E-C-304 English Language Teaching

Assignment Paper: - E-C-304 English Language Teaching

Topic                     : - Teaching English as a second Language 

                                   in India Focus on Objectives

Student’s name     : - Makwana Jayshri D.

Roll  no                 :- 14

URL                      :-makwanajayshri261011.blogspot.com

Semester               :- 3

Batch                    :- 2010-11

                                                 

                                  Submitted to,

                                                 Mr. Devarshi Mehta.

                                                 Department of English

                                                 Bhavnagar University.

Teaching English as a second Language in India: Focus on Objectives

                                                             Shivendra K. Verma

ABSTRACT:- After highlighting certain the theoretical aspects of notion “Objectives of language teaching”, We discus the functionally-determined sub-categorization of languages into First Language, Second Language, Third Language, Foreign Language, and Classical language. We then focus on the objectives of teaching English as a Second Language in India.

    The Objectives of Language teaching:-

            The global objectives of language teaching can be defined as helping children learn a language to perform a variety of functions. This range from the sociable use of phatic communion and a network of communicative uses to its use at the highest level of “cognition”, “catharsis”, and “self-expression”. Underlying these functions are two fundamental: helping children learn how ask questions, the most important intellectual ability man has yet developed, and helping children use this language effectively in different social networks.

         Languages in a multilingual setting form a system-network. Each language in this network has a function- determined value contrastive to the function-determined values of the other languages. A society or a government can assign new terms of its own policy of language planning, but the society or government must realize that this assignment of a new value to a language will produce a chain reaction in network. The values of the languages in the other languages in the network are bound to undergo changes.

           The notion of “link language” or “lingua franca” has an important significance in a multilingual setting. It encourages wider mobility, national integration, and a sense of tolerance. It enriches other languages in contact and gets enriched by them. Effective bilingualism or triligualism or even multilingualism is a powerful way enriching the linguistic repertoire of individuals. These resources offered by used for rapid social and economic changes and modernization programmers.

            Teaching is not a unidirectional process of pumping bits and pieces of unrelated and undigested gobbets f knowledge into empty sacks. It is a bidirectional, interactional process. Learners are not just passive recipients of socially accepted language patterns. They play an active role in this teaching-learning process. They actively strain, filter and recognize what they are not photographic reproductions but artistic recreations. The learners are meaning- makers. The main objectives at every level of teaching should be to help learners learn how to draw out their latent creativity.               

              Every learner is born with a built- in language-learning mechanism. This mechanism gets activated when the learner is exposed to that language. What is, `therefore essential is to create an atmosphere where learning can take place. Children learn the language they hear around them. Exposure to a rich variety of linguistic material is as important in first language acquisition as in second language learning. The teaching of English as a second language, in , in particular , has often been less successful than it might have been , as a result of the restricted variety of linguistic contexts with which students are provide. Learners should ideally be exposed to a variety of contextualized language material. They must hear and see language in action. 

                  The object in teaching a language…is to enable the learner  to behave in such away that he can participate to some degree and for certain purposes as a member of a community other than his own. The degree to which any particular leaner may wish to participate will vary. He may seek only to read technical literature, or he may wish to preach the gospel in a foreign country. These varying degrees of participation require different levels of skills in language performance.

               A teacher full of life and vigour, resourcefulness and innovative power, love and understanding, can turn a dull class into a lively two-way international game. A well qualified, energetic and inventive teacher can be a “living “model, and act as the best audio-visual aid.

Functionally-determined sub-categories:-

  First Language (L1)

          L-1 is used for performing all the essential, personal functions. These are gradually expanded to cover all types of interpersonal functions. “In order to live, the young human has to be progressively incorporated into social organization, and the main conditions of that incorporation is sharing the local magic- that is, the language (Firth 1957;185).L-1 is an indispensable instrument of national culture. It is the primary means for the through the transmissions of culture from one generation to another.” “Learning through the mother tongue is the most potent and comprehensive medium for the expression of the student’s entire personality” (Government of the India 1956), for it is learning the basis of all his or her future actives, the means by which he or she is going to learn almost everything else (Abercrombie 1956;23). The Education commission in 1902 recommended mother tongue as the proper medium of instruction for all classes up to the higher secondary level.

