Lt.(Dr.) Datendra Kumar works as Assistant Professor & Head in Dept. of English, Govt. P.G. College, Lansdowne, Pauri Garhwal.
Language is a means of communicating thoughts and feelings. As Dwight Bolinger says, ‘Language is species specific. It is uniquely human trait, shared by the cultures so diverse and by individuals physically and mentally so unlike one another’….1 It is a man’s ability to use language for purposes of communication that distinguishes him from other animals. Of all the languages in the world today English deserves to be regarded as a world language. It is world’s most widely spoken language. It is the common means of communication between people of different nations. English is the most useful ‘library language’ in higher education and our most significant window on the world.2 It is a cementing force.
A very important reason for regarding English as a world language is that the world’s knowledge is enshrined in English. Today the compulsions of learning English are no longer merely political but scientific and technological. And no longer is English the language of Great Britian only; it is the language required by the world for greater understanding; ‘it is the most international of languages’.3 English stimulated a new consciousness among the people, of political and cultural nationalism and encouraged the quest for the true meaning of the Indian experiences of history in relation to the west.
THE PROBLEM OF SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNER
The availability of the right type of teaching materials and audio-visual can certainly make the teaching of English in India quite effective. Audi-Visual aids are an integral part of the learning situation and areas important as the blackboard and chalk. In India teaching of English suffers as a result of the inadequate and poor availability of these resources. The two vital factors in a second language learning situation are the students and the teacher. The teacher has problems to tackle when he is faced with the task of teaching a class of students who show varying capacities of assimilation. As Robert Lado says, ‘The language teacher must be educated, at least, to the levels of his peers. He must have the general preparation of a teacher. He must know the target language well enough to be imitated by his students’.4
The teacher’s language is the principal model for the students. In India the main problem is not to have competent teachers of English. Wilkins is right when he observes, ‘It should be unrealistic to expect a teacher to set objectives which he himself is not capable of teaching. A teacher who himself has difficulty in speaking the language he teaches, is not going to succeed in giving his pupils a command of spoken language.5
LINGUISTICS AND THE SECOND LANUAGE TEACHER
Both linguistics and language teaching are concerned with language. Each can learn something from the other. Language is a meaningful activity and linguistics, on the whole, is more occupied with the grammatical levels than any other academic study connected with language. Perhaps it is because of the linguistics’ concentrated attention on the phonological and structural aspects of language that makes him subordinate vocabulary teaching to grammar teaching. Linguistics teaches us that words should be learnt in the context of their linguistic relationship. Every English teacher in India knows that one of the problems he has to contend within the classroom arises from the pressure of the mother tongue on his students of a particular language group learning English as a second language, influences their performance in English in such a way that almost all of them make the same mistakes in pronunciation, spellings, grammar and vocabulary. Robert Lado’s Linguistics Across Cultures deals with the importance of contrastive analyses in second language teaching. He says that the inference of the students’ mother tongue accounts for a number of errors and difficulties that occur at the time of learning and afterwards in the use of the language.
What I have said above does not mean that the second language teacher should be a linguist. Linguistics and language teaching are two different activities. There is, however, much in linguistics that can be of use in language teaching. Language teaching is a pragmatic business and no teacher should rely solely on the date drawn from linguistic; good linguistics may turn out to be bad psychologist and ineffective pedagogist. But there is a relation between linguistics and language teaching; this can not be ignored. According to David Crystal, ‘Language teaching is probably the most widespread application linguistics has these days….’6 D.A. Wilkins points out, ‘The real contribution of linguistics is to increase one’s understanding of the nature of language. Anyone who has studied linguistics is sensitized to language and thereby to the complexity of language learning. Language teaching still depends very heavily on the intuitive interpretation that the teacher constantly has to make-interpretations of learning and of language…. The value of linguistics is that by increasing his awareness of language, it makes him more competent and therefore a better language teacher’.7
TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR
‘A grammar is a finite set of rules which generates an infinite number of grammatical sentences of a given language and no ungrammatical ones’.8 A knowledge of grammar is perhaps more important to a second language learner than to a native speaker. This is because in the process of acquiring the language the native speaker has intuitively internalized the grammar of the language, whereas the second language has to make a conscious effort to master those aspects of the language which account for grammatically. Grammar is a preventive and corrective medicine, safeguarding or rectifying those points which are especially liable to error. Grammar is essential to second language learning. As Wilkins observes, ‘The acquisition of the grammatical system of a language remains a most important element in language learning. The grammar is the means through which linguistics’ creativity is ultimately achieved and inadequate knowledge of the grammar would lead to serious limitations on the creativity for communication. A national syllabus, no less than a grammatical syllabus, must seek to ensure that the grammatical system is a properly assimilated by the learner’.9
A good teacher should, therefore, be selective in his approach; he need not accept any theory in toto; he should select what is best suited for his purpose in the classroom. He need not have a whole-hearted commitment to traditional grammar nor should he reject out right the insights of modern linguistics. He should explain and describe the grammatical aspects of structures, illustrate them with examples and lay down certain rules for his student’s guidance and practice. In other words he should have his own approach based on a synthesis of the insight he has acquired from his study of the different approaches to the teaching of grammar.
