Sri Lankan English and English Language Teaching
by
Rohana R.Wasala
(This present article appeared in the Midweek Review of The Island newspaper on 23rd June 2010)
A truncated version of this article first appeared in The Ceylon Daily News of Wednesday April 24, 2002 under the title “Sri Lankan English? The question of an acceptable model”. The same article in its complete original form, though now naturally dated, is being offered here to the Island readers because of the relevance of its subject to the current revitalized state English Language Teaching (ELT) enterprise. I have slightly edited it without altering its general content - RRW.
The reality that we encounter in the English language teaching domain today is that we no longer can claim that there is a single form of English which we could adopt as the universal standard; instead we have many standards, all equally correct and acceptable. We are obliged to talk about Englishes, not English.
The multiplicity of standard forms of English is a formidable problem for the practical teacher in the language classroom. In Sri Lanka where we teach English as a second language at all levels from the primary to the tertiary we obviously cannot tell our pupils, “Unlike in the past we now believe that there are many acceptable standard Englishes, not just one. You must learn the variety of English that is the most appropriate one for you”. Such advice may be enlightening to people who already know their English quite well. Where learners are concerned, it is teachers who must deal with the problem of “standard” in terms of which they may arbitrate on matters of linguistic acceptability/correctness.
This is where “the importance of advocating a standard for the language” comes. In fact, the question regarding a suitable standard for us to adopt in teaching English as a second language is in the process of being settled by local scholars in a context where the “many Englishes” idea is accommodated. This means that a standard Sri Lankan variety of English is being identified. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty, controversy and unfinished work surrounding the subject, which is naturally likely to put off those who, in any case, have not taken kindly to what appear to be deviations from the “standard English” of yesteryear.
The main aim of this present article is to suggest how “old” views about “correct” English could probably be reconciled with current perceptions and practices as far as “Sri Lankan English” is concerned. Let us have a closer look at the situation.
It is well known that the English language has never had anything like the academie francaise of France, i.e. a central authority invested with the power of regulating its use. Nevertheless, over the last two hundred years or so of its roughly 1500 year history to date the two predominant varieties – British English and American English – have provided models of accuracy or standards against which to judge the acceptability of the language in use. Although these two major English dialects have existed as two distinct standards, the divergences between them in terms of grammar and vocabulary are minimal; even the differences in spelling and pronunciation (which are more readily noted) are never so wide as to render them mutually incomprehensible in the least. In effect, they represent nearly identical models of correctness.
However, with the recent emergence of English as the global medium of science, technology, industry, trade, culture, computer, communications, etc the function of serving as a measure of authenticity is being rapidly decentralized away from the native British and American standards to peripheral non-native forms of English such as Canadian, Caribbean and Indian. In other words, there is a growing tendency among users of English as a foreign or second language in different regions around the globe to consider the varieties of English evolving in their own sociocultural contexts to be as “respectable” as, and, for their particular purposes, even more effective and efficient than, Standard American or British English.
Consequently, it is difficult today to talk about one single authoritative form of English. Rather it is the case that there are a number of Standard “Englishes” - a notion that could be reprehensible to some of us who were educated when the English we were taught was securely bound to the flagship of Standard British English (or whatever was locally supposed to constitute it) and characteristic deviations from “the norm” among the local users of the language, whether they resulted from an imperfect mastery of the standard or from natural sociolinguistic causes, were rightly or wrongly outlawed as erroneous forms, or as “Ceylonisms”.
While the persistent conservative standpoint is understandable, the global trend appears to be an accommodating attitude towards the phenomenon of a plurality of Standard Englishes. In terms of this tendency which may, in fact, be seen at one level as a manifestation in the field of language of a certain desire amongst previously colonized peoples for emancipation from lingering Western dominance, some of us in Sri Lanka too might feel justified in trying to adopt a Standard English of our own. If what could be identified as the local educated variety of English is to be accepted as our autonomous model, this must be done in such a way as not to depress even further the already low levels of competence in English among our students.
It is even possible to imagine a worse scenario than the mere decline of proficiency levels: the threatened extinction in Sri Lanka of English as we know it today, or its final degeneration into an autonomous tongue, a creole perhaps, alienated from the rest of the world! However, where English is concerned, such fears may be baseless because the centrifugal movement towards diversity is being countered by an opposite movement towards uniformity in the context of easy international communication and the virtual obliteration of national borders due to globalization.
David Graddol writes in his The Future of English? (London: British Council, 1997) “The widespread use of English as a language of wider communication will continue to exert pressure towards global uniformity as well as give rise to anxieties about ‘declining’ standards, language change and the loss of geolinguistic diversity. But as English shifts from foreign- language to second- language status for an increasing number of people, we can also expect to see English develop a larger number of local varieties” (Graddol, 1997, p.56).
In the same context Graddol attributes these opposite strains that English is presently undergoing to the fact that “… English has two main functions in the world: it provides a vehicular language for international communication and it forms the basis for constructing cultural identities…”. The former pushes towards uniformity, intelligibility and common standards, whereas the latter tends to lead towards fragmentation through the creation of local forms and hybrid varieties.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that English is in any danger of breaking up into an infinity of mutually unintelligible dialects. The diversity of varieties of English is nothing new after all. Different brands of English have always existed. What is new is that with the unprecedented expansion of its adoption in every part of the world this plurality of standard forms of English has become more evident than before.
The best future we may perhaps extrapolate for English from the current trends is that, notwithstanding the localizing movements leading to “polycentrism” (i.e. a number of standard forms), the momentum towards global uniformity will prevail and that, as a result, “a supranational” (Graddol’s phrase) will emerge, transcending all these competing “native” and regional varieties. Strevens (1992), quoted by Graddol, speculates that the ELT industry will play a significant role in maintaining such an international standard for both communication and teaching purposes. The prevailing tendency though is towards the recognition of non-native regional models.
The replacement of what once enjoyed a monolithic status as the correct form of English with a regional variety will obviously have important implications for ELT activity as well as international communication. While lack of uniformity could hinder easy exchange of information, it may also pose problems for ELT practitioners in the matter of designing curricula and compiling teaching materials. Nevertheless, the current advocacy of a standard Sri Lankan variety of English for teaching will not, I believe, lead to such a complete break with the native varieties of English,( especially British and American, however protean and elusive to boot these themselves may be) as to hamper our communication with the outside world. Curriculum designing, material preparation, and other pedagogical problems will not be insurmountable obstacles either.
Probably a major reason for championing a local brand of English in our country is the recognition of the changed image and function of English as opposed to its past. Under the British, it was the language of administration and business, associated with elitism and power, and the colonialists restricted its availability to a subservient minority for their own purposes. Even for most of the half century of independence since 1948 English has been almost exclusively the prerogative of the power-wielding national bourgeoisie. As a result of the spirit of resurgent nationalism which swept the country in the wake of Independence (and which culminated in the 1956 political changes), English was given a back seat in the national consciousness, but this was temporary. Even during this time, Sri Lanka’s educational policy makers were not oblivious of the importance of English for the development of the country through education. A programme was implemented to teach English as a second language to all school children irrespective of their social class.
Education through the medium of national languages began to be available to far larger numbers of students than education through the medium of English ever was under colonial rule. This immensely benefited many children of the dispossessed classes who were previously denied that opportunity. A rapid expansion of mother tongue education happened broadly between the 1960’s and 1980’s during which period English education was virtually downgraded. The reality today is that English is being restored to its position of prominence in all important spheres – education, economic development, communication, business, industry, etc. Most of all, there is a widespread reawakening to the immense significance of English in the field of education.
The vast majority of those who learn English intend to use it as a second language, especially in education and work. First language English is still confined to a small percentage of the population. Therefore English is mainly important for us as a second language.
Local academics in the field generally assume that we have a distinctly identifiable variety of English with its own characteristic pronunciation, vocabulary and idiom. However, as outlined in The Oxford Companion to the English Language (ed. Tom McArthur, 1992), Sri Lankan English “… is not itself a monolithic system; it consists of a range of subvarieties based on proficiency in it and the users’ language background. It is in fact a subvariety of South Asian English similar to Indian English with which it shares many features…”
Out of this range of subvarieties the form of English that is normally used by educated Sri Lankans is the one that can be described as Standard Sri Lankan English, which is the variety generally accepted as correct. I believe that the educated variety of Sri Lankan English derives from what used to be regarded as Standard British English. The reason is that the British have dominated general education in Sri Lanka including the teaching of English during most of our two hundred year association with them. Particularly in educated English medium discourse we used to believe that we were following the British standard. Even our conscious accommodation of the other major national standard – the American variety – began relatively recently. Out of all major forms of English, it is “British” English that is most readily intelligible to us in its spoken and written forms. The other varieties are comprehensible to us to the extent that they resemble the (assumed) standard British model.
The “British” habit is so ingrained in us, at least in some of us, that we should be excused if we appear to cling on to a so-called British Standard that is being debunked, and exorcised by modern linguists. Yet, I believe that this British connection is an essential link between the Sri Lankan variety that is being advocated, and the global English that is probably emerging in the world at large.
In this context, the usual confusion between standard and accent must be resolved. The standard form of a language is the form that enjoys the greatest prestige in educational and official contexts, in the media, and in writing systems; accent usually refers to features of pronunciation that reveal a speaker’s regional or social background. There was a time when Standard British English was identified with RP (Received Pronunciation) among native British speakers. Today this is no longer the case. Standard English is now spoken with a variety of accents. The “Standard” is maintained more in grammar and vocabulary (not without occasional lapses) than in pronunciation. Even in Britain, only about 3% of the population are said to speak RP.
RP could never be a model for our ELT purposes. Perhaps it never was. Naturally, as speakers of our own native languages whose sound systems are significantly different from each other as well as from English, we cannot pronounce English the way either the native or other non-native speakers of the language do unless we undergo special training to do so. We must adopt our own Sri Lankan accent, which itself is heterogeneous on account of the diversity of the mother tongue backgrounds within Sri Lanka. I think that since the time that Sri Lankans started learning English in a local context they have always been using their characteristic accents, because they cannot acquire any other accent in their specific circumstances: their teachers usually share the same mother tongues; they start learning English as a second language only after they have mastered the sound system of their native language, and so on.
Of course, there are a few who try to put on a “posh” accent, which is nothing but a ludicrous attempt to improvise what they imagine to be a “native-speaker-like” pronunciation.
