#74, Research Article: ‘English At The Primary Level: Realities” by Mahananda Pathak

Mahananda Pathak is a doctoral student in The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He can be reached at mahanandap@gmail.com.

Abstract

This paper presents the methodologies that teachers in a remote village in Assam used to teach English to primary school students. The activities used by the teachers in these classes are not unique to Assam alone, but, are commonly used across all regional medium primary schools in India.

Introduction

The use of English in India is no longer restricted to an elite few in the cities; but, is used extensively by the masses for various purposes pertaining to education, business and communication. This has resulted in a widespread public demand for more access to English within the school education system. As a result, many Indian state governments have introduced English at the lower primary level.

The early introduction of English, while perceived as essential, is also problem ridden.  This is because, the way English is taught/learnt cannot fulfil/rise to the variety of demands made on it. In other words, there is a gap between the way English is taught in the classroom and the way it should be taught. Therefore, an attempt has been made in this paper, to see how English is being taught in rural primary schools. For this, a week long classroom observation was done. Ten English classes (Class IV) in five different regional medium schools in Assam (in the rural areas of the Barpeta district) were observed. The following is a glimpse of those classroom observations:

What is happening inside rural primary English classrooms?

It is interesting to note that Assamese was used extensively to teach English in all the classes.

Scenario 1

Lesson: Revision of the English alphabet.

The teacher asked the students to provide words beginning with the letters ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, and ‘E’.  The students answered ‘A’ for apple, ‘B’ for ball, ‘C’ for cat, ‘D’ for dog, and ‘E’ for egg. Then the teacher asked a student to spell out the word ‘Chair’ (she pronounced it as ‘Siyaar’). The student came up with the wrong spelling ‘Chiyar’. The teacher slapped the student and corrected the spelling. She then asked the class to copy the alphabet (A to Z) on their notebooks.

Scenario 2

Lesson: Numbers in words

The teacher asked in Assamese – What is 50 in English?  Students replied ‘fifty’. She asked the same question for 5, 11, and 100. Then she asked the students to spell out ‘eleven’ and ‘hundred’. The students could not spell them correctly and as a punishment the teacher asked them to stand on the bench for five minutes. After that the teacher wrote the spellings on the blackboard and asked the students to copy those on their notebook.

Scenario 3

Lesson: Poetry

The teacher asked one of the students to read aloud the poem ‘Humpty Dumpty’ from the textbook. She asked the rest of students to follow the text while listening. The student read it with a lot of mistakes. Then, the teacher asked the students to memorize the poem by reading it several times. Once the students memorized the entire poem (of course it’s not to long!), they were asked to write it on their notebooks without looking at the textbook.

Scenario 4

Lesson: General English

The teacher wrote the sentence “Ranjit is a good boy” on the blackboard and asked the students to translate it into Assamese. The students replied correctly. Then she asked them to translate the sentence ‘I love India’. But this time the students failed to provide the Assamese translation. Then the teacher explained to the student as follows: I means ‘moi’, love means ‘bhaalpowa’ and India means ‘bharatbarxa’; therefore, ‘moi bharatbarxak bhaal pawo’. After that, she asked the students to frame some Assamese sentences by using ‘bhaalpowa’. Students came up with many sentences and the teacher translated those Assamese sentences to English one by one.

What do these scenarios signify?

These observations led to the conclusion that English language teaching did not focus on activities which develop the skills needed to use the language. The teaching stresses on correct spelling (scenario 1 & 2), neat writing, and encourages rote memorization (scenario 4). The assumption seemed to be that children would learn to communicate only through repetition or rote memorization. The English classes mainly focused on unproductive activities like reading of the alphabet and teaching of words which had no relevance in the lives of the children. Krishna Kumar observed (1986: 2) “words without action or contact with objects remain empty and lifeless for the child”. Therefore, words like ‘apple’, ‘ball’, ‘cat’, ‘fall’ etc. mean very little to the child unless these words have first been used in a context where the child was actively involved with the object or in the act.  Most of the time, the children were engaged in activities like copying from the blackboard or textbooks, reading from the text, writing on the blackboard/notebook, etc.

For most of the teachers, teaching the alphabet means, asking the students to copy the letters from A to Z, asking for words that stand for a particular letter and rote recitation of the alphabet. By doing this, the students are deprived of the opportunities to develop the skills required for alphabetizing words which is very useful for the development of dictionary skills. It was observed that the teachers spent a substantial amount of class time in extremely casual reading aloud. This reading aloud was done by the students and not the teachers (scenario 3). Close observation showed that while reading aloud by the students went on, teachers completed non-teaching activities like paper work, filling registers etc., while keeping a casual eye on the pupils. The teacher did not even feel the need to correct the students’ mistakes while reading.   Most of the teachers were engaged in providing L1 translations/equivalents while teaching English (scenario 4). Direct translation to L1 is a major, useful teaching technique as far as English language is concerned.  But it does not serve the desired pedagogic purpose.

In addition to that, most of the teachers treated errors negatively and expected an error-free performance from the children. It was observed that the teacher always considered students’ errors as a ‘deviation from the norm’ rather than ‘a part of the learning process’ (Corder, 1981) or a part of the natural process of interlanguage forms gradually moving towards target forms (Ellis, 1994). The teachers had a fear of L1 influence in L2 performance and hence did not tolerate any error made by the learner and punished them by ‘slapping’ or asking them to ‘stand on the bench’ (scenario 1& 2). The teachers considered error-free performance as an evidence of learning. A child who spelt ‘chair’ as ‘chiyar’ showed that he/she knew that the letters of the alphabet have their own sounds. But the teacher failed to recognize this creativity and overlooked the students’ creative capability. Teacher should realize one thing that spotting children’s error is not enough. In addition to that, they have to help the children to indentify the errors which will eventually develop their skills to look at own work with a critical eye.

Summing up

In the context of the early introduction of English at the primary level, it has been observed that there is a need to examine how English is being taught in the classroom. More specifically, do our teachers engage the learners in unproductive mechanical activities or are they really teaching them how to operate in English? Do teachers and learners enjoy the experience of teaching/learning English or is it just a boring/mundane activity? Do our teachers just transmit the content that the prescribed materials contain or do they try to be innovative or go beyond the prescribed text? These are questions that need to be addressed seriously to make the early introduction of English in schools, successful.

References

Corder, S.P. (1981). Error Analysis and Interlanguage. London: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, R. (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kumar, K. (1986). The Child’s Language and The Teacher A Handbook. New Delhi: National Book Trust.