Looking at the nature of language, we come to know that it is actually a cultural construct. It is completely different from the biological characteristics that we inherit from our parents genetically. This is why one of the most important features of language is ‘cultural transmission’.
Hence, a language is born out of culture and it must be promoted culturally. A child learns mother tongue in a particular linguistic community while being in consortium with the other speakers of that community. One of the special features of first language (L1) is that a child learns it unconsciously; that is to say, he does not know that he is exposed to a particular language. Consequently, a child is able to communicate effectively in mother tongue.
When we look at the position of English language in our state, it is by and large in doldrums as compared to the rest of the other states. The reason behind this poor and abysmal development of English is that we do not have proficient and specialised teachers to teach English at school level, though at college level our teachers are competent that they can be put on par with those teaching English in reputed language institutes.
Then what is it that has failed our teachers to produce effective speakers of English language?
Surely, the problem of having non-specialised teachers at primary and secondary level has resulted in the poor development of the English language in our state.
We must have seen that our students, except few, are not able to communicate in English properly even after they have completed university education. Does it mean that they are endowed with less Language Acquisition Device (LAD), to use Chomskian terminology? The answer is no. Moreover, the problem of creating fluent and competent speakers of English does not lie so much with the linguistic credentials of our teachers as with the hackneyed and flawed methodology that they still rely upon for teaching in schools.
Although, we know everything about the principles of teaching a language, we as teachers never take recourse to those rules for exposing learners to English in our schools. In our B.Ed course, every trainee teacher is instructed to teach language by promoting four skills; viz listening, speaking, reading and writing. But, it is a pity that in our schools these four skills are encouraged in reverse order, thereby making a mockery of teaching English.
Listening is the most important faculty for speaking; therefore, it must be developed at a very early stage of child’s linguistic development. But for that we need efficient and competent teachers to teach English at primary and secondary level.
Every child is endowed with the ability to acquire any language till he/she crosses early teens. Because a child’s tongue is so supple during the period that it is able to glide sideways easily. Once the optimum period for second language acquisition is over, we cannot speak it the way we like, howsoever, we may try, because our tongue becomes stiff after this period.
However, we can make our students competent speakers of English if we dispense with traditional methods and rely more on ‘Direct Method’ and other communicative approaches to teach English at primary and secondary level in our schools.
In ‘Direct Method’, the teacher is supposed to explain every concept in the target language of the learners without taking recourse to their mother. But only a competent and efficient teacher who himself has command over the target language can make his students speak that language effectively.
Lastly, I would like to state that we, as teachers of English, should create such an interactive atmosphere in the class that the learners should feel free to communicate.
REFERENCE:
Dar.Z.(2015).Learning English Language.Rising Kashmir.retrieved on 24th february 2016 from
http://www.risingkashmir.com/news/learning-english-language/
