(This is an expanded version of my article under the title “A New Direction to English Language Teaching” published in The Island on Wednesday 14th October 2009)
The ‘English as a life skill’ initiative had its genesis in the mind of the President, who loves children. No other head of state of independent Sri Lanka before devoted so much attention to children’s welfare, or demonstrated so much concern for their wellbeing, in word and deed, as Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse does. His concern is with all the children of the country, most of whom live in the rural areas. Just as the economic strategy adopted under the Mahinda Chinthana vision has a rural bias, so does the President’s knowledge society concept focus special attention on the rural child.
Over six decades of free education and political independence have failed to eliminate the urban rural dichotomy in the economic and educational fields despite the best efforts of the successive regimes. This could broadly be attributed to our general failure as a nation to achieve a proper balance between the urban-industrial and rural-agrarian sectors in terms of economic policy paralleled by a similar failure to bring about an equalization of educational opportunity between the city and the village. President Mahinda Rajapakse is trying with a fair degree of success to build an egalitarian society where all citizens enjoy the fruits of development without discrimination.
It has been recognized that a high level of English and IT knowledge is a sine qua non of the educational as well as the economic modernization of our country. ‘English as a life skill’ initiative along with the promotion of IT will form the essential bedrock for nation building.
Mr. Sunimal Fernando, Advisor to the President, and Coordinator (English) and Convenor of the Presidential Task Force in English and IT, is behind the conceptualizing, designing, and planning of the presidential initiative. The passion with which Mr. Fernando speaks about, and commits himself to, the government’s new Spoken/Communicative English Language Teaching initiative will be apparent to any person who listens to him on the subject. As an educator long associated with the profession of teaching English both here and abroad, and as a concerned parent, I have taken upon myself to express some views about it. I have realized through personal conversation and correspondence with him that he welcomes, and even solicits, constructive criticism of the project that he has been asked by the President to spearhead, but wisely chooses to ignore mere ‘out of context’ caviling at minor details. Mine is a labour of love performed in the interests of the nation’s young.
The rationale for the ‘English as a life skill’ enterprise that Mr. Fernando supplies is of special appeal to me because it implicitly embodies (entirely independent of me) two basic notions to which I myself have been trying to draw the attention of the educational powers that be over the past decade in my small way as a freelance journalist. The first concerns the determination of the place that English should be given in our education system: the need to identify English as an essential second language, subject to the primacy of Sinhala and Tamil (i.e. it should not be made to replace either of them for the majority of our students); the other is that, whatever language planning is done, it should not disadvantage the ordinary masses, or violate the principle of equality of opportunity for all.
“Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)” and “Cultural Refugees” were the terms that Mr. Fernando once used when he broached the subject with me, to characterize the westernized, English speaking urban upper class elite of this country, to the preservation of whose status, power, and privileges the English language has been traditionally made subservient. English language use is an essential qualification for the membership of the westernized upper class. In Mr. Fernando’s opinion, the members of this anglophile elite are persons who are “culturally, psychologically, and emotionally displaced from the mainstream Sri Lankan society”, and who have put themselves at the mercy of anti-national agencies such as some belonging to the NGO sector, and other foreign interests inimical to the country.
English is etched in the Sri Lankan national psyche as a potent symbol of upper class status and influence. It is rated more for its social worth than for its utilitarian value, though the latter is the real raison d’etre of the country’s involvement with English. According to Mr. Fernando, the related servile , colonial-subject mentality is something that our state-run English language enterprise under the control of “old guard gurus” help sustain through their excessive insistence on perfect grammar, faultless pronunciation, and precise diction, and a corresponding failure to sufficiently focus on the actual communicative use of the language in teaching it.
This long established imbalance or anomaly in the mode of English language delivery in our education system has been seriously detrimental to school children from the suburban and village areas which contain the largest proportion of the country’s population. These children come from Sinhalese and Tamil speaking homes. The only chance they could secure to learn to use English is when they are at school. However, they are frustrated here because the English lessons they are offered, modeled on outdated, structure-based methodologies with little provision for interactive oral communication leave them uninvolved and uninterested. It accounts, in large measure, for the miserable failure of English teaching that we often talk about. This is no problem for the children of the upper class who, in any case, speak English at home, and are given a chance to pick up the necessary knowledge of formal grammar at school.
Even a casual survey of the status of English language teaching in our country will be sufficient to convince us of the validity of Mr. Fernando’s strictures on the subject. The few who manage to gain a knowledge of English, mainly from the privileged urban upper classes, and to a much lesser degree, from among those highly motivated poor rural students, find themselves in socially and economically privileged company, while the overwhelming majority, failing to secure such advantage either through frustrated attempts to learn the language or through sheer antipathy towards it, remain socially and economically as debilitated and disadvantaged as ever. This would sound a gross oversimplification, but no one could deny that it accords well with the easily observable existential reality that while on the one hand, English plays a most vital role in the education and employment spheres of national activity in the country, on the other hand, it is still potent enough to contribute towards perpetuating social disparity and injustice, which in effect denies English to those who most need it.