CLASSROOM STRATEGY
One of the fundamental principles of all effective teaching is that a teacher should plan and prepare his lesson beforehand. No teaching should be casual and careless. A casual approach on the part of the teacher results in sheer waste of time and does not make any contribution to the learning process. Whether it be the teaching of the text, grammar, pronunciation of vocabulary or the four skills or even the handling of a tutorial class, the teacher should not face his students without adequate planning and preparation.
EVALUATION
No teaching of English as a second language is effective without periodic tests being held to test the four skills. The teacher on his part should make use of the results of the tests for future guidance in imparting instruction to the students. What is practicable for him is to have system of tests which at the very elementary stage will be almost entirely non-objective with both types existing side by side in the intervening stage.
AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS
No effective teaching is possible without appropriate-aids. This is perhaps more true of teaching a second language than of teaching one’s own mother tongue or a subject. These aids are visual, audio, or audio -visual. Visual aids help the students see and comprehend what they are taught, whereas audio aids help them learn from what they hear. Audio – visual aids combine in themselves the technology of teaching through hearing and seeing.
TEACHING LITERATURE THROUGH LANGUAGE
What is Literature?
Literature is the expression of the experience of a writer about this world. It is written works which are of artistic value. It is the second name of pleasure. Writing is not literature unless it gives to the reader a pleasure which arises not only from the things said, but from the way in which they are said, and that pleasure is only given when the words are carefully or curiously or beautifully put together into sentences. (Stopford Brooke). According to Lionel Trilling, ‘Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity and unity’. In short, literature is just like a mirror in which one can see different things in a different way by different people.
What is Language?
Language is the ‘species-specific’ and ‘species-uniform’ possession of man. It is God’s special gift to mankind. Without language, human civilization as we now know it, would have remained an impossibility. Language is ubiquitous. Besides, being a means of communication, and a storehouse of knowledge, it is an instrument of thinking as well as a source of delight. According to an ancient linguist of India, Patanjali, ‘Language is that human expression which is uttered out by speech organs’. In The Encyclopedia Britannica Vol. 13, language is defined as ‘system of conventional, spoken or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, communicate.
The nature of language is of vital concern because language is the medium in which literature is written. A creative writer is never wholly free from linguistic and cultural consideration or limitations howsoever unconscious of these he may be literally. He has to choose his structures and sounds according to the kind of aesthetic effect he wants to create. His creation is determined by the structure of the language. The structure determines what can and cannot be said in the language, just as his cultural background determines the semantic content of his work. All linguistic levels exert an influence on his creativity and on what he creates. All these factors influence his style. The Elizabethan writers were especially found of transferring words from one form class to another, and used happy, malice or foot as verbs. It is linguistics who can scientifically explain the difficulties of translating a literary text, especially a poem. In return, it is the literary artist who enriches a language enormously and refines it. It is he who also sets direction of language change by his distinct use and coinages and word-formations. In the past few decades, linguistic systems have been regarded as ‘modeling systems’, rather than mirroring systems. In other words we use signs to structure our responses to the world around us; languages shape our responses and do not simply ‘mirror’ the world as conceived by earlier theoreticians of literature.
The CIEFL (presently EFLU) Publication Language through Literature exemplified this change in language teaching, from the practice of teaching of literary tests (usually 19th century) to the teaching of language structure through the resources of literature. Today, there is a tendency towards the amalgamation of the two, literature and language. The relationships between language and literature has been perceived in different ways in teaching materials, and this in turn has influenced teaching objectives in materials while it is agreed that there are skills to be developed as the appropriation of literature per se. It is also clear that language is the basis of literature. From an ELT perspective, a consideration of the relationship between language and literature is crucial. The dichotomy between language and literature brought to the forefront several issues, they are:
1. Does poetry have a glace in language teaching at all, especially if learners do not have a command over basic structures?
2. Does the teaching of literature require a specific methodology of teaching?
3. Is teaching language the same thing as teaching literature?
These questions are important and also indicate different ways in which literature and language relate in teaching. I can refer, broadly speaking, to two approaches in the teaching of literature.
