘prompter’, ‘participant’, ‘observer’, ‘a performer’, ‘a teaching aid’, ‘a language model’ and ‘provider of comprehensible input’. Worth saying, in the ever-growing field of skills of language teaching, many changes, experiments, and achievements are evident worldwide. This warrants language teachers’ consciousness and interest to learn the new skills and apply them in their respective levels of teaching to get a solid and effective output.

Statement of the Problem:

Worth saying that for more than two decades, Indians are flying to many Asian, African, European and Australian countries either as teachers of English, or software professionals and also join various other technical and scientific jobs. Similarly, multinational companies and globalization brings in the world into the country in many ways. This is going to continue in future too. In India, English is no more an optional language .It has become virtually an assimilated language with all the regional as well as national languages. English language is the strength for all to earn bread and butter and communicate with the rest of the world. India can supply more hands to the World in different sectors with the strength of English language than the Natives. This is high time to forget playing any politics or hide and seek in making pupils learn English at par with the developed Native speakers system of teaching and learning.

Right now, some Government schools and Private English medium schools are taking care of imparting ELT to certain standard .In addition to following the syllabus pattern either of CBSE or ICSE, they spend some extra time and labor for the development of English of their pupils .At the Central level, NCERT is there to design the pattern of teaching and at the level of the States, there are SCERTs to take care of ELT training and curriculum design with their District Training Centres at the base level. But, in almost all the Government run schools (both Central and State), there is emergent need of reformation in ELT .These schools hardly have language lab and audio-visual materials and programmes .The exam pattern is mostly written and summative .In this regard, the efforts of both China and Japan can be taken as model examples.

It is found that because of a series of well-known factors, proper teacher training and development cannot take place in ELT. It is also very clear that second language learning and teaching goes on traditionally or so to say ineffectively at a time when all of us are in the marathon of English language learning and teaching. The hue and cry at the apex level of research, planning and textbook designing does not reach and meet at the ground level effectively. However, it is high time to bridge the gap between the apex level and the ground level. According to Adrian Doff, “… ELT methodology has developed very rapidly and has been subject to changes and controversies that teacher often find bewildering.” (Doff 2000: a). The methods and techniques of language teaching therefore need to represent a common concrete and long lasting core establishing a bridge of value between traditional and modern approaches of ELT. In addition, the methods and approaches of language learning and teaching have gone beyond the conservative and constrained panels to a much refined and resourceful arena. Human mind and machine have joined hands together to carry on the mission of English Language Learning and Teaching.

As a matter of fact, many teachers of Primary and Preparatory levels do not get the idea, scope and ignition to work at par with the language teaching needs of the day. Originally, “… language teaching can be seen as a principled problem-solving activity; a kind of operational research which works out solutions to its won local problems.” (Widdowson 2002:7) But, due to lack of scope, many teachers do not conceive of the vital role they have to play in English language teaching. The English language teachers at those levels need to develop a complete and time-bound orientation so as to equip themselves with all sorts of knowledge of English language teaching at par with the teachers of ESL of any other country. They should be self-sufficient to diagnose and find out the learner deficiencies and their respective solutions strategically.

Many teachers fail to assess the standard of the students individually and therefore the slow learners and learners with certain deficiencies do not get room for encouragement. Teachers fail both in evaluating themselves and their pupils. The psychological aspects of language learning, brainstorming, cognition, schemata and several other vital aspects are never realized for classroom situations .The Certificate Courses, Diplomas or Degrees for English teacher education must be revised with following aims and objectives.

Aim and Objective:

1. Need analysis and detection of general and specific problem areas, in L-S-R-W. Help them diagnose learning disabilities among the learners of specific States and regions and train the teachers accordingly.

2. To help the teachers enable to follow multi-dynamic language practices and evaluation strategies by formulating a systematic ‘Process and Product’ oriented and targeted language teaching.

3. To help them enable to be resourceful, motivated and up to date English language teachers.

4. To help them use computer, other authentic materials. Communication gadgets, and audio-visuals etc. in the classroom regularly for effective learning and teaching.

5. To help them able to develop a systematic idea of task designing based on text or syllabus.

6. To help them create autonomous language learning system, or develop learning autonomy instead of making them memorizing.

7. To provide them modules as a parallel system with English textbooks in use for a better and freer language teaching resources.

8. To provide them language learning software for personal and classroom use.

9. To follow interactive learner-centered teaching methods with communicative and practice based approach.

Theoretical Framework :

The theoretical framework should aim at covering up the linguistic factors related to phonetics first associated with much of listening for the pupils. Then graphic, pictographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic aspects should be taken care of. Training should be given how to make the students prompt in turning phonic into graphic systems; restructure them and vice versa. In addition, the trainings should highlight the essentials features and characteristics of language in general, English and respective vernaculars in comparison and English in specific. The phonological and phonetic aspects should be highlighted in relation to segmental and supra-segmental areas. Focus should be given on clusters, omissions, ellipsis, sound-meaning relationship, speech acts and proper pronunciation of phonemes, individually and in chain of sounds. Hints   should be given regarding language teaching from syntagmatic, paradigmatic, and generative point of view.

The non-linguistic factors include the principle of language acquisition, social, environmental and cultural cores and dynamics associated with language teaching and learning, and specially ethics of teaching. The applied linguistic factors include communicology, kinesthetic, translation, language codes, ESP, EAP and EGP.It is found that in the secondary as well as tertiary system of education, the study of ESL takes a considerable turn by introducing ESP. But, it is found that there is a huge gap in the three elements of the teacher, learner and the ESP textbook designed for the purpose. It is evident that both the teachers and the learners do not have a mental make-up and experiential exposure to beget effective output. So, in the domain of discourse, focus should be given in developing both competence and performance.