The tradition of failure is something that has not been lost sight of by all successive regimes since Independence, especially since 1956. This is evident in the various commissions appointed to look into the teaching of English in schools, and seats of higher education, and in the intermittent changes introduced concurrently with other educational reforms.
The latest proposed changes in this connection subsumed under the ‘English as a life skill’ concept are different from all those previous ones in a number of important ways. Mr. Fernando, a trained sociologist, has seen through the insidious ideological agenda that plagues our institutional English language teaching system; it’s a hidden scheme that promotes colonial subservience among the hoi polloi in order to keep them at bay so that social dominance and related advantages and privileges guaranteed by English for the upper class are not undermined. Central to the presidential initiative is the attempt to infuse the school English language teaching programme with a more moral, a more humane, a more humanitarian, a more people-friendly ideology that looks, as a priority, to the needs of the rural masses, i.e. the ordinary people of the country. Needless to say this harks back to 1956 and before when well thought out language planning decisions were made and implemented, based on the sound ideology of a set of pioneering intellectuals of that era including those of the SLFP . To put it differently, what Mr. Fernando is trying to do, at the instance of the president, is to introduce English to the rural masses both as an indispensable technology of communication, and as an egalitarian ideology for the purpose of forging a modern knowledge society that will enable us to reach a high level of prosperity and wellbeing.
The often criticized failure of the English language enterprise is largely attributable, among other things, to the general incapacity of the next generation of SLFP policy makers to properly understand and revitalize the ideological vision that drove the architects of the 1956 and subsequent language policy changes as Mr. Fernando points out in an interview published in the 2009 March issue of Business Today; these leaders ‘while mechanically following their stated policies, lost sight of the depth and nuances of the intellectual reasoning of those great thinkers. Progressively, conformity to form began replacing the comprehension of the substance of their thinking in a big way’. Mr. Fernando charges that ‘… in the period between 1994 and 2005 a strange ideological aberration started creeping into the political discourse of SLFP led governments which seemed to be suggesting at times that modernization and development required a repudiation of the language liberation of 1956’. In reality though this ‘aberration’ was due to a failure to appreciate the fact that what was dethroned or ‘destroyed’ was not English as a tool of educational and economic growth, but English as a tool of oppression. In a basic sense then, the ‘paradigm shift’ that Mr. Fernando is talking about represents a return to those ‘historical and ideological moorings’ which the SLFP seemed to deviate from in that period. The party under Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse ‘rediscovered its roots…They started analysing and creatively interpreting its distinct ideology and applying it to the realities and needs of a modernising, developing nation’. The President’s English as a life skill initiative is a corollary of his determination to build a village-based ‘national knowledge economy’ in terms of his Mahinda Chinthana manifesto.
In the same interview Mr. Fernando draws attention to a third factor that he sees as a cause of the survival of English to date as an instrument of social repression rather than an object of practical utility: those responsible for implementing the SLFP-led governments’ policies on English failed to understand ‘the relationship between ideology and technology’. The old techniques or methodologies were designed to retain English as the exclusive preserve of the elite, and in effect they ensured that it remained a tool of social oppression. An inordinate emphasis on ‘perfect pronunciation, unblemished diction and perfect grammar’, and a failure to provide for teaching spoken English (neither of which was a problem for children coming from mainly English speaking homes) forced their less privileged counterparts to shy away from English.
(Note: Criticism of an inordinate emphasis on ‘perfect’ grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary does not mean that these basic elements of language should be neglected in teaching English. Again, having added this caution I feel obliged to explain myself a little more. I do not mean to overemphasize structure at the expense of communication. Methodologies with an essential core of interactive communicative principles seem to have stood the test of time. A.P.R.Howatt (1984) identifies ‘a strong version’ and ‘a weak version’ of the communicative approach. The former he describes as ‘using English to learn it’ and the latter as ‘learning to use’ the language. Though a strictly communicative methodology –‘using English to learn it’- would favour a complete abolition of explicit grammar instruction, practical considerations have shown that leaving the structural aspect of language teaching to induction alone is not possible.
In my opinion, developments such as the re-introduction of the English medium in government schools, the haphazard establishment of so-called international schools, and increased avenues for overseas education introduced during a previous SLFP-led administration (none of which would have come within the scope of the Mahinda Chinthana vision that informs the present ‘English as a life skill’ initiative), are apparently stampeding us to enhance the quality of English language instruction within the country in order (among other things) to avert a dangerous stratification of the society in the not too distant future based on English language competence possessed by a minority, but denied to a vast majority. It is up to us to detect the possible traps laid for us by foreign vested interests which are economically exploitative and politically subversive, under the pretext of teaching us English, when we make an innocent effort to acquire English as an indispensable tool of modernization and development. The successful implementation of the ‘English as a life skill’ initiative will insure us against such dangers.