Many foreigners would say that our mastery of English grammar and vocabulary is excellent, but that our pronunciation is not quite so good. This is perhaps not a fair assessment. Non-native speakers of a language can rarely achieve native-speaker pronunciation unless specially trained. Most English speech sounds are new to us; some of our own sounds are not even remotely identical with them. Where a competent teacher’s guidance is not available for the correct production of authentic English sounds, second language learners tend to substitute approximate native (i.e. mother tongue) equivalents for them.
English pronunciation can be problematic for our students for two basic reasons among others: the first is the novelty of certain English phonemes; the second, the far more difficult but also more significant problem concerns their lack of familiarity with the syllable stress and intonation patterns of English. In English it is important to stress the correct syllables to convey meaning. We do not have this feature in Sinhala, and when we speak English, our delivery is a flat even flow of speech without the correct pattern of stresses that a native speaker of English would generally produce.
Foreigners will find it difficult to understand our English speech if we fail to produce reasonably authentic English sounds and stress patterns. Since we learn English for international/global communication as a major aim of our effort, our commitment to a totally “Sri Lankan” model of English should not be at the expense of mutual intelligibility with other varieties of English, not only at the level of grammar and vocabulary, but also at the level of accent (“accent” here is intentionally simplified to mean characteristic features of pronunciation that signal the second language speakers’ mother tongue background).
Our target need not be a British or American accent, but a natural Sri Lankan pronunciation approximating the normal or neutral English pronunciation we hear around the world. The two major “native” varieties of English (British and American) which are really merging into each other, are closer to this nascent form of “global English” than any other manifestation of English. We need not bother about being able to copy a supposed native-speaker pronunciation; but we should aim at the mastery of basic phonemic distinctions and stress patterns, which are likely to cause us trouble as non-native speakers of English, but which are essential for universal comprehensibility.
The pronunciation of educated Sri Lankan speakers of English is yet to be described, and pronouncing dictionaries compiled by researchers; adequate linguistic corpora must be put together to define and describe the “educated Sri Lankan variety of English”; reference books must be written to guide teachers and students and language teaching materials have to be produced, too.
Until such time as these are ready we should turn to source materials and other relevant literature produced by native British and American authors and non-native experts who are close to the two major national standards. Going after the Indian or Caribbean varieties just to spite the alleged “English power base” will not take us anywhere.
The reason for making such an assertion is my belief that anything that is identified as Standard Sri Lankan English cannot be very different from the English found in international circulation, whose remarkable common core uniformity is due to its general similarity to the two predominant “native” standards (i.e. British and American) in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation within manageable limits. Our local standard should not alienate itself from the English of global communication.
Thus, staying close to British and American English will be to our advantage. A too exclusively Sri Lankan variety of English, which may entail the tolerance of obvious but typical Sri Lankan solecisms (that deviate from what could be considered as the emergent neutral international standard) can lead to problems relating to global intelligibility. As Professor J.D. Bowen of USA once pointed out, second language Englishes tend to deviate from each other more and in more directions than native Englishes in which the dialects are mutually supportive.
The ground realities in the local ELT scene should not be forgotten. When we talk about the “abysmal failure” of the local English language teaching programme, we still think of our failure to teach the traditional variety of English we have always been concerned with, that is, the local version of British English; we gauge the proficiency of teachers in terms of their mastery of that variety. If the adoption of the “local standard” includes the acceptance of usages previously condemned as “non-standard” and, more importantly, as interfering with efficient communication on that account, then such an innovation will not lead to any amelioration of the current ELT situation.
Concluded
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Buddhism is introduced to the little island kingdom
Buddhism is introduced to the little island kingdom
(First published in the Sunday Times/ 15th June 2003)
The colonization of the island by a North Indian tribe and the subsequent introduction of Buddhism can be described as the two most significant events in the early history of Sri Lanka. The Buddhist monks who committed them to recorded history, about seven hundred years later, richly embellished the stories relating to these events with legendary details. However, their historical authenticity is well borne out by a profusion of evidence. While the account of the landing of Prince Vijaya and his retinue in the island lends itself to controversy among scholars as regards its actual date and the contemporary historical context, the introduction of Buddhism took place in historically more verifiable circumstances. It was in 247 BC during the reign of the Indian monarch Asoka (269-232 BC).
Emperor Asoka was the grandson of Chandragupta of the Mauryan clan, who reigned over the whole of North India in the last quarter of the fourth century BC. Fascinated by the calm and composed demeanour of a young Buddhist samanera (a novice monk) named Nigrodha, he invited him to the palace and inquired into the teaching of the sage whose disciple he was. The monk's explanation of the Buddha Dhamma appealed to the king, who had been traumatized by the horrendous scale of suffering that he himself had caused to hundreds of thousands of people during his military conquest of Kalinga. He became an ardent Buddhist and with single-minded devotion adopted Buddhist principles in the administration of his far-flung empire, assuming the role of 'father' to his subjects whom he called his 'children'. His edicts inscribed on rock and metal (which can still be seen all over India) communicated royal messages and admonitions; their express purpose was the moral edification and physical well being of his people.
"This astonishing ruler," writes Jawaharlal Nehru in his 'Discovery of India' (1946), "beloved still in India and many other parts of Asia, devoted himself to the spread of Buddha's teaching, to righteousness and goodwill and to public works for the good of the people..."
After embracing Buddhism, Asoka turned his mind from military conquest to righteousness. He sent missionaries to all countries with which India had political and trade links like Sri Lanka, Syria, Egypt and Macedonia. To Sinhaladweepa he sent the Thera Mahinda (Asoka's own son according to popular tradition) and later his daughter Sangamitta, who brought with her a sapling from the Bodhi Tree at Buddha Gaya, under which Prince Siddhartha Gautama attained Enlightenment. This act of sending his own children as missionaries to Sri Lanka indicated that he had special concern for the little island kingdom to the south of his empire.
When the missionaries arrived here their work was facilitated by a number of favourable circumstances. The first was the royal patronage extended to them. There is reason to believe that there had been friendly relations between Emperor Asoka and King Devanampiya Tissa (250-210 BC) of Lanka even before the introduction of Buddhism. The second factor was that the missionaries spoke in a language not very different from the local one, i.e. Sinhala, which was most probably a fusion of the indigenous tongue with the Aryan tongue of the settlers. A third congenial circumstance was the absence of a well-organized religion in the relatively recently established colony, which meant that the new creed met no serious challenge or opposition. Probably the people of Lanka at that time were animists who worshipped local deities and demons. The Buddhist religion did not come into conflict with the indigenous cults because its preachers aimed to instill Buddhist virtues in the people, not to make them abandon their accustomed gods. Finally, the settled lifestyle made possible by the agricultural economy left the Sinhalese enough time for religious activities.
Within two centuries Buddhism spread to every inhabited part of the island. The religious uniformity gave the islanders of diverse tribes and classes a strong sense of unity. It was the common Buddhist values and cultural ideals that the monks instilled in the people that united them into a harmonious society.
The values taught by the monks appealed at least to the more intelligent members of the society. The law of karma was accepted as a more rational explanation of the vicissitudes of life than the mere caprice of gods and devils, and it made them understand that happiness and suffering were the result of their own actions in their present or past births.
The ethical teachings of Buddhism led them away from original barbarous practices and savage ways to a more civilized mode of life. Religious observances such as the Five Precepts gave them a sense of discipline, mental purity and orderliness. This obviously contributed to peace and harmony amongst the people, which eventually led to their material progress as well.
Cultural advancement was a natural concomitant of the conversion of the whole country to Buddhism. There is no evidence to suggest that there was any literary tradition in pre-Buddhist Lanka. The Buddhist scriptures constituted the first literary works that came to our country. The Aryan dialect in which these works were composed was Pali. The Sinhalese Buddhist monks used it for writing books. Borrowings from Pali especially in the areas of religion, ethics and philosophy immensely enriched the Sinhalese language. Buddhist themes and stories provided the subjects for religious and creative works that came to be composed in Sinhalese.
Another important development that came with Buddhism was the art of writing. The earliest inscriptions of Sri Lanka were made in the Brahmin script. The modern Sinhalese alphabet evolved from this system of writing.
The development of an impressive form of architecture was also due to the cultural changes that accompanied the arrival of Buddhism. Stupas and monasteries were prominent among the earliest architectural creations in the island. With the image-house becoming an essential feature of every vihara, the art of sculpture too started to flourish. The Buddhists had not made statues of the Master, in order not to identify Him with the gods of Hinduism; they had instead represented the Buddha by symbols such as the Footprint (Sri Pada), the Wheel of the Law (Dharmachakra) or the Umbrella (Chatra). The distinctive Buddhist art that the Sinhalese developed was inspired by the Indo-Bactrian art that flourished in India after the advent of the Greeks in that country under Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) in the fourth century BC.
The introduction of Buddhism, in which Emperor Asoka, Arahat Mahinda and King Devanampiya Tissa were the key figures, had a seminal influence over the growth of our culture. We believe that this event happened about two thousand three hundred years ago on a full moon day. The Poson Poya day, which this year fell on Saturday June 14, was observed in remembrance of this great event
(First published in the Sunday Times/ 15th June 2003)
The colonization of the island by a North Indian tribe and the subsequent introduction of Buddhism can be described as the two most significant events in the early history of Sri Lanka. The Buddhist monks who committed them to recorded history, about seven hundred years later, richly embellished the stories relating to these events with legendary details. However, their historical authenticity is well borne out by a profusion of evidence. While the account of the landing of Prince Vijaya and his retinue in the island lends itself to controversy among scholars as regards its actual date and the contemporary historical context, the introduction of Buddhism took place in historically more verifiable circumstances. It was in 247 BC during the reign of the Indian monarch Asoka (269-232 BC).
Emperor Asoka was the grandson of Chandragupta of the Mauryan clan, who reigned over the whole of North India in the last quarter of the fourth century BC. Fascinated by the calm and composed demeanour of a young Buddhist samanera (a novice monk) named Nigrodha, he invited him to the palace and inquired into the teaching of the sage whose disciple he was. The monk's explanation of the Buddha Dhamma appealed to the king, who had been traumatized by the horrendous scale of suffering that he himself had caused to hundreds of thousands of people during his military conquest of Kalinga. He became an ardent Buddhist and with single-minded devotion adopted Buddhist principles in the administration of his far-flung empire, assuming the role of 'father' to his subjects whom he called his 'children'. His edicts inscribed on rock and metal (which can still be seen all over India) communicated royal messages and admonitions; their express purpose was the moral edification and physical well being of his people.