Second Language (L-2)

        education people living in towns and cities, English as a second language functions primarily as an interstate or international link language of . Some of them also use it as an international language of knowledge, trade and industry. An important question here is; is L-2 the main or associated medium of instruction at all levels or at a particular level, or is it taught as a subject listed under “other languages”? When an “exoglossic” language s used by a country as its official language and/or as a medium of instruction at all levels, it generates its own problems.

 Foreign Language

        It is used by a select group of learners in a very restricted set of situation. The main objective of learning a foreign language is to have direct access to the speakers of these languages and their cultures. It enables the learners to participate in a foreign society in certain roles and certain situations. A foreign language like Russian is used in India for absorbing the cultural patterns of the USSR; English as a second language is used in India as an alternative way of expressing Indian patterns of life.

Classical Language

       A classical language like Sanskrit provides access to ancient culture, learning and philosophy of life and is assumed to contribute to the intellectual enrichment of its learners. Its real value can not be measured in terms of helps you do in everyday life but in terms of refining your sensibility, and sharpening you tools of analysis, enriching the modern language and offering “insights” into a variety of linguistic problems.

Objectives of teaching English as a Second Language in India

                   The objectives have to be formulated in light of what we perceive our needs for English to be in a multilingual setting, at both the national and individual levels. This is related to the following questions: What are the roles of Hindi, English, regional language, classical language, foreign languages and languages of minority group in our multilingual setting? What are the topics and situations that will necessitate the use of English? What is the kind and amount of English that the learners will need?

                                   As the associate official language, an international “link language”, the language favoured by all- India institutions, the legal and banking systems, trade and commerce and defense, English has important functions to serve internally, in addition to its role as our “window on the world”. It is clear, therefore, that English has important functions in communications of diverse types. The skills of communication will continue to be at a premium, and teaching will have to try to impart a certain minimal competence in these skills. Kipping in view these functions, the primary aim of teaching English as a second language at the secondary level should be to give the learners an effective mastery of the language, that is, to help them acquire

    The ability to read easily, and with understanding, books in English written within a prescribed range of vocabulary and sentences structure, and to read with good understanding (if not with speed) easy unsimplified texts on familiar topics, fully glossed and annotated in their known language.

    The readiness to proceed to a more advanced reading stage, that of reading unsimplified texts, particularly those bound up with personal studies and interests, with the help of bilingual dictionaries;

    The ability to understand a talk in English on a subject of general experience and interest, clearly spoken and restricted in vocabulary and sentences structure to the range of the syllabus;

    The ability to write comprehensible in English, and without gross errors, on a familiar topic which leads itself to expression within the range of vocabulary and sentence structure that has been taught;

    The ability to carry on comprehensibly a conversation in English on a topic fully within the range both of their experience and interests and well within the range of active command postulated by the syllabus.

                       It is important that we should be able to identify the English requirement of various groups of students precisely, and try to provide for each such group the pattern of courses which will be relevant to the needs of learners. This is important because not all students will need English to the same level of competence. We must ensure that English (1) functions as a “service-language” for the various categories of learners, (2) promotes intellectual and cultural awareness of the contemporary world we live in, and (3) provides “information content” necessary for the modernization of our country. It is also important that special opportunities are made available to help the weaker sections of our society to acquire an adequate competence in English so that they do not remain forever disadvantaged in areas of higher education and in terms of upward social mobility.

Work Cited

Verma, Shivendra K.  “Teaching English as a Second Language in India: Focus on Objectives”.English in India.Ed. Omkar N. Kaul. Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad.Print. 

               

         

             

  

               

            

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