The presidential enterprise has the three essential elements that will ensure its practical viability: a sound ideology, clear objectives, and a plan of work. While its ultimate goal is a paradigm shift in English teaching, the existing institutional structures will be co-opted into its implementation. ‘The 18 month Road Map to Promote Spoken/Communicative English Skills in Sri Lanka – a background note’ prepared by Mr. Fernando sets out clearly what has been already accomplished at this initial stage, and what is in progress. The activities scheduled are on target.
The fact that six of out of the sixteen key activities outlined in the note are direct cabinet decisions is testimony to the seriousness with which the task of overhauling the English teaching paradigm is being addressed.
(What I have put within parentheses in the following paragraph are my comments-RRW)
Mr. Fernando refers to what he calls five critical factors on which the success of the initiative will eventually depend. Of these the first is: A national level attitudinal change in respect of English pronunciation, diction and grammar, and a national commitment to speak English the Sri Lankan way. (This, I think, is not something difficult to achieve; in fact, one could say, we are already there. More important, perhaps, is what we are going to teach our rural children to speak in English about. That too is probably being handled by the teachers from the villages who have been entrusted with the task of writing teacher guides.) The second is: Readiness on the part of a new cadre of predominantly rural and small town English teachers from Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes to come forward and take over the leadership of the country’s English teaching enterprise. (Once the modalities are in place, this won’t be a problem.) Factor three is: The efficiency and the speed with which we are able to train the 21,984 teachers, and 3027 private tutories in the teaching of spoken English and provide them with new teaching materials. (I think this is in progress.) Factor four(This, in my view, is the most crucial): Self confidence, determination and a belief in oneself on the part of all those who are pioneering the paradigm shift of English ideology and teaching method. (To my mind, this is the arena where the whole initiative interfaces with the stakeholders, as it were. These pioneers should include not only the teachers, principals of schools, education officers, and the rest of the educational cadre, but also the parents, and the general public whose awareness of and support for the national venture will be vital.) The fifth and final factor that Mr. Fernando mentions is: The continued support of His Excellency the President and the Presidential Secretariat for the ideological, institutional and methodological paradigm shift that is currently being made in the English teaching enterprise of our country. (About the fulfillment of this condition there can’t be any doubt, given the determination of the President to do everything possible for the betterment of the future of our young people.)
Probably we could add to this list: A most vital element that should be given the highest priority is the motivation of the target student population to speak/communicate in English. They must be thoroughly convinced of the reasons why they must learn it. The indispensability of English for access to global knowledge through IT is a major one of these. And the incentive offered by the attraction of the very practical benefits that are achievable through the integration of IT knowledge into day-to-day activities connected with various enterprises – be they educational or economic – will be an equally strong motivating factor, for such knowledge could only be secured through English.
In respect of the above, the proposed conduct of a Public examination for the Certification of English Learners at Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Levels with a strong emphasis on spoken/communicative English is a commendable innovation. Examination in oral English has never been a part of any public examination before as far as I know.
By way of suggesting an improvement (I am not sure, though, if there is provision for this included in the details of the programme already), I wish to draw Mr. Fernando’s attention to the institution of an impact monitoring mechanism, comprehending a variety of dimensions, and also to the formulation of indicators of performance by teachers as well as learners.
The ‘English as a life skill’ presidential enterprise is entirely different from any exercise of its kind that went before. It is unique and unprecedented in its conception, scale, scope, and in its potential for further evolution; it is realistically ambitious. It is a homegrown solution to a national problem. The initial assistance we are getting from India mainly in the form of technical expertise is an incidental matter; provision exists for tapping other sources of help. What is of essence is the commitment to a programme of instruction that is uncompromisingly Sri Lankan, guided by independent ideological, socio-cultural principles relating to our predominantly rural society.
The new initiative is an organic rather than a linear process. All earlier reforms were linear in the sense that they were sudden piecemeal changes introduced and implemented in distinct stages designed to lead to a specific outcome as the end product. On the contrary, the ‘English as a life skill’ undertaking is an organic process in which the English teaching/learning activity proceeds as an interactive engagement with the language and the society, thereby causing gradual and natural development of language proficiency among the learners. It is a national drive that involves not only the young learners and teachers, but also parents, education authorities, community leaders, and the media agencies – all of these having a specific role to play-, and equally important, the supportive ambient social environment, which is but the general matrix of this organic growth of English language knowledge.
When the English teaching programme is thus completely remodeled on the proposed lines, in due course (which undoubtedly will mean a number of years), it will mark a quantum leap in the quality of English language instruction that our young people will be able to enjoy.
Rohana R. Wasala
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