"This astonishing ruler," writes Jawaharlal Nehru in his 'Discovery of India' (1946), "beloved still in India and many other parts of Asia, devoted himself to the spread of Buddha's teaching, to righteousness and goodwill and to public works for the good of the people..."
After embracing Buddhism, Asoka turned his mind from military conquest to righteousness. He sent missionaries to all countries with which India had political and trade links like Sri Lanka, Syria, Egypt and Macedonia. To Sinhaladweepa he sent the Thera Mahinda (Asoka's own son according to popular tradition) and later his daughter Sangamitta, who brought with her a sapling from the Bodhi Tree at Buddha Gaya, under which Prince Siddhartha Gautama attained Enlightenment. This act of sending his own children as missionaries to Sri Lanka indicated that he had special concern for the little island kingdom to the south of his empire.
When the missionaries arrived here their work was facilitated by a number of favourable circumstances. The first was the royal patronage extended to them. There is reason to believe that there had been friendly relations between Emperor Asoka and King Devanampiya Tissa (250-210 BC) of Lanka even before the introduction of Buddhism. The second factor was that the missionaries spoke in a language not very different from the local one, i.e. Sinhala, which was most probably a fusion of the indigenous tongue with the Aryan tongue of the settlers. A third congenial circumstance was the absence of a well-organized religion in the relatively recently established colony, which meant that the new creed met no serious challenge or opposition. Probably the people of Lanka at that time were animists who worshipped local deities and demons. The Buddhist religion did not come into conflict with the indigenous cults because its preachers aimed to instill Buddhist virtues in the people, not to make them abandon their accustomed gods. Finally, the settled lifestyle made possible by the agricultural economy left the Sinhalese enough time for religious activities.
Within two centuries Buddhism spread to every inhabited part of the island. The religious uniformity gave the islanders of diverse tribes and classes a strong sense of unity. It was the common Buddhist values and cultural ideals that the monks instilled in the people that united them into a harmonious society.
The values taught by the monks appealed at least to the more intelligent members of the society. The law of karma was accepted as a more rational explanation of the vicissitudes of life than the mere caprice of gods and devils, and it made them understand that happiness and suffering were the result of their own actions in their present or past births.
The ethical teachings of Buddhism led them away from original barbarous practices and savage ways to a more civilized mode of life. Religious observances such as the Five Precepts gave them a sense of discipline, mental purity and orderliness. This obviously contributed to peace and harmony amongst the people, which eventually led to their material progress as well.
Cultural advancement was a natural concomitant of the conversion of the whole country to Buddhism. There is no evidence to suggest that there was any literary tradition in pre-Buddhist Lanka. The Buddhist scriptures constituted the first literary works that came to our country. The Aryan dialect in which these works were composed was Pali. The Sinhalese Buddhist monks used it for writing books. Borrowings from Pali especially in the areas of religion, ethics and philosophy immensely enriched the Sinhalese language. Buddhist themes and stories provided the subjects for religious and creative works that came to be composed in Sinhalese.
Another important development that came with Buddhism was the art of writing. The earliest inscriptions of Sri Lanka were made in the Brahmin script. The modern Sinhalese alphabet evolved from this system of writing.
The development of an impressive form of architecture was also due to the cultural changes that accompanied the arrival of Buddhism. Stupas and monasteries were prominent among the earliest architectural creations in the island. With the image-house becoming an essential feature of every vihara, the art of sculpture too started to flourish. The Buddhists had not made statues of the Master, in order not to identify Him with the gods of Hinduism; they had instead represented the Buddha by symbols such as the Footprint (Sri Pada), the Wheel of the Law (Dharmachakra) or the Umbrella (Chatra). The distinctive Buddhist art that the Sinhalese developed was inspired by the Indo-Bactrian art that flourished in India after the advent of the Greeks in that country under Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) in the fourth century BC.
The introduction of Buddhism, in which Emperor Asoka, Arahat Mahinda and King Devanampiya Tissa were the key figures, had a seminal influence over the growth of our culture. We believe that this event happened about two thousand three hundred years ago on a full moon day. The Poson Poya day, which this year fell on Saturday June 14, was observed in remembrance of this great event
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Korean Jobs for Our English Teachers
Korean Jobs for Our English Teachers: A Way to Eat the Cake and Have It Too
(This first appeared in the Midweek Review of the Island on Wednesday 9th June, 2010)
“Is the new Minister of Education getting off on the wrong foot?” I wondered when I first heard the news a few days ago that he had agreed to send some 2000 English teachers to work in South Korea. Reading the news item in the papers I felt that this was being touted as a significant achievement on his part, and even as a promise of similar achievements in the future. Although I wanted to express my worse than negative opinion about the matter in an article like this as a concerned citizen reasonably well informed regarding the local ELT scene, I desisted from actually doing so in the hopeful belief that persons with the necessary political influence closer to the decision-making circles would intervene before the proposal was implemented.
It is well known that the country is in critical need of teachers of English, especially for its rural districts, teachers with a high level of language proficiency, and professional acumen; it’s a problem of quality as well as quantity. We don’t have enough English teachers for our own needs; and the majority of the teachers we already have must be put through further education and training before they may be expected to do their job with a degree of success. In this context, offering to help another country in an area where we ourselves, willingly or unwillingly, depend on foreign assistance, is nothing short of a joke, something comparable to “a man too poor to clothe himself making dresses for his dogs”, to translate a local idiom.
To my knowledge, there has been no sign of the proposed move being challenged as it should among responsible people. The only protesting voice I heard was that of the All Ceylon Union of English Teachers (ACUET) as reported in The Island of Thursday 4th June 2010. The Union has appealed to the President on the basis of obvious reasons to put an end to the idea. Anyone with an iota of concern for the promotion of English language proficiency among our students, and a degree of appreciation of the presidential drive towards that goal would wholeheartedly agree with the ACUET’s position in this regard.
I had reached this point in my essay when I read the Sunday Island editorial today (6th June) on “Exporting English Teachers”. The Island editor hits the nail on the head as he always does regarding any matter of national importance. I share his utter disapproval of the scheme, and join him in asking “… in a situation where we could not guarantee the provision of quality English teachers to meet our own needs, to what degree could we satisfactorily meet South Korea’s needs of this kind?”
Yet, in my opinion, a totally negative reaction to a plan that many teachers and their families would consider as offering a golden opportunity to improve their economic status – could not be very popular among these key players in the field; they might feel aggrieved that they are being robbed of such an opportunity, and get demoralized. But, on the other hand, there probably is a way to turn the scheme into something positive for the country, both economically and educationally.
Suppose, in spite of everything, the authorities find themselves committed to carrying through some prior agreement with South Korea, or irresistibly attracted to the scheme because of some potential advantage for the country, and are thus unable to allow wiser counsel to prevail in this instance. Then probably, they could think of something like what I have just hinted at, a way to transform a potentially negative thing into a positive one. Let me elaborate.
If those responsible handle the scheme in a thoroughly professional way, free from all political interference, nepotism, patronage, etc. as a means to reward dedicated teachers who have performed well, with special recognition for having served in difficult areas, it will cancel out the likely deleterious fallout of such a scheme. Teachers who are to be sent presumably on a government-delegated basis should be signed for a stipulated, non-extendable period of contract; fresh batches of teachers may be similarly delegated for foreign employment in the future when those who have completed their periods of contract return.
The process of selecting teachers for such foreign employment will be naturally a complicated affair, but not prohibitively so. Not any and every teacher should be allowed to apply. Prospective applicants must produce an eligibility certificate issued by relevant local ELT authorities who are satisfied with their qualifications, competence, and proven performance (in terms of exam results achieved, supervisors’ testimonials, awards won, etc) with bonus points for difficult area service. The candidates must successfully take a written test that gauges their knowledge of English, followed by an oral examination with Korean and Sri Lankan ELT experts. The selection of teachers to be sent abroad should be done on this stringent basis.
Recruitment for service abroad after such an exacting selection process will be then considered as conferring on the selected teachers high professional recognition, which will be a milestone in their career, and will stand them in good stead when they apply for professional advancement in the future.
Such a scheme will be a godsend for the many conscientious teachers who already serve the nation in an exemplary manner in spite of the fact that, at present, there is little proper supervision of teachers, and even less recognition, and rewarding of good performance where it exists. This will generally encourage others to work well, too.
Selecting teachers indiscriminately on other than strictly professional grounds will run the risk of sending persons who are neither knowledgeable nor competent, which will only earn a bad name for the country; that kind of anomaly will spread disaffection among the more deserving teachers who get overlooked in the process. Besides, the Koreans will not be remiss in regularly supervising the foreign teachers they bring into their country at great expense, and in demanding value for their money. If they find that they are being cheated by a set of ill qualified, incompetent Sri Lankan teachers they will not hesitate to terminate their contract with us, and look elsewhere for recruiting the personnel they need. They are rich enough to choose the best for their children, be it teachers of English or anything else.
If Sri Lanka must send teachers of English to Korea, this should be accomplished in such a way that the crisis situation that exists in our own country’s English teaching arena is not aggravated. In fact, through proper management, the scheme could be exploited not only to attract qualified young people to the profession to fill in the vacancies left by teachers selected to serve abroad, but also to enhance their performance by offering a term of foreign employment as an incentive.
(This first appeared in the Midweek Review of the Island on Wednesday 9th June, 2010)
“Is the new Minister of Education getting off on the wrong foot?” I wondered when I first heard the news a few days ago that he had agreed to send some 2000 English teachers to work in South Korea. Reading the news item in the papers I felt that this was being touted as a significant achievement on his part, and even as a promise of similar achievements in the future. Although I wanted to express my worse than negative opinion about the matter in an article like this as a concerned citizen reasonably well informed regarding the local ELT scene, I desisted from actually doing so in the hopeful belief that persons with the necessary political influence closer to the decision-making circles would intervene before the proposal was implemented.
It is well known that the country is in critical need of teachers of English, especially for its rural districts, teachers with a high level of language proficiency, and professional acumen; it’s a problem of quality as well as quantity. We don’t have enough English teachers for our own needs; and the majority of the teachers we already have must be put through further education and training before they may be expected to do their job with a degree of success. In this context, offering to help another country in an area where we ourselves, willingly or unwillingly, depend on foreign assistance, is nothing short of a joke, something comparable to “a man too poor to clothe himself making dresses for his dogs”, to translate a local idiom.
