Vol. 4 Issue 20 – Research Paper: ‘Making the Teaching of English Communicative at the Undergraduate Level’ by Prof. Jinendra Jain

No one can deny the fact that the importance of English language is increasing day by day. It has become a world language. It is a window through which we can see the whole world. English is at all steps in day to day life. How can our students be ignorant of this fact, how can they afford to leg behind today’s demand. Keeping this view in mind, the present study shall try to formulate a few theories and methodology through which the students in the classroom can be taught and can be made responsive and communicative in English language learning. The teacher shall reach to the reasoning of the learners and he should make them think, feel and respond in English, Gujarati students are said to be good at listening or reading or writing but they are poor at speaking. They cannot easily bring forth their ideas in English. They can’t converse in English as easily as they talk in their vernacular language. The present study shall focus on the learner’s conversational and communicative ability.

2. Statement of the problem

The present research had studied under the following problem:

“Making the teaching of English communicative at the undergraduate level”

3.            Definition of terms

3.1     Communicative

The chief target of this research is that to make English communicative, the student can at least talk easy sentences to one another after their graduation. They can face the interviews in the world for employment.

3.2     Undergraduate

The research will be limited to only undergraduate English classrooms; the students who have compulsory paper of English in first year of B.A. only.

4.            Objectives of the study

4.1         To produce materials in accordance with the learners needs.

4.2         To try out the materials to enhance student’s ability of communication.

4.3         To bridge the gap between the language used in the class room and the language used in society.

4.4         To encourage and motivate the learners to create a liking for English language through several responsive activities.

5.            Hypotheses to be tested

5.1         There will be no significant difference between the mean of score on pretest of Experiment and Control Group.

5.2         There will be no significant difference between the mean of score on post test of Experiment and Control Group.

5.3         There will be no significant difference between the mean of pretest and post test of Experiment Group.

5.4         There will be no significant difference between the mean of pretest and post test of Control Group.

6. Significance of the study

The English language is entered more or less into everyone’s life. Today’s aspiring youth, at least, of Gujarat, is legging behind in the race of spoken English. The aim and significance of this study is in the direction to make the learners communicate in English easily. Having studie the problems of the learners, the produced material will be tested out whether it is useful for the learners in the long run.

7. Limitations of the study

The following are the boundaries of the study which help researcher to conduct the study. The present research study is limited to the following areas, variables, levels, materials and methods.

7.1 Limitation of area: M.B.Patel Rashtrabhasha Arts and Commerce College, Gujarat University.

7.2 Limitation of sample: First year students of B.A. who study English as a compulsory Subject.

8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

8.1 Type of Research

8.2     Research Method

8.3     Research Tool

In the present study the investigator had used and constructed the following research tools:

• Draft questionnaire
• Final questionnaire
• Tasks for pilot study
• Final tasks
• Pre test
• Post test

9. SCHEME OF PRESENTATION

The present research work has been divided into six chapters and they are as follows.

Chapter I: In chapter I, the researcher puts the statement of the problem, operational definition of the terms, Delimitation, Research Questions, Objectives, Assumption and hypothesis, Research hypothesis, Null hypothesis, Research methodology, Tools and Significance of the study, Scheme of Presentation.

Chapter II: In the second chapter, the researcher has discussed and reviewed the related literature of communicative language teaching. The need and history of CIT has been briefly discussed as well as the position of CLT in twenty first century has also been reviewed. Material production related to CLT has also been the demand of the time. Therefore, the researcher has reviewed several techniques, principles, methods, syllabus design and approaches in order to produce appropriate material for today’s learners. The research has also reviewed the recent material available in the market briefly. The review of past researcher has also been mentioned and how the present study differs from the past researchers is also discussed.

Chapter III: In the third chapter, research planning and procedure has been discussed. The researcher has focused on variables, population of the study, selection of sample, research tools, research procedure and data analysis and interpretation.

Chapter IV: In the fourth chapter, the researcher analyse the data collected and interpreted accordingly. Students’ questionnaire has been interpreted, students feedback has been interpreted and analysed and lastly the teacher’s questionnaire has been analysed and interpreted.

Chapter V: In the fifth chapter, the researcher has put the major findings, conclusions and suggestions.

Chapter VI: In the sixth chapter, the researcher has discussed the over all conclusion of the present research work.     

10.     Collection of data

The investigator of the present study collected the relevant data for the research with the help of the above mentioned research tools. All the research tools were self-made by the investigator himself.

11.     Analysis of data

The investigator has adopted such statistical measures as were suitable to be analysed. There were fifty respondents from five colleges for the students questionnaire and twenty five respondents of the teacher’s questionnaire. There were some learner attributes that were studied in relation to the different methodology of teaching English at the 1^st year B.A. level. These were sex, age group, socio-economy factor and area. For comparison between the use of different methods and various learners attributes, the investigator has used ‘t’ value, which is appropriate for a large sample interpretation of available data. It was based on ‘t’ score, Mean, S.D. and ‘t’ value for each comparison.

12.     FINDINGS

12.1   It has been found that the syllabus prescribed by Gujarat University do not match to the needs of the learners. Teachers are also dissatisfied with the syllabus and its contents. It does not in any way improve the learner’s communicative skills. The teachers want that syllabus should emphasis more on communicative aspect of the language. Dialogues, comprehension, conversational passages are considered to be useful components of the communicative syllabus of English.

