The State of English - Essay Example

Running Head: TESL/TEFL IN INDIA Name Course Instructor Date Introduction English has undoubtedly become global language as many persons use it as a means of communication and other official purposes. This has also had an effect in India as Hindi and English are the 2 national languages for its fundamental administrative purposes. Hindi is the official national language and the main association language in the country. English is considered as the associate bureaucrat purposes language among other 22 regional languages that are approved in the country’s constitution. The existence of the elite persons speaking English has not in any way eliminated the Hindi-speaking elite. It is however noticeable that the many Hindu in India speak English than any other language as the language is a primary language for an estimated 2.3 lakh Indians as a survey revealed that 86 million Indians listed it as the preferred second language (Thomas & Collier 2002). Main Body Many texts and informational materials used in India are mostly available in English. The language is a single most used as many languages are spoken in the state including Gujarati. Persons in the state are reluctant to learn the common Indian languages. The paper will purpose to discuss the state of English has a second/foreign language in India including its state in the education system of the country. Under this, the paper will discuss the perception, learning strategies and its use. The paper will also discuss the effects the language has had in the Indian culture. The paper will also discuss the state of English as a unification factor for the different language cultures in India scale (U.S. Department of Education 2001). India applies the three language formula in its school education improvised by the Education’s Central Advisory Board in the year 1956. The formula witnessed an improvement in 1961 where it was formalized by the Kothari Education Commission between the years of 1964 and 1966. This was based on factors which included the right of the ethnic minorities to access educational instruction through MT, the promotion of the official state language as the major regional language and the use of the developed pan-Indian official language which was to be used as a uniting factor for the polity and integration of the country. This saw the recognition of mother tongue as the first language that any person is expected to learn in addition to a modern Indian or English language (Thirumalai 2002). English is considered a second and a foreign language since it is limited in its purposes as it is used for international trade, trade, travel and commerce. The language is also used for the education and media purposes in the country. The teaching and learning of EFL or ESL is met with challenges either because the state has a regional language as a medium of study or having the English language as a medium of learning from the primary level. The problem of teaching English to the Indian population thus starts at the pre school level. In addition to this, the family background and environment have a significant role in relation to the success in the acquisition as well as the learning stages of ESL (Thomas & Collier 2002). Most of the parents and background is poor with most of the population engaging in agriculture people’s thus having a poor educational background. This implies that the income of most families in the state is inadequate thus making the parents to lack the interest in giving their children an excellent educational background. The infrastructure found in most of these schooling environments is not as adequate this includes the buildings and the conditions for the other learning facilities. Most of these categories only make it difficult for the learners to attain education to the higher levels and thus drop out earlier than expected (Thomas & Collier 2002). On the other hand, most of the categories of the families who dwell in the cities and give their children the better education end up having their children developing better writing skills in English. They however do not have the best oral skills for the language as they are rarely taught. The training of the oral skills in the language is not as adequate to enable them match to those of a native speaker. The teaching of the oral skills is effected at the early pre-schooling stages of the learner’s life where in this case it is spent on developing the learner’s ability to be conversant with the first language which in this case is Hindi (Thomas & Collier 2002). Despite it being used as a second language, English has met some resentment in some quarters of the Indian state. Much of this resentment is as a result of the way in which the language was introduced into the country. Despite English being by a fraction of the Indian population, it is still being viewed as a language for the economic and social elite. People are classified into ranks in some regions according to how they speak the English language. The language is regarded as a form of acceptance to some economic and social advancement (Crystal 1987). It must be noted that languages are structured differently thus offering the users and learners of the language different meaning suggestions. The learning of the first language has a significant effect on the acquisition of the second language which in most cases is foreign. The brain is always compelled to utilize the first language’s experiences on the second language leading to new developments of cues to the meaning that are offered by the new language which often differ from the first language. This transferability and application of strategies and