To my knowledge, there has been no sign of the proposed move being challenged as it should among responsible people. The only protesting voice I heard was that of the All Ceylon Union of English Teachers (ACUET) as reported in The Island of Thursday 4th June 2010. The Union has appealed to the President on the basis of obvious reasons to put an end to the idea. Anyone with an iota of concern for the promotion of English language proficiency among our students, and a degree of appreciation of the presidential drive towards that goal would wholeheartedly agree with the ACUET’s position in this regard.
I had reached this point in my essay when I read the Sunday Island editorial today (6th June) on “Exporting English Teachers”. The Island editor hits the nail on the head as he always does regarding any matter of national importance. I share his utter disapproval of the scheme, and join him in asking “… in a situation where we could not guarantee the provision of quality English teachers to meet our own needs, to what degree could we satisfactorily meet South Korea’s needs of this kind?”
Yet, in my opinion, a totally negative reaction to a plan that many teachers and their families would consider as offering a golden opportunity to improve their economic status – could not be very popular among these key players in the field; they might feel aggrieved that they are being robbed of such an opportunity, and get demoralized. But, on the other hand, there probably is a way to turn the scheme into something positive for the country, both economically and educationally.
Suppose, in spite of everything, the authorities find themselves committed to carrying through some prior agreement with South Korea, or irresistibly attracted to the scheme because of some potential advantage for the country, and are thus unable to allow wiser counsel to prevail in this instance. Then probably, they could think of something like what I have just hinted at, a way to transform a potentially negative thing into a positive one. Let me elaborate.
If those responsible handle the scheme in a thoroughly professional way, free from all political interference, nepotism, patronage, etc. as a means to reward dedicated teachers who have performed well, with special recognition for having served in difficult areas, it will cancel out the likely deleterious fallout of such a scheme. Teachers who are to be sent presumably on a government-delegated basis should be signed for a stipulated, non-extendable period of contract; fresh batches of teachers may be similarly delegated for foreign employment in the future when those who have completed their periods of contract return.
The process of selecting teachers for such foreign employment will be naturally a complicated affair, but not prohibitively so. Not any and every teacher should be allowed to apply. Prospective applicants must produce an eligibility certificate issued by relevant local ELT authorities who are satisfied with their qualifications, competence, and proven performance (in terms of exam results achieved, supervisors’ testimonials, awards won, etc) with bonus points for difficult area service. The candidates must successfully take a written test that gauges their knowledge of English, followed by an oral examination with Korean and Sri Lankan ELT experts. The selection of teachers to be sent abroad should be done on this stringent basis.
Recruitment for service abroad after such an exacting selection process will be then considered as conferring on the selected teachers high professional recognition, which will be a milestone in their career, and will stand them in good stead when they apply for professional advancement in the future.
Such a scheme will be a godsend for the many conscientious teachers who already serve the nation in an exemplary manner in spite of the fact that, at present, there is little proper supervision of teachers, and even less recognition, and rewarding of good performance where it exists. This will generally encourage others to work well, too.
Selecting teachers indiscriminately on other than strictly professional grounds will run the risk of sending persons who are neither knowledgeable nor competent, which will only earn a bad name for the country; that kind of anomaly will spread disaffection among the more deserving teachers who get overlooked in the process. Besides, the Koreans will not be remiss in regularly supervising the foreign teachers they bring into their country at great expense, and in demanding value for their money. If they find that they are being cheated by a set of ill qualified, incompetent Sri Lankan teachers they will not hesitate to terminate their contract with us, and look elsewhere for recruiting the personnel they need. They are rich enough to choose the best for their children, be it teachers of English or anything else.
If Sri Lanka must send teachers of English to Korea, this should be accomplished in such a way that the crisis situation that exists in our own country’s English teaching arena is not aggravated. In fact, through proper management, the scheme could be exploited not only to attract qualified young people to the profession to fill in the vacancies left by teachers selected to serve abroad, but also to enhance their performance by offering a term of foreign employment as an incentive.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Vesak Festival
THE VESAK FESTIVAL
(The following is an updated version of an article of mine first published in The Island newspaper on 17th May (the Vesak day) 2000)
The Vesak Full Moon Poya Day falls on the 27th of this month. Buddhists traditionally believe that Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born, attained Enlightenment (after which he came to be known as the Buddha) and finally passed away on a Vesak Full Moon Poya Day. The Vesak festival celebrates these three important events in the life of the Buddha. The Sinhala Buddhists attribute an additional significance to this day: they believe that the Parinibbana (Passing Away) of the Buddha and the arrival of Prince Vijaya, the legendary founder of the Sinhalese race, in the
The manner of celebrating this religious festival among the Sinhalese Buddhists, as befits its fivefold significance, is such that it provides an occasion for a host of religious and cultural activities. This makes Vesak a deeply felt experience for Sri Lankan Buddhists.
Whereas the Sinhala Aluth Avurudda is a secular festival celebrated with much feasting, fun and frolic, the Vesak is an occasion to be observed with religious devotion and sensual restraint. Devotional practices form the core of the Vesak ceremonies. The colourful cultural events constitute a kind of background to these.
In Sri Lanka, where every full moon day is a public holiday (being of importance to the Buddhists, the majority religious community in the island, on account of some historical event connected with the Buddhist faith in each case) the Vesak Full Moon Poya day is accorded the highest recognition amongst all full moon days. Like the Aluth Avurudda (April New Year) the Vesak Poya Day is marked with two public holidays.
The first of these is the Vesak Full Moon day which is devoted to religious observances like observing ‘sil’ (taking a personal vow to follow certain precepts in order to develop self discipline), meditation, listening to the Dhamma sermons, and giving alms, etc. These activities are usually conducted at Buddhist viharas. Since in the Buddhist faith there is little religious regimentation in terms of obligatory daily observances (the practice of religion being regarded as an individual responsibility dependent on understanding and volition), the elaborate, formal devotional programmes that are organized on the Vesak Full Moon day are in sharp contrast to the rather low key daily religious practices of the ordinary Buddhists. These programmes usually attract a large number of devotees and thus ensure massive popular participation.
Public worship in Buddhism plays only a secondary role. It is important insofar as it leads the followers of the teaching of the Buddha to autonomous pursuit of virtue, which is the essence of religious devotion for a Buddhist. There is no belief in a ‘saviour’ and hence no necessity to ‘pray’ to a higher power; they only pay their homage to the Triple Gem (Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha), affirm their faith in them and commit themselves to the practice of the teaching.
An invariable part of the devotional performances is the offering of flowers, incense, and light to the Buddha. This is a symbolic act full of meaning to a Buddhist. The formulaic Pali stanza that the devotees utter as they offer flowers means: “I offer these flowers to the Buddha. By the merit earned thus, may I attain Emancipation from suffering! Just as these flowers will fade and die, so will my body decay, too”. Thus the act of offering flowers is accompanied by reflection on the condition of mutability, an inescapable characteristic of all existence, which is a central truth in the Buddhist teaching. The sweet scent of incense signifies the incomparable virtues of the Buddha, and light represents enlightenment that dispels the darkness of ignorance. In Buddhism wisdom takes precedence over faith.
“With Enlightenement Light arose! Wisdom arose!” so, what better way is there to worship the Buddha than to light lamps in His name on the Vesak night? The whole island is illuminated with Vesak lamps, which range from the humblest ‘meti pahan’ (clay lamps) to the most intricate electrically illuminated ‘Vesak lanterns’. The commonest form of Vesak lantern is the ‘bucket’, which is a bucket-shaped paper lamp with a candle stuck at its bottom.
Buckets are of different colours. These colours usually correspond to the colours of ‘Buddha rays’ – rays believed to emanate from the Buddha’s sacred person and form a halo. These are six in number: blue, yellow, red, white, crimson, and a mixture of all these colours. They form the circle of wisdom shown round the paintings and images of the Buddha in places of worship. They are also the colours of the Buddhist flag. Children take special delight in making Vesak lanterns following traditional as well as innovative new models. Myriads of these colourful lights can be seen on the Vesak nights. No Buddhist house is without some form of illumination to mark the Vesak. Even some non-Buddhists light lamps to express solidarity with their Buddhist neighbours and in appreciation of the message of peace and loving-kindness that the founder of Buddhism taught.
Among the thousands of Vesak illuminations that we can see are the ‘thoranas’ (arches, or ‘pandals’ as Sri Lankans call them in English), which are structures erected at such public places as markets and road junctions. They have facades on which are painted scenes from the Buddha’s life or pictures illustrating stories of religious significance. Often professional commentators describe in verse the scenes or stories depicted. On the Vesak nights thousands of sightseers move about the cities watching these ‘thoranas’. There used to be special ‘thorana service’ buses during the Vesak nights ferrying these sightseers around Colombo and the suburbs in the past before incidents of political violence disturbed the peace. (Let’s hope that those peaceful times are back for good!)
The Vesak ‘dansalas’ are another usual feature. These are temporary ‘alms centres’ which serve free food and drink as a charitable act to all those who wish to refresh themselves. The practice of giving is a cardinal virtue in Buddhism. It is connected with the idea of ‘renunciation’ – giving up worldly possessions in order to gradually eliminate ‘craving’, the root cause of being and suffering according to the Buddhist teaching.
Vesak greeting cards and carols are traditions borrowed from Christians. The exchange of Vesak cards is one way of sharing the joy of the season. The Vesak carol singers (due to another borrowed practice from Christians) are usually school children dressed in immaculate white; they go from place to place and sing the carols to the delight of the pious.
Thus the Vesak festival provides the opportunity for the Sri Lankan Buddhists to give creative expression to their religious and cultural ideals though a gamut of traditional activities. It is an important national event that reinvigorates their faith in their religion, and reaffirms their commitment to the principles of loving-kindness, peace and tolerance.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Aluth Avurudda - A Celebration of Life
The Aluth Avurudda – A Celebration of Life
(This article was first published in The Island of 13th April 2001; it has later appeared in a number of international online publications at various times over the last decade. I notice that the published version of the article has acquired certain errors and omissions not found in my original. Here is the same article as I wrote it before offering it for publication, unaltered except for a few emendations. But I don’t claim that my article is now perfect; the shortcomings that still remain are mine. I have added some pictures to this version, by courtesy of Google Images.)