1. Using Literature as a Resource for Developing Language Skills
Duff and Maley’s book Literature (1990) adopts this approach. It has the following aim, ‘to use literary texts as a resource for stimulating language activities’. This book is based on the principle of active learning and therefore on activities that ensure learner’s involvement with texts. There is no critical commentary, explanation or metalanguage historically associated with literary texts. Literature is not regarded as sacred or even as always possessing a literary quality. In fact, even ‘bad’ ordinary writing is used as a resource in teaching if it can stimulate activities.
2. Exploiting Literary Skills through the Study of Language
This is an integrated approach where both literature and language are given focus. Examples of this approach may be found in Carter and Long’s The Web of Words (1987) and Bernard Lott’s A Course in English Language and Literature (1986). It has the aim of helping the learners to ‘understand and appreciate literary texts. It focuses on certain features of language in order to generate an appreciation of the style, effects and techniques of writing.
The Use of Language in Poetry
The use of language is what distinguishes one type of discourse from another. Different domains of language use commonly different corpuses of language. If language that is normally used in one domain is used in another, we have what can be called a ‘defamiliarization’ of language, where word associations are not predictable in terms of contexts. Widdowson says that literary language… is dislocated from context, set aside; it presupposes no previous or existing situation outside that created by itself, it anticipates no continuation, it exists apart, complete in itself, self-contained within its own pattern. The use of language in unusual contexts is what marks the literary. It is what Widdowson calls the ‘deviant use’ of language. In other words, the association of meanings with which language is familiar or is conventionally used is not necessarily always to be found in poetry. For example, the lines – ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes/ And I will pledge with mine’, associate drinking with eyes, rather than with a glass or cup. The effect is spectacular. Or what about Kamala Das’ desire to ‘pick an armful of darkness’ from her grandmother’s house? Similarly Blake’s ‘Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright/ In the forests of the night’ are poetic lines because the collection ‘forests of the night’ forces a non-literal interpretation. The use of metaphors, similes, symbolism, analogies, etc. all adds to the ‘unconventional use of language which has no validity in ordinary language’s interaction and ‘which exists within a parenthesis’ as it were. The deviant use of literary language is found where, ‘categories are unclear, where contraries combine, where there is no security in an established order sustained by conventional language’. This is not to say, however, that the language of literature does not have its own contexts and is not grounded in its own coherences. It is, but, when compared to conventional and traditional associations, it is different.
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE
The difficulty of teaching a literary text to a class which does not have competence of English is a basic problem in the English classroom. The conventional associations of language have to be made before the ‘deviant’ uses of it can be understood. Both these levels of understanding, however, cannot be acquired by the learner if the teacher gives the meaning. The learner should be allowed, rather to arrive at the meanings implicit in the texts by guidance and on his or her own. We need to make a literature ‘class learner-centered’ for the appreciation of a text to occur. Methodologies need to be geared towards this development. ‘Meaning’ is not more important than ‘meaning-making’. Learners must go through the experience of struggling for meaning to arrive at meanings so that whatever they comprehend is their own. We should not ‘give meanings’ ready made on a plate, so that learners regurgitate what we give them. If we do, we deprive them of a wonderful opportunity of not only improving their language skills, but also of experiencing the text and the satisfaction that comes from an aesthetic appreciation of something that is beautiful.
How to Teach a Poem?
The poem should be thought of as an experience, to which student has to be led. Too much of ‘teaching’ destroys or dilutes the experience; on the other hand, some teaching is necessary so that the difficulties which prevent the student from reaching the experience can be removed. The difficulties can be linguistic, cultural, or intellectual. The introduction should always be as economic as possible. The teacher should not appear to be telling the class directly when the poem is all about. A suitable ‘framework’ has to be found, therefore, into which to incorporate all that the teacher may want to say about the poem before it is read. The teacher should not attempt to exhaust all the possibilities of a poem to squeeze out of it every drop of significance. Nothing destroys the experience in a poem as effectively as too much explaining.
In the teaching of poetry, the reading of the poem aloud is a rather essential element. Poetry is meant primarily to be heard, and even when it is being read visually the ‘echo’ of the sounds-which it contains, is present with the reader. The most striking effects of poetry are achieved through sound, and although it is difficult for a student to respond to the sounds of English poetry in the way we wish him to, he must be given opportunity of listening to these sounds. A teacher who is required to teach poetry to a class should be ‘trained in the proper and effective reading of English poetry. English poetry is usually intended to be spoken rather than recited. It is good practice to read the poem aloud once to the class, asking the students merely to listen to the poem, with all the texts put away. To confirm that the students have received an initial impression from listening to the poem the teacher should ask a few general questions which involve the activity of reacting to the poem as a whole. It is here that the theme of the poem, and its tone (whether it is a cheerful poem or a sad one, etc.) are established. At this stage the poem can be read aloud a second time, this time with the students following the text visually. They should have formed, at the end of this reading quite a good impression of what the poem is about, what it is ‘trying’ to say to them.