skills athwart speech languages is highly dependant on how the operational modes of the languages in question. The primary role of the teacher in India is to enable him/her to be able to make the students understands what he/she intends to teach or say. It is also the teacher’s duty to be able to understand what the learners want to say or wants. This implies that the teacher as the sole role as a delivering and a receiving agent to the student’s learning process (Larsen-Freeman 2001). It is quite evident that every teacher regardless of his or her area of specialty has designed roles and objectives which are usually aimed at bring out certain desirable changes in a student. In India, the teacher has various distinct roles in the instructing of ESL or EFL. English teachers across India understand that due to globalization across the globe there is a necessity of Indian student to learn a language which is considered to be international. Therefore, it is the role of a teacher to make Indian students understand that English has become a worldwide language as opposed to earlier years where it was known to be spoken by countries such as the USA and UK. It is within their role to make student understand that English is an international language for communication (Thomas & Collier 2002). A teacher in India who teaches English as a second language or foreign language needs his role in providing a part of learning which is very essential for developing new particular cues to meaning offered by new language which usually differ from India initial language. This indicate that it is within their role that the transferability of their skills, strategies and knowledge across both the Indian and English language highly depends on how these two written languages work (U.S. Department of Education 2001). Further, a teacher role does not only involve making the students to appreciate the subjects being taught or what he intends to say but also for him to understand what her students says or wants. It is due to this role that in the teaching and learning process with main focus on ESL or EFL, two things plays major roles; one includes delivery capacity for teachers and the ability of the students to receive the content from the instructor. Clearly, Indian student should understand that without these two definable aspects both of learning and teaching processes cannot be successful (Crystal 1987). U.S. Department of Education (2001) asserts that, the roles of an ESL and EFL teachers are considered to be like making sound by way of clapping hands giving an indication that without two hands it is impossible to clap. This can be translated that without a right language teacher, the processing of learning and teaching is meaningless. Therefore, an ESL or EFL teacher should be in the forefront in facilitating his students to facing the world which comprises of social, political personal as well as international controversies without fear. Therefore, the teachers role is to improve self confidence in students through effective teaching so that to enable students to make right choices, decision and judgment especially on a global scale (U.S. Department of Education 2001). According to Thomas & Collier (1997), in the process of learning and teaching ESL and EFL, Indian teachers should firstly understand the student so that he is able to make the students understand his teachings or him. Clearly, theory with practice on some of topics such as spelling, reading and translating may highly effective in enabling the English learners to grasp the idea in an easier way. It is the accomplishment of every instructor attempt to enable the students understands what concept is being taught depending on a variety of methods applied. It is evident that teacher teaching ESL or EFL may be good but an Indian student physical problem or family background may result to him ignoring various teaching aspects. It is therefore important for the teacher to take into account everything that is in place. Finally, it is important that an ESL and EFL teacher to ensure that his students understand the four language skills namely; reading, listening, writing and speaking to improve on their English proficiency. Thomas & Collier (2002) maintains that, through reading, Indian students are able to gain the ability to interpret and comprehend text depending on the appropriate grade a student is in. Based on listening, a student is able to understand instructions, extract and comprehend information issued by an English teacher. It is after comprehending that such students are able to easily follow instructions discourse through which teachers normally provide information. Through enabling student to acquire proper writing skills, teachers enables ESL and EFL student gain the capacity to construct correct written wording having the appropriate content that can be read across international backgrounds. Indian ESL and EFL teachers role is to ensure students are able to speak efficiently. This is achieve by ensuring that student have the ability to use English as an oral language effectively and appropriately in learning activities as this assist them in communication across international borders. It is apparent that most of the strategies employed by the teachers in teaching EFL or ESL in India do not utilize the learner as the driving force to the design of the ESL. The design should in this case be based upon valuing the learner and providing them with the required services that are aimed at enabling them become bicultural and bilingual. This goes and in hand with developing their academic skills. There is also need to have the teachers trained in ESL/EFL as the curricular in this