The Sinhala Hindu New Year – the Aluth Avurudda in Sinhalese – is celebrated in the month of Bak according to the Sinhalese calendar. The name ‘Bak’ derives from the Sanskrit word ‘bhagya’ meaning ‘fortunate’. The month of ‘Bak’ corresponds to April in the Gregorian calendar, which is commonly used in Sri Lanka today as it is in other parts of the world. Although there is usually little conspicuous seasonal change experienced in the course of the year in tropical Sri Lanka except for a relatively hot August and a relatively cool December, the month of Bak is associated with a delightful vernal atmosphere, and an unusual freshness in nature enhanced by spring blossoms and azure
skies despite occasional showers. This is also the time that the ripened paddy is gathered in, which gives rise to a pervasive sense of plenty, especially to rural Sri Lanka.
The Bak festive seaon centres around a national cultural event which is unique in a number of ways. The Sinhala Hindu New Year is probably the only major traditional festival that is commonly observed by the largest number of Sinhalese and Tamils in the country. Its non-ethnic non-religious character is another distinctive feature. This festival cannot be described as ethnic because it is celebrated by both the Sinhalese and the Tamils, yet not by all of them either: only the Sinhalese Buddhists and the Hindu Tamils participate in it, the Christians in both communities having nothing to do with it. On the other hand, it is a non-religious celebration in that not all Buddhists nor all Hindus in the world take part in it; only the Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus do. {I owe this
description of the non-ethnic, non-religious nature of the Aluth Avurudda to Professor J.B.Dissanayake’s explanation of the subject in his booklet The April New Year Festival (Pioneer Lanka Publications. London.1993)}.In terms of traditional astrological beliefs, the sun is said to complete one circular movement across the twelve segments of the zodiac in the course of the year, taking a month to traverse each constellation. The arbitrary beginning of this circular solar progress is taken to be Aries (Mesha), which is conventionally represented by the zodiacal sign of ‘the ram’. Having travelled from Aries to Pisces (Meena usually represented by the drawing of ‘two fish’), the sun must pass from Pisces to Aries to begin a new year. The solar new year (known as the Shaka calendar) is reckoned from this transit (sankranthi), which comes a week or two after the beginning of the new year according to the Sinhalese calendar. The Vesak Festival, which marks the dawn of the Buddhist new year, comes at least another month later. The Aluth Avurudda centres on the ‘transit’ of the sun from Pisces to Aries. It is remarkable for Sinhalese Buddhists to thus celebrate the beginning of the solar new year, rather than their own Buddhist new year. So the Aluth Avurudda appears to be in homage of the sun god, which is significant for an agrarian community.
Because of the increasing popular attention that it receives in Sri Lanka nowadays, the first of January seems to eclipse the New Year in April in terms of the popular recognition it enjoys. Those of us who enjoyed the Sinhala Aluth Avurudda as the main secular festival of the year may wonder with some justification whether it is now beginning to be shelved as yet another “cultural anachronism”.
This is indeed a regrettable state of affairs. Institutions such as the Aluth Avurudda and the various Esala Peraheras are vitally important cultural legacies we have inherited from the past, and they help sustain and define our identity as a people. In the face of the inexorable advance of modernism and globalization, the threat of cultural obliteration and loss of national identity is very real.
The Aluth Avurudda is a part of our rich cultural heritage, which includes among other similar treasures the historic dagabas, tanks, sculptures, paintings, and specimens of ancient literature. Who among us the inheritors of such an age old culture can be indifferent to the loss of this incomparable legacy? True, we must modernize, and participat
e in the emerging world order so as to keep pace with the rest of the international community in science and technology, and in the advancement of the general quality of living that it makes possible; yet, it would be most unfortunate if we were so foolhardy as to throw overboard the cherished possessions from the past in the name of progress.These things have come down to us through the ages because they are ingrained in our history and culture. For thousands of years our ancestors – the inhabitants of this island - built up a highly organized agrarian civilization based on the principles of harmonious co-existence with nature, non-violence, tolerance and peace. The Aluth Avurudda wonderfully demonstrates our national ethos with its characteristic emphasis of the renewal and reaffirmation of goodwill within families and among neighbours, and in the series of ritualistic practices and observances that are meant to revitalize an essential link between human beings and nature.
I have vivid memories of how the Aluth Avurudda festivities were held in the remote villages of the Nuwara Eliya District in the late fifties and early sixties when we were young children. The Avurudda was an event we looked forward to for a whole year through interminable months of school, and ups and downs of childish fortunes (such as exam success or failure, friendship or fighting among playmates). At this time of the year we were invariably aware of a general awakening in nature. It was the time when the paddy was harvested and the fields were left fallow for a few weeks, allowing us children to romp about and play ‘round
ers’; it was the time when exotic birds with bright plumage like the golden oriole sang from the flower-laden trees; it was the time when the humble dwellings of the peasants were cleaned and whitewashed, adding to the sunny brilliance of the surroundings. Unlike children today, we had more time to play, because tuition and cramming was almost unknown then and nature had not yet been replaced by TV and computer in engaging the aesthetic sense of the young. The impression we got from observing the multitude of ‘beauteous forms’ in the environment was that even nature joined us in our joy – a very positive sort of ‘pathetic fallacy’!The sighting of the new moon was the first of the Avurudda rites. Then came ‘bathing for the old year’ as it was called, followed by the ‘nonagathe’ period (literally, a period without auspicious times); being considered inappropriate for any form of work, this idle period was entirely devoted to religious observances and play. Cooking and partaking of milkrice, starting work for the new year, anointing oil on the head, and leaving for work were the other practices. All these rites were performed at astrologically determined auspicious moments. Although belief in astrology and other occult practices is contrary to the spirit of Buddhism, in the villages it was the Buddhist monks themselves who prepared the medicinal oils in the temples and applied these on the heads of the celebrants, young and old, while chanting ‘pirith’ so as to ensure their good health for the whole year. In this way, the Aluth Avurudda traditions touched every important aspect of life: physical wellbeing, economy, religion, and recreation.
Children and adults walked in gay abandon about the village dressed in their new clothes visiting friends and relatives amidst the cacophony of ‘raban’ playing and the sound of firecrackers set off everywhere. The aroma of savoury dishes and smell of sweetmeats arose from every household. Visitors were plied with all sorts of sweetmeats. Amidst all this visiting, playing and merrymaking everybody was careful to be at home for the observance of the rites at appointed times.
It never occurred to us (or to our parents, I am sure) to question the necessity, or disbelieve the efficacy, of these rites. The sun was a god; the shining thing in the sky was not him, though; it was only his chariot! We really sympathized with him over the uncertainty and anxiety he was supposed to undergo during the interregnum between the demise of the old year and the dawn of the new, i.e. the period of ‘transit’ (sankranthi). The ‘Avurudu Kumaraya’ – the New Year Prince – was as real in our imagination as the Sun God. That we didn’t see him in flesh and blood was in the nature of things, too.
Today the Aluth Avurudda means much less to us than it did in the past. Our response to the theme of the festival has lost much of its emotional content. Those rites, auspicious times, and astrological beliefs are nothing more than irrelevant superstitions to many. Most of those who still follow the customs associated with the Aluth Avurudda do so as a concession to tradition, out of a sense of nostalgia. Our failure to participate in the joyous experience which the Aluth Avurudda was in our childhood is a very significant loss. The mystique charm and the sense of the
numinous (holy, divine) which informed the event have evaporated. This, in large measure, is due to our ineluctable sophistication.
Not all is lost, though. The Sinhala Hindu New Year still remains a powerful symbol of the renewal of hope for the future and a reaffirmation of our bond with nature and our commitment to the time-honoured values of our forefathers. It is truly a celebration of life.
Rohana R.Wasala
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Literacy or Transliteracy?
Literacy or Transliteracy?
(This first appeared in The Island on Wednesday 3rd March 2010)
Literacy in the new media age involves much more than what its conventional definition says. Traditionally it is defined as the ability to read and write. A person is said to be literate if they can read and write in their first language at a basic level. Here reading is taken to mean decoding a piece of writing by analysing graphic symbols, and writing to mean encoding meaning in the form of a text by the opposite process. Reading and writing are not limited to this today since technology has opened up new and exciting possibilities for both. Any modern description of literacy should comprehend this technological and conceptual sophistication.
(As the reader may remember, there are ‘dynamic’ definitions of literacy today to replace the conventional ‘static’ definition suggested above. However, these are outside the scope of this essay.)
The criticism of a perceived ‘decline of the reading habit among the youth of today’ could probably be substantiated in terms of the traditional view of reading, i.e. reading a printed text off the page of a book. But we know that people, particularly young students, still do a lot of reading sitting before their computer screens. True, a few of them may be merely playing games; but the majority use the computer to do more serious work either studying or doing a job. And students who are serious readers and writers do occasionally transfer a substantial part of their work from the computer screen to the book page to continue their academic, literary, or professional pursuits at a more leisurely pace.
This occasional shuttling between electronic and paper texts reminds us that the historical shift from the page to the screen is by no means complete, and , probably, will never be for the foreseeable future. However, the innovations that have accompanied this ongoing change (from the paper text to the electronic) are the most significant in their implications for the relative richness of the experience of reading and writing that has been achieved through the application of technology. On the face of it, reading still remains nothing more than running one’s eyes through a script, and writing nothing more than making certain marks on a blank surface either by pushing a pen across a piece of paper or tapping some keys on a keyboard (which view is, of course, not correct: reading and writing are highly demanding, complex intellectual feats). Yet the recent advent of technology in the sphere of written discourse has brought about many refinements in comparison with which the various improvements achieved over millennia in this area seem mere ripples in an otherwise placid sea of slow progress.
The first decade of the new millennium that we are just passing saw these changes accelerating. As early as 2002, Colombi and Schleppegrel were tempted to write: “In today’s complex world, literacy means far more than learning to read and write in order to accomplish particular discrete tasks. Continued changes in technology and society mean that literacy tasks are themselves always changing.” as quoted in ‘Tips for Teaching with CALL’ by Carol A. Chapelle and Joan Jamieson (Pearson Longman, 2008). The obvious direction of change was noted in the following words of Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media in the Faculty of Humanities at De Montfort University, reporting on the ‘Tranliteracies’ Conference held at the University of California at Santa Barbara on June 7-8, 2005: “Unfortunately for some, however, this new literacy is not about reading fixed type, but about reading on fluid and varied platforms – blogs, email, hypertext and, soon, digital paper and all kinds of mobile media in buildings, vehicles, and supermarket aisles. Although text still dominates at the moment, it is possible that it might come to be superseded by image, audio, or even ideogram as the medium of choice. Hence ‘transliteracy’ – literacy across media.”