Sometimes the clues, to the ‘meaning’ of a poem may lie in the use of a particular grammatical pattern, which the student may miss. For example, Kipling’s poem ‘If’ achieves much of its effect by making delayed use of the conditional structure introduced by ‘If’. In the logical structure of the poem too, the teacher should only suggest to the students how words are used to build up an idea; how ‘key words’ can function in setting up a theme, even if it is not explicitly stated. Poetry consists very often in indirect or oblique statements or patterns of contrasts created by the use of words and phrases used symbolically to evoke certain associations.
The student has to be led to the discovery of these patterns through questions which suggest the answer that s/he is expected arrive at.
Once the student has an over-all understanding of the poem, the significant details will fall into place and fill in the picture. But the teacher’s activity should consist in shaping rather than dictating, responses in suggesting rather than telling. In poetry the important thing is to make the student go back again and again to the poem, by asking questions which can be answered only through a scrutiny of the text. The teacher should help the student arrive at this meaning by integrating the answers to the various questions asked. The summing up of the poem should serve to bring into focus all the elements in the poem which the teacher has been trying to demonstrate or highlight. Above all the teacher must appear to be enjoying the poem, or else s/he will never be able to induce enjoyment in the student. The best teachers of English literature always manage to infect the student with something of their enthusiasm. It is because poetry can still be infections that we wish to teach it. What we need today is learner-centered classroom teaching, with less teacher explanation and with more individual literary interpretation by students. This is best for our vernacular medium students as we have to motivate them.
Much ink has been spilt in proving or disproving the importance of teaching English as ‘a second language’ – but what is more needed is the attitudes of our teachers – a change that will make them aware that teaching is not the only teaching technique and that unless they are teaching literature as such as they are teaching English as a second language. This awareness will have to be accompanied by their preparedness to employ new methodologies, approaches, and technique for imparting instruction in the four language skills and for creating interest in students both for English and its literature. The Regional Institutes of English and Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (presently EFLU) are also doing their best to train the teachers of English. With the availability of trained teachers, new syllabi, properly graded for each standard, for the students to proceed gradually from simple to difficult and from difficult to more difficult patterns of sentences and to learn newer and newer words to improve their expressiveness with emphasis on the four language skills, will have to be initiated both in schools and colleges. These methodologies should depend on techniques that will motivate students to learn English and to enjoy learning it. Literature is certainly the best kind of language that our learners can be exposed to but we need to introduce them judiciously to suitable texts. It is a language well used. According to Ezra Pound, ‘Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost degree’. It is the art of saying something that will be read twice.
WORKS CITED
1Bolinger, Dwight. Aspects of Language. New Delhi: Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., 1968, 3.
2Report of Education Commission. New Delhi: Ministry of Education, 1966, 15.
3Quirk, Randolph. The Use of English. London: Longman, 1962, 5.
4 Lado, Robert. Language Teaching: A Scientific Approach. 8.
5 Op. Cit., 54.
6Crystal, David. Linguistics. Hammondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971, 5.
7 Wilkins, D.A. Linguistics in Language Teaching. London: Edward Arnold, 1980, 229.
8 West, Michael. How Much English Grammar? ELT Selections I. 1952, 30.
9 Wilkins, David. National Syllabuses. Oxford University Press, 1976, 3.
10Report of the Study Group on Teaching of English. New Delhi: Ministry of Education and Youth Services, Govt. of India, 1971.
11 The Study of English in India. New Delhi: Ministry of Education, Govt. of India, 1967.
12 Gokak, V.K. English in India: Its Present and Future. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1964.
13 Palmer, Frank. Grammar. Penguins, ELBS, 1978.
14 Harris, D.P. Testing English as a Second Language. New Delhi, Mc Graw Hill, 1969.
15Verghese, C.Paul. Teaching English as a Second Language. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1989.
16Bansal,R.K. and J.B.Harrison. Spoken English for India. Madras:
Orient Longman, 1983.
17O’Connor, J.D. Better Spoken English, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1980.
18Balasubramaniam,T. A Textbook of English Phonetics for Indian
Students. Madras: Macmillan, 1981.
19Widdowson. Stylistics & Teaching of Literature. Longman, 1980.
20Leech, Geoffrey N. A Linguistics Guide to English Poetry. Longman, 1975.
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