Thanks to the British rule we as a nation adopted English as one of the officially recognized languages of India. As part of our education system we do undergo 10-12 years of learning English. But in spite of this how many of us are able to speak this language comfortably.
Since the time of the IT and ITES boom there has been a crying need for people with good ability to communicate in English. Every day there is news about this in our media that there are more jobs waiting for people who can communicate well in English and we keep hearing the vice-chancellors of various universities telling what are the steps they are taking to solve this problem, and asking colleges to set up language labs.
Since last 20 months having worked for a company which is deeply involved in the empowerment of the young Indians with the ability to communicate in English, I have realized the stark realities which are afflicting the nation’s progress in this regard.
No doubt English is taught in the school and colleges and students even pass the exams with flying colours. Majority of our students who are from the engineering and management education backgrounds, with very good academic record have this basic problem of lack of confidence and practice opportunities. Once we address these issues we do see a confident young person walking out of our institutes. When we look at this it is very clear that primarily due to lack of practice opportunity most of our young do not have the ability to speak.
Are the educationists doing anything about this, how much time is devoted to ensure the students practice? Once in a while we do hear about the up market schools fining their students if they are caught speaking any other language other than English in the school campus. While one would deplore this habit, but if you look at it in perspective, probably that is one way of ensuring children get to practice what they learn in the classroom. Remember even in the case of our own mother tongue, if we were not corrected from our young age, we wouldn’t be speaking the language as well as we do today. Hence it is essential that practice is ensured.
As an organisation having its academy’s across India we notice there is a huge perceptional difference among the learners coming from different parts of India. Students joining our academy from the southern states are mostly shy of admitting their problem and do not even like to acknowledge that they attend classes for communicative English. While the students in the other parts of the nation, don’t seem to be so shy in admitting to their weakness. Probably it comes from the fact that in south India English learning was considered to be a must from long ago as even if they cross the border to the next state they have to speak a language other than their own, while the need for english has caught on in other parts of the country in the recent past since it was always, Hindi the link language.
I cannot understand this shyness factor considering that English language is not part of our heritage and it is no crime not being able to speak. However, the intent it self is important and your ability to accept the fact that I am deficient can actually help in getting the right kind of advice from people who can guide. Since it is universally accepted that one’s ability to communicate in English helps them move up in their career and social life, I feel it is absolutely no crime to master something in which we are deficient.
Other day I was reading a news article in a Delhi paper that on engineering student committed suicide as he couldn’t speak in English. It was really sad to read something like that. Being an engineering student he must be good at his academics and it wouldn’t have been at all difficult for him to communicate in English if only he had gone to the right solution provider. This is where one needs to look at the mushrooming trend of everyone opening shops to teach people to communicate in English and many of them failing to deliver makes a weak person like the above student concluding that ‘I cannot speak in English what may come’.
Since it is English which is globally accepted as the language of sport, business, legal, diplomacy and many other aspects and our nation being recognized as the Back office to the world, we need to look at addressing the problem of enabling more Indians to have the ability to communicate in English. If academies like ‘Veta’ are able to address the problem, it is high time educationists and academia take cue from what we do and ensure how to help millions to communicate in English.
Since the time of the IT and ITES boom there has been a crying need for people with good ability to communicate in English. Every day there is news about this in our media that there are more jobs waiting for people who can communicate well in English and we keep hearing the vice-chancellors of various universities telling what are the steps they are taking to solve this problem, and asking colleges to set up language labs.
Since last 20 months having worked for a company which is deeply involved in the empowerment of the young Indians with the ability to communicate in English, I have realized the stark realities which are afflicting the nation’s progress in this regard.
No doubt English is taught in the school and colleges and students even pass the exams with flying colours. Majority of our students who are from the engineering and management education backgrounds, with very good academic record have this basic problem of lack of confidence and practice opportunities. Once we address these issues we do see a confident young person walking out of our institutes. When we look at this it is very clear that primarily due to lack of practice opportunity most of our young do not have the ability to speak.
Are the educationists doing anything about this, how much time is devoted to ensure the students practice? Once in a while we do hear about the up market schools fining their students if they are caught speaking any other language other than English in the school campus. While one would deplore this habit, but if you look at it in perspective, probably that is one way of ensuring children get to practice what they learn in the classroom. Remember even in the case of our own mother tongue, if we were not corrected from our young age, we wouldn’t be speaking the language as well as we do today. Hence it is essential that practice is ensured.
As an organisation having its academy’s across India we notice there is a huge perceptional difference among the learners coming from different parts of India. Students joining our academy from the southern states are mostly shy of admitting their problem and do not even like to acknowledge that they attend classes for communicative English. While the students in the other parts of the nation, don’t seem to be so shy in admitting to their weakness. Probably it comes from the fact that in south India English learning was considered to be a must from long ago as even if they cross the border to the next state they have to speak a language other than their own, while the need for english has caught on in other parts of the country in the recent past since it was always, Hindi the link language.
I cannot understand this shyness factor considering that English language is not part of our heritage and it is no crime not being able to speak. However, the intent it self is important and your ability to accept the fact that I am deficient can actually help in getting the right kind of advice from people who can guide. Since it is universally accepted that one’s ability to communicate in English helps them move up in their career and social life, I feel it is absolutely no crime to master something in which we are deficient.
Other day I was reading a news article in a Delhi paper that on engineering student committed suicide as he couldn’t speak in English. It was really sad to read something like that. Being an engineering student he must be good at his academics and it wouldn’t have been at all difficult for him to communicate in English if only he had gone to the right solution provider. This is where one needs to look at the mushrooming trend of everyone opening shops to teach people to communicate in English and many of them failing to deliver makes a weak person like the above student concluding that ‘I cannot speak in English what may come’.
Since it is English which is globally accepted as the language of sport, business, legal, diplomacy and many other aspects and our nation being recognized as the Back office to the world, we need to look at addressing the problem of enabling more Indians to have the ability to communicate in English. If academies like ‘Veta’ are able to address the problem, it is high time educationists and academia take cue from what we do and ensure how to help millions to communicate in English.
True. English has become indispensable however much one dislikes its dominance and the real and imaginary pernicious effect of such dominance.
ReplyDeleteTrue, despite the vexing problem of Hindi versus English in India not impressive changes have been made in the standards of profiency required to be available in a graduate or an English teacher.
A high degree of complacency has set in, which certifies any combination of letters and words to be correct and even good English.
In this blog the writer states,"practice opportunity" (sic)!
I thought it should be 'opportunity to practice'.
Look at this sentence,"while one would deplore this aspect, but if you look at it in perspective...."
Cold blood murder of the language of Shakespeare and Milton.
"Everyone opening shops..." is precisely the problem as the blogger states. Everyone opens not because this is a free country but because there are no standards and nobody cares. I don't know how the blog claims "academies like VETA are able to address the problem".
Well, on what basis the claim is made? On the basis of expansion? Or on the basis of any certifying authority who have witnessed certain standards in-methodology, availability of qualified and committed faculty everywhere,and quantified rate of success everywhere and so on?
Making once presence felt everywhere is certainly an enviable success and probably a dubiously honourable example of organic growth. Period. In the absence of any standard at any level anything remains a mere
claim camouflaged by commercial success.
Before Independence even a school-educated had a better understanding of English and wielded it with aplomb and authority. If our fathers hadn't taken to English ( the Bengalis and the Tamilians were the first to master English)like fish to water 'Independence' would have eluded us for another ten years.
The present malady is total absence of standards substituted
by the gloss of commercial values and success.