The shift from reading from a paper text to reading from an electronic text represents a significant change in our experience of reading. This is due to a number of reasons. The most obvious of these is the rich blending of different modes of communicating – audio, video, graphic, pictorial, etc - that an electronic text usually represents. A writer can achieve, and a reader can respond to, amazing results in the written exchange of ideas. Its multimodality invests an electronic text with a power to energize, shock, and galvanize the readers!
Another powerful concept that is being practically realized is the device known as hypertext. This is a way of patterning information in a database (a collection of data or facts stored in a computer to be accessed, used, and if necessary augmented by users) in such a way that certain key words in a text can be elaborated by individual readers by following the links given, depending on their needs and choices; these links lead the investigating readers to other texts on the Web which enable them to further define the meaning/significance/content/relevance of the original words for them. This means that readers can avail themselves of valuable information without having to read whole texts for the purpose. How useful hypertext could be in reading, especially in academia, goes without saying.
Of course, there’s the criticism that hypertext links sometimes lead the readers from text to text in a labyrinthine trail, and thus constitute a danger to them, and that students can be thereby inveigled into a wasteful academic wild goose chase. However, in reply one could say that reading in any context means reading intelligently, and critically for a specific purpose; serious readers know how to construct their meaning out of a text that is the most authentic, plausible, and credible, and relevant to them by following only the reliable leads, and by circumventing pitfalls.
Just as readers can thus engage in very constructive and fruitful interaction with an electronic text, so can writers work with the computer in numerous creative ways for producing an effective piece of writing. For example, consider how a computer allows you to check your spelling and grammar, to use different fonts, and font sizes, to enliven your text with pictures and graphics, with animation, and what not.
Not long ago, doing reference reading was a laborious process. Apart from the hassle involved in physically accessing the sources of information, one had to endlessly pore over tomes of literature about various subjects following (sometimes outdated by decades) references given by tutors. Today, a few clicks with your mouse on a computer screen bring you face to face with a wealth of information that is up to date, and authoritative. Of course, it is up to the discerning reader to sort the wheat from the chaff, sifting through the abundance of materials on offer.
The plethora of information available online is open to anyone. This tends to close the traditional gap between teachers and students, scholars and informed laypersons, and professionals and amateurs. Teachers and scholars need to be always extra rigorous in safeguarding their authority. They are obliged to cultivate a sense of modesty in the face of what looks like an inevitable depreciation of scholarship. However, true scholars need not worry, because mere learning – being well informed- is not knowledge. Teachers and scholars will never go out of business simply because modern technology makes the dissemination of information so easy.
The new digital culture is obliterating the boundaries between the academia and the general public, for no longer is academic research the exclusive preserve of ‘academics’. Interested non-specialists among the wider public can engage with academic research. This is a boon to people, who, though intellectually gifted, have been denied an opportunity to realize their potential due to unpropitious circumstances. The new kinds of reading and writing can help such people realize their academic ambitions with greater ease and probably less expense than in a print environment.
Literacy in the digital age, or preferably ‘transliteracy’, is thus a gateway to knowledge and education. For us in Sri Lanka English is the key to this kind of literacy. As in the case of many other countries, English as a second language is both a means and an end here. On the one hand, English is the medium through which to access global knowledge and technology, and also to achieve academic success in other subjects; on the other hand, a knowledge of English is being pursued for its own sake. English is a tool that is indispensable in the digital age.
Language is unique as a tool. It is unique in that the more you use it seriously, creatively, and intelligently, the sharper, and the more reliable it gets, whereas other tools get wasted and worn out with use. Literacy in the digital age has a special connection with English for us because of this reason.
As far as English language learners are concerned, interacting with digital texts provides a context for the active use of all the four basic language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), something recognized as a basic principle involved in creating an effective second language learning environment. Much modern research suggests that reading and writing assignments, along with listening, thinking, and speaking activities are essential for the development of second language proficiency in learners. This is a condition that developing ‘transliteracy’ eminently fulfils.
Ref:
Words attributed to Prof. Sue Thomas (2005) retrieved from http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk (01.03.2010)
Rohana R. Wasala
(This first appeared in The Island on Wednesday 3rd March 2010)
Literacy in the new media age involves much more than what its conventional definition says. Traditionally it is defined as the ability to read and write. A person is said to be literate if they can read and write in their first language at a basic level. Here reading is taken to mean decoding a piece of writing by analysing graphic symbols, and writing to mean encoding meaning in the form of a text by the opposite process. Reading and writing are not limited to this today since technology has opened up new and exciting possibilities for both. Any modern description of literacy should comprehend this technological and conceptual sophistication.
(As the reader may remember, there are ‘dynamic’ definitions of literacy today to replace the conventional ‘static’ definition suggested above. However, these are outside the scope of this essay.)
The criticism of a perceived ‘decline of the reading habit among the youth of today’ could probably be substantiated in terms of the traditional view of reading, i.e. reading a printed text off the page of a book. But we know that people, particularly young students, still do a lot of reading sitting before their computer screens. True, a few of them may be merely playing games; but the majority use the computer to do more serious work either studying or doing a job. And students who are serious readers and writers do occasionally transfer a substantial part of their work from the computer screen to the book page to continue their academic, literary, or professional pursuits at a more leisurely pace.
This occasional shuttling between electronic and paper texts reminds us that the historical shift from the page to the screen is by no means complete, and , probably, will never be for the foreseeable future. However, the innovations that have accompanied this ongoing change (from the paper text to the electronic) are the most significant in their implications for the relative richness of the experience of reading and writing that has been achieved through the application of technology. On the face of it, reading still remains nothing more than running one’s eyes through a script, and writing nothing more than making certain marks on a blank surface either by pushing a pen across a piece of paper or tapping some keys on a keyboard (which view is, of course, not correct: reading and writing are highly demanding, complex intellectual feats). Yet the recent advent of technology in the sphere of written discourse has brought about many refinements in comparison with which the various improvements achieved over millennia in this area seem mere ripples in an otherwise placid sea of slow progress.
The first decade of the new millennium that we are just passing saw these changes accelerating. As early as 2002, Colombi and Schleppegrel were tempted to write: “In today’s complex world, literacy means far more than learning to read and write in order to accomplish particular discrete tasks. Continued changes in technology and society mean that literacy tasks are themselves always changing.” as quoted in ‘Tips for Teaching with CALL’ by Carol A. Chapelle and Joan Jamieson (Pearson Longman, 2008). The obvious direction of change was noted in the following words of Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media in the Faculty of Humanities at De Montfort University, reporting on the ‘Tranliteracies’ Conference held at the University of California at Santa Barbara on June 7-8, 2005: “Unfortunately for some, however, this new literacy is not about reading fixed type, but about reading on fluid and varied platforms – blogs, email, hypertext and, soon, digital paper and all kinds of mobile media in buildings, vehicles, and supermarket aisles. Although text still dominates at the moment, it is possible that it might come to be superseded by image, audio, or even ideogram as the medium of choice. Hence ‘transliteracy’ – literacy across media.”
The shift from reading from a paper text to reading from an electronic text represents a significant change in our experience of reading. This is due to a number of reasons. The most obvious of these is the rich blending of different modes of communicating – audio, video, graphic, pictorial, etc - that an electronic text usually represents. A writer can achieve, and a reader can respond to, amazing results in the written exchange of ideas. Its multimodality invests an electronic text with a power to energize, shock, and galvanize the readers!
Another powerful concept that is being practically realized is the device known as hypertext. This is a way of patterning information in a database (a collection of data or facts stored in a computer to be accessed, used, and if necessary augmented by users) in such a way that certain key words in a text can be elaborated by individual readers by following the links given, depending on their needs and choices; these links lead the investigating readers to other texts on the Web which enable them to further define the meaning/significance/content/relevance of the original words for them. This means that readers can avail themselves of valuable information without having to read whole texts for the purpose. How useful hypertext could be in reading, especially in academia, goes without saying.
Of course, there’s the criticism that hypertext links sometimes lead the readers from text to text in a labyrinthine trail, and thus constitute a danger to them, and that students can be thereby inveigled into a wasteful academic wild goose chase. However, in reply one could say that reading in any context means reading intelligently, and critically for a specific purpose; serious readers know how to construct their meaning out of a text that is the most authentic, plausible, and credible, and relevant to them by following only the reliable leads, and by circumventing pitfalls.
Just as readers can thus engage in very constructive and fruitful interaction with an electronic text, so can writers work with the computer in numerous creative ways for producing an effective piece of writing. For example, consider how a computer allows you to check your spelling and grammar, to use different fonts, and font sizes, to enliven your text with pictures and graphics, with animation, and what not.
Not long ago, doing reference reading was a laborious process. Apart from the hassle involved in physically accessing the sources of information, one had to endlessly pore over tomes of literature about various subjects following (sometimes outdated by decades) references given by tutors. Today, a few clicks with your mouse on a computer screen bring you face to face with a wealth of information that is up to date, and authoritative. Of course, it is up to the discerning reader to sort the wheat from the chaff, sifting through the abundance of materials on offer.
The plethora of information available online is open to anyone. This tends to close the traditional gap between teachers and students, scholars and informed laypersons, and professionals and amateurs. Teachers and scholars need to be always extra rigorous in safeguarding their authority. They are obliged to cultivate a sense of modesty in the face of what looks like an inevitable depreciation of scholarship. However, true scholars need not worry, because mere learning – being well informed- is not knowledge. Teachers and scholars will never go out of business simply because modern technology makes the dissemination of information so easy.
The new digital culture is obliterating the boundaries between the academia and the general public, for no longer is academic research the exclusive preserve of ‘academics’. Interested non-specialists among the wider public can engage with academic research. This is a boon to people, who, though intellectually gifted, have been denied an opportunity to realize their potential due to unpropitious circumstances. The new kinds of reading and writing can help such people realize their academic ambitions with greater ease and probably less expense than in a print environment.
Literacy in the digital age, or preferably ‘transliteracy’, is thus a gateway to knowledge and education. For us in Sri Lanka English is the key to this kind of literacy. As in the case of many other countries, English as a second language is both a means and an end here. On the one hand, English is the medium through which to access global knowledge and technology, and also to achieve academic success in other subjects; on the other hand, a knowledge of English is being pursued for its own sake. English is a tool that is indispensable in the digital age.
