learning

Monday, March 5, 2018

"ENGLISH A PASSION OR A CHALLENGE "

"ENGLISH A PASSION OR A CHALLENGE "


                       We have seen that the students are struggling with English subject in Maharashtra. Even teachers are not confident about teaching English as they are having fear of English language. They aren't confident about their methods of teaching English. Most of them use traditional methods to teach English. While teaching they portray that English is very difficult subject . The students get scared due to this. They are very much influenced by their traditional methods. That's why students don't like English subject.
         During recent times Maharashtra government did a MOU to improve quality of English in primary schools. It's a big initiative. It is very beneficial to primary schools. Activities introduced by British Council are very innovative and it works on ground level. We have to apply them  Although teachers attended the trainings very enthusiastically, but most of them are not applying those strategies.Because of which again the students have abandoned their learning. Students always like to learn new things . They like to participate in various activities. They like to handle realia. They like  fun. Creativity is embedded in our students. we just have to motivstehave  them. They are the creators of their own knowledge. We must scaffold them. That's it.
          We have to understand there is a huge difference in learning English and our mother tongue. Though we apply thr same methods of teaching while teaching both the subjects. first we should try to understand the difference of learning these two languages.
            As far as , language learning is concerned, Mother tongue is in the environment of the child, the child has plenty of exposure to it from birth. But English is not in the child’s environment. There is no exposure to the language.Besides Learning of mother tongue is a natural process. It is very organic. On other side Learning of English is an intentional process, very inorganic Children listen and speak mother tongue for six years before they come to school. However there is very little listening and speaking of English at home or school. It means for children mother tongue is more familiar than English language. The child gets continuous positive feedback when learning the mother tongue – from family and community from birth. Usually no positive feedback is given when learning English, plenty of negative feedback for all mistakes.
The child needs to learn mother tongue to communicate. Child has no need for English in their day to day life. They cannot understand the need of English for the future. Only adults know the need of learning English for the child’s future. Hence they have forced to their children to learn English. Children are in under pressure because of this . Mother tongue is learnt without being taught grammar, yet children learn to understand and speak very complex sentences in 4 years. English teaching places too much focus on teaching grammar, which does not help the child at the early stage of learning to speak English. Mother tongue learning is effortless. Whereas Learning English takes a lot of effort. According to society, there is no status attached to the learning of mother tongue so the child does not experience failure. Knowing English is seen as a sign of superior status, causing fear of failure and lack of confidence. I think, there are fundamental differences between Marathi and English.
 For example-
Marathi is phonetic – we write exactly what we say. There is no need to learn spellings. English spellings are difficult, with many rules and may exceptions.
Syntax is not important in Indian languages.
मांजर दूध पिते has the same meaning as  दूध पिते मांजर
Syntax is critical in English .
The cat drinks milk is very different from
The milk drinks cat.
                        So , For effective teaching of English language, we should
We should know power ‘P’. The first P stands for Purpose. The child should feel motivated to learn. For the child the purpose can be short-term, like winning a paper flower or a ‘shabaski’ of performing a skit for the other class. Second P stands for Practice.Teachers must think of creative ways to make children practice a lot without getting bored. And third P stands for Positive reinforcement .Even the smallest effort by the child must be accepted and praised. The child must feel a sense of success and appreciation.
              So don’t forget
"ENGLISH SHOULD BE TAUGHT AS A LANGUAGE AND NOT AS A SUBJECT "

-Kalpana Bansod
SARP
Chandrapur

3 comments:

  1. Nice differentiation between mother tongue and other tongue. Nice example of 😸.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do you think the title for this article is appropriate?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think it’s good.
    Would you like to suggest any other title?

    ReplyDelete