12.2   It has been found that the learners have less exposure to grammar rules, poor vocabulary, lack of confidence while speaking, no knowledge of proper pronunciation, light sentence structure are the main problems of the students pointed out by their teachers as well as by themselves.

12.3   It has been found that learners are mostly interested in form-filling exercises, writing job applications, doing comprehension exercises (more interested in picture comprehension exercise), dialogue-reading and speaking exercise, receiving and sending E-mails, receiving and sending SMSes. These are considered to be the important forms of communication. Students do not take interest in the traditional ways of teaching by the teachers.

12.4   It has been found that students become active when the class turns into learner-centered and then they participate in the classroom activities. Students take active participation in the following activities.

(1) Describe your experience (2) Describe your likes and dislikes (3) Describe your favourite book (4) Describe teacher, leader, hero, picnic spot etc. Besides all this social, cultural and political views, variety of professions, entertainment (films, serials), use of mobile phones, i-pod, i-pad, laptop, desktop with high-speed internet, moreovers views on street festivals, domestic ritual, issues related to women and youth are the preferred topics for communicative English in the class.

12.5   It has been found that in order to assimilate the communicative aspect of English, the teachers and the learners favoured the English that is related to the real-life situations where in the learners mostly needed the communicative English-form filling, giving instructions, making request, making compounds and apologies, expressing sympathies and offering help, describing objects/ places/ persons. Showing ways to giving directions to show the way. Making suggestions, asking for permission, inviting, greetings, giving good wishes to someone.

12.6   It has been observed by the researcher that the learners need English to serve their day to day needs, they want to fill the forms, they want to apply for different posts, they want to face interview successfully, they want to speak on the stage before the people. The learners want all this but their syllabus prescribed by the university do not train them like that.

12.7   It has been found that the analysis of teacher’s questionnaire reveals that the syllabus and it’s components presently used for first year B.A. students do not suit to the learners ability of being communicative in English. Hence, there is an urgent need to prepare need based materials for the learners.

12.8   In order to make the learners communicative in English, the teachers today are supposed to be familiar with the latest trends and recent methods of teaching English. It has been disclosed from the analysis of the teacher’s questionnaire that most of the teachers are not familiar with the modern methodologies of the ELT.

12.9   It has been found that the communicative activities, task based activities, pair work, group work, role play, picture description etc. generated a lot of interest among the students. The learners want their syllabus must contain the component like that.

12.10 The present study revel that the package of innovative materials has immensely helped the learners in enhancing their communicative competence. It has developed their communicative skills and made them confident while using English in the social interaction. It has also provided them enough opportunity to interact in English with other students.

13      IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY

13.1   The teacher should adopt the communicative approach for teaching English at first year B.A. level.

13.2   The teachers should adopt the communicative approach of teaching English language and they should see that the students develop the desired skill of speaking.

13.3   The teacher should discuss about the study materials and encourage the students to the original text contents.

13.4   The teacher should dictate English notes in the classroom only when necessary.

13.5   The teacher as far as possible should keep away structural approach and depend on other innovative material in the classroom to bring about diversity in the teaching methodology.

13.6   The teacher should give ample practice in reading and speaking while teaching English in the class room.

13.7   The teacher should give them extra practice in grammar (communicative use of grammar)

13.8   The teacher should take up to use some new innovative material specially useful to the students during the year.

13.9   The teacher should think about the way and means of solving student’s communicative problems in English.

13.10 The teacher can use the grammar-translation method while teaching in the class-room if at all necessary.

13.11 The teacher can use the oral reading comprehension method while teaching the English prose.

13.12 The teacher should use the group discussion workshop method for enhancing the reading and speaking skills.

13.13 The teacher can also use illustration method while teaching English grammar in use.

13.14 The teacher should use language laboratory in their college / institute for about two days in a week if available.

13.15 The teacher can speak both English and regional language in the class room if and when necessary.

13.16 The teacher should encourage the student to come with their English text-books in the classroom.

14.     SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aslam, Mohammad, (2009) Teaching of English, Cambridge University Press. India Pvt. Ltd.

Byram, Michael (2000) (Ed.) Rontledge Encyclopaedia of Language Teaching and Learning. Routledge.

Doff, Adrain (1996) Teach English A training Course for Teachers, Cambridge University Press.

Kaushik, Sharda (2009) A handbook of Teaching English Orient Blackswan Private Ltd.

Larsen, freeman Diane (2004) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford University Press.

Nagraj, Geetha (2008) English Language Teaching Orient Longman Private Ltd.

Nunan, David (1991) Language Teaching Methodology A Textbook for teachers. Prentice Hall,

Nunan, David (2004) Task Based Language Teaching Cambridge University Press.

Oxenden Clive et al (2004) New English File Elementary Student’s Book. Oxford University Press.

Ur, Penny (1988) Grammar Practice Activities Cambridge University Press.

Ur, Penny (2005) A Course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory, Cambridge University Press.

Viney, Peter and Karen Viney (2005) in English Pre Intermediate Student’s Book. Oxford University Press.

Windeatt, scott and et al (2000) The Internet Oxford University Press.