Language is unique as a tool. It is unique in that the more you use it seriously, creatively, and intelligently, the sharper, and the more reliable it gets, whereas other tools get wasted and worn out with use. Literacy in the digital age has a special connection with English for us because of this reason.
As far as English language learners are concerned, interacting with digital texts provides a context for the active use of all the four basic language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), something recognized as a basic principle involved in creating an effective second language learning environment. Much modern research suggests that reading and writing assignments, along with listening, thinking, and speaking activities are essential for the development of second language proficiency in learners. This is a condition that developing ‘transliteracy’ eminently fulfils.
Ref:
Words attributed to Prof. Sue Thomas (2005) retrieved from http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk (01.03.2010)
Rohana R. Wasala
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Learner Autonomy in Perspective
Learner Autonomy in Perspective
(First published in The Island on Wednesday 30th December 2009)
Although the statement that effective learning occurs only when the learner assumes responsibility for his/her own learning may seem a truism today, it is worth a serious re-appraisal as it has crucial implications for the success of the national English language teaching drive now underway. It may be argued that those who are involved in this huge undertaking could short-circuit certain potential difficulties such as personnel and other resource deficits, and restrictions on the availability of time in the implementation of the programme by promoting learner autonomy not only among the students, but also among the teachers. (To develop themselves professionally teachers must perforce be engaged in learning, too.)
The term learner autonomy was coined in 1981 by Henri Holec. He is known as the “father” of the concept. Holec defined learner autonomy as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning”.
Learner autonomy – roughly, a situation in which a student chooses his/her own learning objectives, targets, content, assessment, strategies etc. independently – is usually treated as a Western cultural concept, and, in fact, it is sometimes criticized as unsuitable for non-Western cultures on that account. However, my own view is that the notion that learning ultimately belongs to the learner, and that learning is an activity that the student himself/herself must perform internally without teacher intervention is not actually alien to us; it is very much a part of our traditional education culture; ours is a culture that rates the gathering of knowledge highly. The traditional assumption ingrained in our culture that the student must do the real learning, while the teacher’s duty is to enable the student to do so is implicit in the Sinhalese verb uganwanawa (which is usually imperfectly translated into English as teach ). In reality, uganwanawa has a causative meaning: make (someone) learn/cause (someone) to learn . So, what could be more compatible with the idea of learner autonomy than this conception of teaching?
In the second/foreign language teaching/learning field in the West, the notion of learner independence came to the fore in association with new methodological innovations which were introduced following a shift of focus from the mastery of structure to the development of communicative ability as the central preoccupation of language teaching about forty years ago (in the 1970s and 80s). Under the Audio-lingual method that had prevailed before, structure was considered crucial, but meaning less decisive in language teaching, and it was assumed that habit formation was the way that languages were learnt. As a consequence, language practice consisted in drilling structural patterns, and in memorizing grammar-based dialogues. The linguists and language teaching practitioners who challenged both the audio-lingual theories and practices maintained that language learning involved complex cognitive processes rather than mere mechanical habit formation, and proposed various cognitive techniques as alternatives. The communicative approaches that emerged later in reaction to Audiolingualism subscribed to the ideological premise that learning a language means learning to communicate through it in meaningful contexts.
The discovery learning principles first adumbrated by Jerome Bruner (1967) favoured the recognition of the learner as the central player in a communicative language teaching/learning situation. The learner-centred concept of instruction gave the language learner, at least in theory, a fair degree of control over the learning process, something earlier enjoyed exclusively by the teacher. The teacher was now assigned different, but equally crucial roles such as guide, facilitator, counselor, etc.
What came to be known as ‘humanistic techniques’ (e.g. Community Language Learning –CLL- developed by Chales A. Curran, Professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago, and later written about at greater length by his pupil La Forge in the early 1980s) were concerned with the development of the whole person including not only linguistic knowledge and behvioural skills, but also the affective aspect (i.e. emotions and feelings), which, until then, had received little or no attention from researchers in the field.
Thus the principle of learner independence as a viable educational premise found itself ensconced in a conducive environment that would foster in the learner such qualities as a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection and deep understanding, and a resourceful and cooperative mindset in social interaction. David Little (2003), a long time researcher of the subject, comments on his view of learner autonomy in these words: “… there is a consensus that the practice of learner autonomy requires insight, a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection, and a readiness to be proactive in self-management and in interaction with others...... a holistic view of the learner that requires us to engage with the cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social dimensions of language learning and to worry about how they interact with one another. ....”.
The same researcher, in another document (than the one that I have just quoted from), mentions three pedagogical principles as forming the basis of the development of autonomy in the second/foreign language classroom:
• learner involvement
• learner reflection, and
• appropriate target language use
(I think I need not elaborate these as the readers, especially the initiate teachers, will find them self-explanatory.). From the above David Little extrapolates what the teachers should do to encourage learner autonomy among their pupils: to paraphrase him,
• use the target language as the preferred medium of classroom communication
• engage the learners in continuous search for good learning activities
• enable them to set their own learning targets
• require them to identify individual goals, but reach these through collaboration in small groups
• ensure that they keep written records of their learning (e.g. specific objectives, texts, tasks, lists of new words, etc.)
• get the students to regularly evaluate their progress as individual learners and as a class
(All these principles and practices, in my opinion, are particularly relevant to the context that is the focus of this article.)
Like discovery learning, learner autonomy cannot possibly be practiced to the exclusion of all other more traditional modes of instruction in a formal education setting like our school system. Schooling is a social pursuit, rather than an individual enterprise, and hence it precludes absolute learner autonomy. The individual learner needs to accommodate to the common goals and strategies of the social grouping of which s/he is a member. Students must share in a common pool of resources, accept specific educational aims and objectives determined for the whole country by a central authority, employ strategies universally prescribed, subject to periodic assessment and certification parameters, and so on, and thereby engage with a formidable national educational ‘monolith’. Such an institution makes a great demand on the administrators including the teachers for accountability in terms of regular monitoring of student progress, assessment and certification, etc.
English language students in a formal education setting like that, in order to become autonomous learners within the system, must learn to negotiate with inevitable restrictions on their ‘freedom’ (as seekers after knowledge). Each class represents a highly heterogeneous community of learners. They are from diverse social backgrounds; there are individual differences between them in terms of ability, motivation, and attainment levels. These differences are compounded by divergent personality traits. Such an environment makes the practice of learner autonomy both necessary and challenging.
Obviously, we cannot and should not leave everything to learner autonomy. But its integration into the general instruction system as a relevant and workable proposition is to be desired in view of the many advantages that can accrue from it. Like many other sound principles of education, learner autonomy can be made to work in combination with other methods, techniques and strategies.
To promote learner autonomy among the students, teachers need not give lectures about it. Instead they must devise activities, in association with the syllabuses and general guidelines officially provided, that encourage them to proceed on their own, independently consulting sources including the teacher if necessary. Both the teachers and the students must realize that learner independence does not mean the ‘Teach yourself’ mode of learning, although the autonomous learners could resort to it as a strategy occasioned by need.
An autonomous learner is responsible for his/her own learning, a situation that normally upsets the conventional relationship between the teacher and the pupil. In a traditional classroom setting, the teacher presides over the proceedings, reserving exclusive rights for making all the choices – about the objectives, the subject matter, the strategies employed. But the learner autonomy criterion allocates to the learner a controlling role in the learning situation, which allows him or her to use the teacher as a resource like any other resource.
This is because learner autonomy shifts the focus from teaching to learning; learning becomes central, and teaching ancillary to it.. Learner independence gives maximum controlling power to the learner. But it does not isolate one learner from the other learners; peer support and cooperation are essential factors in a class where learner autonomy operates.
Mutual support and cooperation are paramount in a second/foreign language learning situation. The prevalent communication-based language development approach demands that the students use the target language for communication in a meaningful context in order to acquire proficiency in it. A class of learners who are more or less at the same level of competence in the language will find free communal synergy an excellent resource for collective advancement. David Little has this to say in this connection: “...... and if language learning depends crucially on language use, learners who enjoy a high degree of social autonomy in their learning environment should find it easier than otherwise to master the full range of discourse roles on which effective spontaneous communication depends”.
In today’s highly competitive examination-oriented tuition culture, such social collaboration will take a lot of convincing to materialize. We know that some students in schools and private institutions, and even in seats of higher learning, preparing for exams show a marked reluctance to share their knowledge or sources of information with their colleagues for fear that such sharing would spoil their own chances of success. They must be taught that such egotistic concerns are not only baseless, but counterproductive.
In a language learning context collaborative interaction amounts to social autonomy. It is doubly profitable. If language use is the way to learn it, here the end and the means become identical. The more collaboration there is (i.e. in terms of communicative use of English), the more language learning will result.
Once a teacher demonstrated to his class how useful sharing of language knowledge could prove for everybody. “Let’s imagine”, he said, “that we have decided to pool all the money that we have between us, and share it again so that each of us will have the same amount of money at the end. When we share the money like this, those of us who had more money at the beginning will end up having less, and those of us who had less to begin with, will end up having more than before. So, in that kind of transaction, some of us are bound to lose, and some to gain. If we decided to share our linguistic competence in English instead, everybody will gain, and no one will lose, because those who knew more at the beginning will have enhanced their competence even further at the end, and those who had less knowledge at the beginning will end up with an improved competency level. The reason is that the sharing in the form of interaction will invariably benefit both categories of learners”.
The new English language competency raising endeavour of the government is an ambitious initiative launched in the general interest of the youth of the country. For its success the active involvement of the learners themselves is crucial. In ensuring this both the teachers and the parents have a vital role to play.
Mere classroom teaching alone will not be adequate. Teachers must convince the students and their parents that, if the students take on responsibility to learn the language without depending on the schools or tuition centres to do that for them, they can do it easily in a relatively short time. Fortunately for them, English is common currency in Sri Lanka today. There is plenty of it in circulation. Those who are interested can have it for the asking. Students must interact with the English that is around them. They can watch English movies with a conscious desire to learn some English; they can learn English while listening to sports commentaries or exchanging sms messages with their friends or browsing through the Internet or reading billboards on the roadsides, and so on.
That kind of active engagement with English can be expected of our students if they acquire the special attribute of learner autonomy, something they can exploit both in private and in a social setting.. The new technology can free them from the restrictions imposed on them by classroom conditions while in school. For example, they can watch a complete film in which they have developed an interest by watching an episode in it shown in the class by the English teacher as a part of a lesson. Both teachers and parents should help create the environment that is necessary for the autonomous students to engage in proactive language learning at all times.