The method should be mainly interactive, communicative, skill based and motivating. The teachers should be given idea about ‘language management’, classroom management, lexical and pedagogical management. In addition, the inter-language factors of learning should be dealt with considering the typical/individual/local/environmental problems associated with teachers of English. Since culture and society are inseparable learning, the training programme should generate resources and contexts from the surrounding.

Curriculum Design :

1. Fundamentals of knowledge and use of language.
2. Phonetic and phonology:

(i)                Fundamentals of speech production, transmission and reception/ mechanism.

(ii)              Phonemes, phonemic awareness (isolation, identification, categorization, blending, segmentation etc.).

(iii)            Equivalent alphabetic sound representations.

(iv)            Stress, intonation, approximation of sounds.

(v)              Spoken English of practice conversation in English.

(vi)            Reading and speaking.

(vii)          Listening and speaking.

1. Grammar in  Descriptive and Communicative Context:

(i)                The Nominal/ Pronominal, Determiners, Modifiers.

(ii)              The Verbals, Time, Tense, Aspect, Mood and Modalities.

(iii)            Proximity, Redundancy, Criteria of acceptability.

(iv)            Collocations/ Colloquialism.

(v)              Discourse Makers/ Markers.

(vi)            Error/ Mistake analysis.

(vii)           Morphological study of Root, stem and derivatives.

(viii)        Usages.

1. Composition:

(i)                Forms/ Types.

(ii)              Coherence/ Cohesion.

(iii)            Basic skills of simple and short composition.

(iv)            Creative/ Mechanical composition.

(v)              Writing Practice.

1. Lexical Reference:

(i)                Use of Dictionary.

(ii)              Glossing/ Listing Jargons and Registers.

(iii)            Use of Dictionary Genie.

(iv)            Lexical density/ Lexico- statistical Analysis.

1. Computer Assisted Language Learning/Teaching (CALL):

(i)                Training and Use of Computer for CALL Programs.

(ii)              PowerPoint.

(iii)            Use of Websites for English Language Learning.

(iv)            Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI).

(v)              Computer Video Combination (CVC).

(vi)            Use of Available Software for Phonetics, Spoken English, Language games etc.

1. Translation:

(i)                Translation in Bilingual System.

(ii)              Transference.

(iii)            Cultural Equivalence.

(iv)            Componential Analysis.

Teaching Language Through Literature:

(v)              Techniques of teaching literature to develop creative and literary attitude in an inspirational basis with command over language use like Natives.

(vi)            Paraphrasing.

(vii)          Interpretation.

(viii)        Appreciation.

(ix)            Techniques of creative and critical writing.

(x)              Concept changing.

1. Teaching Vocabulary with semantic aspects:

(i)                Words to form idea/ ad-hoc Voc.

(ii)              Vocabulary Expansion, mapping and grading.

(iii)            Derivation/ Formation.

(iv)            Active/ Passive Vocabulary.

(v)              Vocabulary Knowledge Skills (VKS).

(vi)            Receptive and Productive Vocabulary.

(vii)          Vocabulary Knowledge Framework (VKF).

Stages of Concrete Focus:

(i)Development of Soft-skills, practical and media related

matters giving the knowledge of Artificial Intelligence and

compulsory use of periodicals and magazines of verities in

Classroom teaching.

(ii)Developing Listening and Speaking efficiency for

Standard International English.

(iii)Reading and understanding of textual materials

(iv)Application of Strategies and skills of ELT in classroom.

(v)Developing motivation for future benefit.

(vi)Regular and compulsory use of Internet, Language learning softwares , Authentic materials, Electronic Gadgets and Tools, Games etc for effective learning of pupils.

(vi)Developing a habit of acquisition, practice and consciousness of ESP. (vii) Evaluation and planning SL development among learners.

Conclusion:

In view of the increasing importance of English language teaching and learning in India and other non-native countries, encouragement for such programmes must yield a great success in bringing about achievement in developing the ability skills related to L-S-R-W among the ESL teachers and pupils at least at school level. Sincere efforts should be made to develop their approach and attitude towards the teaching of English.EGP should be set forth in the dimensions of ESP .This will ultimately create a general atmosphere of using English both inside classroom teaching-learning matters as well as outside classroom matters successfully. Gradually, this habit will spread to the peers and to the society of both teachers and learners in a geometric means. As a result, within a short span of time, the growth of acquisition of English language and its use can be visible all around. The Government(s) can make use of the suggestions of internationally successful Indian ELT professionals and soft-skills trainers for improvement of the program. English in India can be used as a language of all-round profit, strength and source of bringing about command internationally.

References

• Brumfit. C.J, Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching, The Roles of Fluency and Accuracy, Cambridge: CUP, 1984.

• Dickins, P.R. and Germaine, K. Evaluation, Oxford:OUP, 2003
• Doff, Adrian. Teach English: Trainer’s Handbook, Cambridge: CUP and The British Council, 1996.

• Harmer, Jeremy. The Teaching of English,Harlow:Longman, Pearson Education Ltd.: 2007.

• Richards, J.C. The Context of Language Teaching, Cambridge: CUP, 2000.

• Smith, M. S. Second Language Learning: Theoretical Foundations, New York:Longman, 2001.

• Widdowson, H.G. Aspects of Language Teaching, Oxford: OUP, 2002.