case is aimed at combining the cultural understanding, oral and written fluency. The principle goals of ESL/EFL service delivery are to first; developing and maintaining of the self worth sense as well as preserving the heritage pride. Secondly, the goals aim at the have the learners to be oriented to the extracurricular activities, curriculum and methodology aspects that are different from the student’s past experiences (Bialystok 1991). In addition, the goals for the ESL/EFL are to help the learners be able to appreciate the differences and similarities in culture that exist as well as developing the communicative competence of the learners so that they can be able to observe the syntactic, semantic, phonological and phonetic rules of the language and its use. These are to be attained by observing the principles of effective learning of ESL/EFL that aim at building on the personal and educational experiences that they bring at school (Larsen-Freeman 2001). The principles imply that the learners are to use their previous personal written and oral experiences as the yare vital in the development of the growth and development of their second language. It should also be noted that the learning of the second language is aimed at developing the learner’s ability to learn, query, socialize and wonder (Brown 2002). There is need to also have an ongoing assessment and evaluation on the progress on the learner in the second learning acquisition. This is vital as the learner’s gaps and modes through which they can be improved will be identified. This will also be able to have the progress of the learner in regards to the positive acquirement of ESL or EFL identified as an indicator of the student’s short term objectives will be identified. The educators and teachers will thus have a humble time in the adjustment of the instructional methodologies that are employed to suit the needs of the learners with an aim of improving their second language acquisition. The educator will also use the acquired information to be able to give evidence of the student’s success and demerits. The evaluation process will involve the use of standardized tests and an emphasis of the use of other authentic assessment which include portfolios, observation and other student self assessment (Griffths 2007). The education system should also consider in its quest the existence of errors associated with the effective learning of ESL/ESL. The students are likely to face errors in relation to competence which arise due to the wrong application of the English language rules. In addition, learners often have the lack of spelling and sound correspondence. The errors associated with pronunciation occur as a result of the mother tongue or first language influence on the ESL/EFL (Kumaravadivelu 1994). This is as a result of the structural differences that exist between the target language and the first language of the learner. The learners tend to use the structural arrangements of the first language and have them form a basis of pronunciation of the second language. The overgeneralization and the internal analogy will have the learners commit the grammatical errors (Bell 2003). In conclusion, English is an important art of the economic and social part of the Indian community as it is a unification factor given that the country has different languages described as mother tongue. The education system and the teacher play a vital role in the effective acquisition of ESL/EFL. There is a vital need for the designing and adoption of a syllabus and strategies to educate the learners and test their language proficiency. The teacher is to act as a guide in the learner’s quest and have a positive attitude towards the language. The learning methodology in this case that is to be developed by the education system is to have the learning design as learner centered thus being able to identify and design innovative strategies that are aimed at eliminating the gaps. References Bell, D,M, 2003, Methods and post methods: Are they really so incompatible? TESOL Quarterly, 37(2), 325-36. Bialystok, E, 1991, Communication strategies: A psychological analysis of second language use. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Brown, H,D,2002, English language teaching in the post-method era: Towards better diagnosis treatment and assessment. In Richards, J.C., & Renandya, W.A. (eds.) Cohen, A, 1998, Strategies in learning and using a second language. London, NewYork: Longman. Crystal, David,1987,The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Griffths, C, 2007, Language- learning strategies: theory and perception. ETL Journal, 55 (3), 421-435. Kumaravadivelu, B, 1994, The post method condition: Emerging strategies for second/ foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28 (I), 27-47. Larsen-Freeman, D, 2001,The joy of watching others learn. English Teaching Forum 39 (4), 2-9. Thirumalai, 2002, An Introduction to TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Language in India www.languageinindia.com 2: Accessed on the 20th October 2011. From http://www.languageinindia.com/april2002/tesolbook.html Thomas, W.P., & Collier, V, 1997, School effectiveness for language minority students. (NCBE Resource Collection Series No. 9). Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Thomas, W.P., & Collier, V.P, 2002, A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ long-term academic achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence. U.S. Department of Education, 2001, Language instruction for limited-English proficient and immigrant students (Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, PL 107–110). Washington, DC: Author. Read More