References:
Little, D (2003) “Autonomy and second/foreign language learning” retrieved 27th December 2009 from http://www.Ilas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/1409
Holec, H (1981) as referred to in /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learner autonomy/
Rohana R. Wasala
(First published in The Island on Wednesday 30th December 2009)
Although the statement that effective learning occurs only when the learner assumes responsibility for his/her own learning may seem a truism today, it is worth a serious re-appraisal as it has crucial implications for the success of the national English language teaching drive now underway. It may be argued that those who are involved in this huge undertaking could short-circuit certain potential difficulties such as personnel and other resource deficits, and restrictions on the availability of time in the implementation of the programme by promoting learner autonomy not only among the students, but also among the teachers. (To develop themselves professionally teachers must perforce be engaged in learning, too.)
The term learner autonomy was coined in 1981 by Henri Holec. He is known as the “father” of the concept. Holec defined learner autonomy as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning”.
Learner autonomy – roughly, a situation in which a student chooses his/her own learning objectives, targets, content, assessment, strategies etc. independently – is usually treated as a Western cultural concept, and, in fact, it is sometimes criticized as unsuitable for non-Western cultures on that account. However, my own view is that the notion that learning ultimately belongs to the learner, and that learning is an activity that the student himself/herself must perform internally without teacher intervention is not actually alien to us; it is very much a part of our traditional education culture; ours is a culture that rates the gathering of knowledge highly. The traditional assumption ingrained in our culture that the student must do the real learning, while the teacher’s duty is to enable the student to do so is implicit in the Sinhalese verb uganwanawa (which is usually imperfectly translated into English as teach ). In reality, uganwanawa has a causative meaning: make (someone) learn/cause (someone) to learn . So, what could be more compatible with the idea of learner autonomy than this conception of teaching?
In the second/foreign language teaching/learning field in the West, the notion of learner independence came to the fore in association with new methodological innovations which were introduced following a shift of focus from the mastery of structure to the development of communicative ability as the central preoccupation of language teaching about forty years ago (in the 1970s and 80s). Under the Audio-lingual method that had prevailed before, structure was considered crucial, but meaning less decisive in language teaching, and it was assumed that habit formation was the way that languages were learnt. As a consequence, language practice consisted in drilling structural patterns, and in memorizing grammar-based dialogues. The linguists and language teaching practitioners who challenged both the audio-lingual theories and practices maintained that language learning involved complex cognitive processes rather than mere mechanical habit formation, and proposed various cognitive techniques as alternatives. The communicative approaches that emerged later in reaction to Audiolingualism subscribed to the ideological premise that learning a language means learning to communicate through it in meaningful contexts.
The discovery learning principles first adumbrated by Jerome Bruner (1967) favoured the recognition of the learner as the central player in a communicative language teaching/learning situation. The learner-centred concept of instruction gave the language learner, at least in theory, a fair degree of control over the learning process, something earlier enjoyed exclusively by the teacher. The teacher was now assigned different, but equally crucial roles such as guide, facilitator, counselor, etc.
What came to be known as ‘humanistic techniques’ (e.g. Community Language Learning –CLL- developed by Chales A. Curran, Professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago, and later written about at greater length by his pupil La Forge in the early 1980s) were concerned with the development of the whole person including not only linguistic knowledge and behvioural skills, but also the affective aspect (i.e. emotions and feelings), which, until then, had received little or no attention from researchers in the field.
Thus the principle of learner independence as a viable educational premise found itself ensconced in a conducive environment that would foster in the learner such qualities as a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection and deep understanding, and a resourceful and cooperative mindset in social interaction. David Little (2003), a long time researcher of the subject, comments on his view of learner autonomy in these words: “… there is a consensus that the practice of learner autonomy requires insight, a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection, and a readiness to be proactive in self-management and in interaction with others...... a holistic view of the learner that requires us to engage with the cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social dimensions of language learning and to worry about how they interact with one another. ....”.
The same researcher, in another document (than the one that I have just quoted from), mentions three pedagogical principles as forming the basis of the development of autonomy in the second/foreign language classroom:
• learner involvement
• learner reflection, and
• appropriate target language use
(I think I need not elaborate these as the readers, especially the initiate teachers, will find them self-explanatory.). From the above David Little extrapolates what the teachers should do to encourage learner autonomy among their pupils: to paraphrase him,
• use the target language as the preferred medium of classroom communication
• engage the learners in continuous search for good learning activities
• enable them to set their own learning targets
• require them to identify individual goals, but reach these through collaboration in small groups
• ensure that they keep written records of their learning (e.g. specific objectives, texts, tasks, lists of new words, etc.)
• get the students to regularly evaluate their progress as individual learners and as a class
(All these principles and practices, in my opinion, are particularly relevant to the context that is the focus of this article.)
Like discovery learning, learner autonomy cannot possibly be practiced to the exclusion of all other more traditional modes of instruction in a formal education setting like our school system. Schooling is a social pursuit, rather than an individual enterprise, and hence it precludes absolute learner autonomy. The individual learner needs to accommodate to the common goals and strategies of the social grouping of which s/he is a member. Students must share in a common pool of resources, accept specific educational aims and objectives determined for the whole country by a central authority, employ strategies universally prescribed, subject to periodic assessment and certification parameters, and so on, and thereby engage with a formidable national educational ‘monolith’. Such an institution makes a great demand on the administrators including the teachers for accountability in terms of regular monitoring of student progress, assessment and certification, etc.
English language students in a formal education setting like that, in order to become autonomous learners within the system, must learn to negotiate with inevitable restrictions on their ‘freedom’ (as seekers after knowledge). Each class represents a highly heterogeneous community of learners. They are from diverse social backgrounds; there are individual differences between them in terms of ability, motivation, and attainment levels. These differences are compounded by divergent personality traits. Such an environment makes the practice of learner autonomy both necessary and challenging.
Obviously, we cannot and should not leave everything to learner autonomy. But its integration into the general instruction system as a relevant and workable proposition is to be desired in view of the many advantages that can accrue from it. Like many other sound principles of education, learner autonomy can be made to work in combination with other methods, techniques and strategies.
To promote learner autonomy among the students, teachers need not give lectures about it. Instead they must devise activities, in association with the syllabuses and general guidelines officially provided, that encourage them to proceed on their own, independently consulting sources including the teacher if necessary. Both the teachers and the students must realize that learner independence does not mean the ‘Teach yourself’ mode of learning, although the autonomous learners could resort to it as a strategy occasioned by need.
An autonomous learner is responsible for his/her own learning, a situation that normally upsets the conventional relationship between the teacher and the pupil. In a traditional classroom setting, the teacher presides over the proceedings, reserving exclusive rights for making all the choices – about the objectives, the subject matter, the strategies employed. But the learner autonomy criterion allocates to the learner a controlling role in the learning situation, which allows him or her to use the teacher as a resource like any other resource.
This is because learner autonomy shifts the focus from teaching to learning; learning becomes central, and teaching ancillary to it.. Learner independence gives maximum controlling power to the learner. But it does not isolate one learner from the other learners; peer support and cooperation are essential factors in a class where learner autonomy operates.
Mutual support and cooperation are paramount in a second/foreign language learning situation. The prevalent communication-based language development approach demands that the students use the target language for communication in a meaningful context in order to acquire proficiency in it. A class of learners who are more or less at the same level of competence in the language will find free communal synergy an excellent resource for collective advancement. David Little has this to say in this connection: “...... and if language learning depends crucially on language use, learners who enjoy a high degree of social autonomy in their learning environment should find it easier than otherwise to master the full range of discourse roles on which effective spontaneous communication depends”.
In today’s highly competitive examination-oriented tuition culture, such social collaboration will take a lot of convincing to materialize. We know that some students in schools and private institutions, and even in seats of higher learning, preparing for exams show a marked reluctance to share their knowledge or sources of information with their colleagues for fear that such sharing would spoil their own chances of success. They must be taught that such egotistic concerns are not only baseless, but counterproductive.
In a language learning context collaborative interaction amounts to social autonomy. It is doubly profitable. If language use is the way to learn it, here the end and the means become identical. The more collaboration there is (i.e. in terms of communicative use of English), the more language learning will result.
Once a teacher demonstrated to his class how useful sharing of language knowledge could prove for everybody. “Let’s imagine”, he said, “that we have decided to pool all the money that we have between us, and share it again so that each of us will have the same amount of money at the end. When we share the money like this, those of us who had more money at the beginning will end up having less, and those of us who had less to begin with, will end up having more than before. So, in that kind of transaction, some of us are bound to lose, and some to gain. If we decided to share our linguistic competence in English instead, everybody will gain, and no one will lose, because those who knew more at the beginning will have enhanced their competence even further at the end, and those who had less knowledge at the beginning will end up with an improved competency level. The reason is that the sharing in the form of interaction will invariably benefit both categories of learners”.
The new English language competency raising endeavour of the government is an ambitious initiative launched in the general interest of the youth of the country. For its success the active involvement of the learners themselves is crucial. In ensuring this both the teachers and the parents have a vital role to play.
Mere classroom teaching alone will not be adequate. Teachers must convince the students and their parents that, if the students take on responsibility to learn the language without depending on the schools or tuition centres to do that for them, they can do it easily in a relatively short time. Fortunately for them, English is common currency in Sri Lanka today. There is plenty of it in circulation. Those who are interested can have it for the asking. Students must interact with the English that is around them. They can watch English movies with a conscious desire to learn some English; they can learn English while listening to sports commentaries or exchanging sms messages with their friends or browsing through the Internet or reading billboards on the roadsides, and so on.
That kind of active engagement with English can be expected of our students if they acquire the special attribute of learner autonomy, something they can exploit both in private and in a social setting.. The new technology can free them from the restrictions imposed on them by classroom conditions while in school. For example, they can watch a complete film in which they have developed an interest by watching an episode in it shown in the class by the English teacher as a part of a lesson. Both teachers and parents should help create the environment that is necessary for the autonomous students to engage in proactive language learning at all times.
References:
Little, D (2003) “Autonomy and second/foreign language learning” retrieved 27th December 2009 from http://www.Ilas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/1409
Holec, H (1981) as referred to in /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learner autonomy/
Rohana R. Wasala
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