They are lessons of a different kind at the Malkaduwawa Teacher Training Centre close to Kurunegala. The old order changeth, giving way to the new.
The emphasis is not on structure, grammar or pronunciation. It is just on speaking a language and speaking a language the ‘Asian way’ and that language is English. This is what four master-trainers in each province have been doing for their colleagues since February.
It all stemmed from a suggestion by President Mahinda Rajapaksa “the fundamentals man” to “break from the past and think out of the box”, says Presidential Advisor Sunimal Fernando who is Coordinator (English) and Convener, Presidential Task Force on English and IT, explaining that there was a need to change the ideology of English.
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| English teacher trainees participating in a 10-day training programme at the Teacher Centre, Bandaragama – Western Province |
What was the earlier ideology of English, asks Mr. Fernando, answering that it was an emblem of privilege. “English was being used as a social tool of repression.” You could not make any grammatical mistakes and the diction was elocution-driven. Anyone who couldn’t match up was ridiculed. The average child who comes out of school is terrified to speak because his peers would laugh at him. This was a socio-psychological barrier.
There was a need to destroy this ideology and also the methodology attached, he says, stressing, however, that it was not English that needed to be destroyed. The need was to project another ideology of English and empower that.
The mantle of strategizing the ideology of English as a skill for employment, English for communication and English as a life-skill like driving a car or riding a motorcycle, fell on the Presidential Task Force set up in November 2008 and when they looked around India was a good example of where it had worked.
This was to help Sri Lankans to get better employment, be upward mobile and have access to the external world of knowledge, says Mr. Fernando who feels that his greatest advantage in guiding the programme lay in the fact that he was not an English language expert. All English gurus had failed because on one hand they were from an urban background and kind of elitist while on the other they didn’t understand the rural mind.
The strategy of the Presidential Task Force is three-pronged:
- To train within 18 months, 22,000 English teachers, through a group of master-trainers, to teach spoken English in schools. Curricula, teaching material and a national strategy for such teacher training will be developed and a syllabus, curricula and exam system for the certification at the three levels of ‘elementary, intermediate and advanced’ not only of English teachers but also of English learners will be also designed;
- To implement a Cabinet decision to change the school curriculum, syllabus and examination system from a focus on structure and grammar to one of spoken or practical English.
- To teach spoken English through distance learning on TV.
Already 40 English teachers whose home language is Sinhala or Tamil, from villages and small towns have undergone a three-month tailor-made training course last year in Hyderabad, India, at the English and Foreign Languages University, a centre of excellence for teaching English to non-English speaking communities, the Sunday Times understands. The 40 were not chosen on merit on a national basis, because then once again, the Western Province teachers would have had a distinct advantage.
For equitable distribution among all provinces, four teachers, totalling 36, were chosen on merit from each province, with two extra teachers being selected from the Western and Central Provinces each, it is learnt.
On their return, these Presidential ‘missionaries and torchbearers’ met at a workshop to discuss and decide how they could take the new state-of-the-art methods of teaching spoken English to the village, says Mr. Fernando, adding that while the Task Force gathered into the fold the vital provincial and zonal education officials, it was in a democratic vote that the curricula and national strategy for teacher-training in spoken English was accepted.
The training of the 22,000 teachers at a cost of Rs. 55 million will be met by the ADB-funded Education for Society and Knowledge Project headed by Director Anura Dissanayake, it is understood.
Currently, 1,400 teachers have already been trained in the art of spoken English, with 40 trainees being nominated for each session by each zonal director for the ongoing training programmes conducted by the four master-trainers with Hyderabadi experience in each province. The master-trainer cadre of 40 will also be increased to 200, he said, explaining that 40 more scholarships have been offered by the Indian government. The balance 120 will be formed by training the four trainers attached to each of the Regional English Support Centres across the country. They will be given a rigorous one-month training in spoken English at Penideniya.
Now the core-group of master-trainers has also developed a training manual and teachers’ guide which has been field tested through 800 teachers.
Under the second prong, plans are underway to set up a Centre for English Language Training (CELT) at Penideniya and the curricula changes etc., with spoken English to the fore, to be implemented next year (2010) in selected schools, where English teachers have already been trained in spoken English.
As spoken English is not part of the curricula at present, the schools where teachers have had training in this sphere have been requested to devote one hour per class per week.
Meanwhile, 200 25-minute modules on spoken English to be telecast - as 80% of homes have TV - are being designed by Skills International Sri Lanka and City and Guilds, under the guidance of Ven. Metta Vihari of the Dharmavahini Foundation in his studio. The script is being written by the monk and two modules per week will be telecast on Rupavahini and repeated on ITN, from September. They will also be put on the SLT server so that people could download them or make their own DVDs.
Pointing out that the President had understood the reality about the teaching of English in Sri Lanka and the Task Force only articulated that, Mr. Fernando says this is “soft standardization of English teaching and learning”. The Presidential launch will mark a watershed between the old ideology and the new, he says, adding that if in three years, Sri Lanka can generate a high momentum for learning spoken English, we would have achieved something.
Road map for
Spoken English
The ‘18-month road map to promote spoken/communicative English in Sri Lanka’ will be launched by President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees tomorrow.
The programme will be implemented by the Central and Provincial Education Ministries and monitored and coordinated by the Special Initiatives Unit (SIU) of the Presidential Secretariat.
The new Teacher Guide and Manual for teaching Spoken English will also be launched tomorrow.
Why has english education failed in Sri lanka
English has been taught in Sri Lanka since British times but the syllabus, the curriculum, the examination system and the teaching methods, imported from England, have remained the same over the years, says Presidential Advisor Fernando.
But, according to him, these methods were only relevant and suitable for teaching English to children who came largely from English-speaking homes. They were from urban settings learning English either in their own homes or from their immediate social environment.
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Presidential
Advisor Sunimal Fernando |
“For them, grammar and structure when taught in school was a ‘tremendous discovery and adventure’ reinforcing what they already knew,” he points out.
However, as English education spread to rural areas and small towns, this methodology became irrelevant and unsuitable. Children were taught English in the way that we are taught dead languages like Sanskrit, Pali or Latin.
They were taught grammar, diction and pronunciation, but they were scared to speak. Drawing a comparison, he says the Sangha learn Pali for 10-15 years but not a single monk can speak Pali for five minutes.
The average rural child learns Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, with ease, but not English, says Mr. Fernando.
This is the crucial issue. |
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