Chapter l

INTRODUCTION

Engltsh has been taught all along m lndra for breab and-butter reasons, and to teech rt now, as we ere 8xhOtlad to fWW8dByS. because 1 6 a Wndow on the W, is also toteach II forhadandbutterwi th tfn, pnxntse of jam tomorrow No, we must teach rt no( because fl rs a wrndow on the world but because 1 can open a mndow M ourselves

- S Nagarayn

1.0 THE ELT PROORAMME IN INDIA

Teaching is 'a process of arrangtng condibons under whtch the learner changes

hs ways consuously in the d~rect~on of hts own goals' (Benjamtn 1968 19) In

educattonal decis~on-making, there ts always some tenston between those who

stand for what ought to be done and those who remaln sattsfied with the best

that can be done This tenston resolves rtself In different ways dependtng on

whose vlews prevatl when and where In most cases, however, educat~onal

systems find themselves In what Bruner (1966) calls 'a patient pursutt of the

poss~ble ' The present research falls n wtth the ktnd of pursurt.

Wardhaugh (1986 347) r~ghtly states that language planntng In Indta '1s

largely confined to eldes the masses, whose needs are more tmmedtate, are

largely unatkted Like any other krnd of planning tn Indta, R seems fraught wrth

dtfficuR108. dangera, and unforeseen consequences '

Nearly two decades ago, Ghosh et al (1977 1) ltsted some of the

problems of those who have to teach compulsory General Engllsh In lnd~an

Collegeu.

1. a large, frequently unmanageable, number of students;

2. the poor standards in English of the students;

3. the lack of interest In English, sometimes bordering on hostilrty;

4. the heavy burden of an unrealisttc syllabus.

5. the sheer difficulty, for most students, in understandtng the prescribed

texts;

6 the unsuitabdtly of most of these texts for the purpose of teaching th i

language,

7 the lack of phystcal facllitles which could make lntenstve teachlng

possible (e.g., smaller groups, Iibranes, language laboratones, and so

on).

8 the outmoded system of exarntnabon which tests memory rather than

control of language and makes it poss~ble for students to 'pass' in

English wtth the help of cnbs, wrthout having leamt the language.

The teacher of today continues to face all these problems. To make

matters worse, the poor standards tn Engltsh have become poorer Many of

Wse problems relate to matters of organuatm and admlnrstratlon over whlch the

teacher may have ltttle control. But the greatest dtfficulty a created by hrs failure

to understand what exactly he is expected to do, what IS poss~ble for h ~ m to

achteve. and how he might go about it. Thls research was born out of an

awareness of the 'failure' and of the fact that English teach~ng at the college level

has gone wrong most in its disregard of the student.

On the one hand, language teaching theory has been tendlng towards

greater negotiatton and indivtdual chotce in the classroom, on the other, the

continued prescriptton of almost the same materials tn 1995 as those about which

Ghosh el al. spoke in 1977: 'Most course books are dull because the sct lect~s

b y contain have nothing to do with the needs of the students and do not eppeal

to them' (p.88). How can we e-in this apparent mismatch? TO be honest, this

mismatch arlses out of the discrepancy between how we carry out innovations

and how we say we carry out innovattons. No wonder then that we hear from

Hutchlnson and Torres (1994 328), who glve the latest plcture of Engllsh

Language Teaching (ELT) materials In India, M e r e there is a justifiable concern

about the stultifying effect of dull and outdated off~c~al textbooks backed by the

authortty of the educational system and the academic h~erarchy.'

lickoo (1992: 109) conv~ncingly argues that Engllsh as SecondIForelgn

Language (ES(F)L) syllabuses In state level systems all over India have. 'In

the~r essential framework, rema~ned unchanged' and that 'even the best' of

the alternative models developed In the West, part~cularly In the Unlted

Ktngdom. have faded to produce results In the countnes of thew ongln and

hence thew unportatton IS bound to be 'counter-producttve' There had been

In operatton syllabuses l ~ k e Structural Syllabuses, Not~onal Syllabuses,

Commun~catlve Syllabuses, Process Syllabuses and Procedural Syllabuses--

each meant to replace ~ t s predecessor.

T'koo further argues that none of the atlemattves are justified tn terms

of Iingulst~c theory, or In terms of ~ t s appl~cat~on In the lnd~an context. He

wants syllabus descgners to take Into account (I) the tact that Engl~sh In India

IS meant to serve ent~rely d~fferent objectives stnce ~t operates In different

types of mult~lingual settlng. (11) the need to be clear about prloritles In

leamlng a foretgn language like E n g l i in Ind~a, and (II~) the -&late balance

of behaviours, beliefs and expectations' that make up the 'culture' of the

average classroom. He warns that ~f these realities are not taken Into

account, and H a syllabus is imposed from above, there IS bound to be--as

there is today-an almost 'total m~smatch between expectations and

actualities." Meaningful cuniculum renewal must, therefore, begin with the

recognition of the fact that the primary role of Engltsh tn our national system

of education (as disttnguished from minority tnstituttons) is as "an addittontl

instrument of cogntthre growth-as a complementary language."

As Chastain (1976. 91) puts I!, 'Educatton should concern itself with

determlntng the most efficrent fit between the teaching-learning sltuatlon and

the learner.' Allen (1992: 89) emphasizes In the same van: 'We must ftnd

ways of encouragtng the development of systemattc, classroom-ortented

research wtthln the context of each nattonal or regtonal educattonal system.

Only when classroom practittoners are ready to take thetr rtghtful place as

members of the research communtty wtll we be able to meet the real

challenge factng our professm-that of creabng a new generatm of teachmg

matenals whlch wll be more Hextble. more dynamtc, and more relevant to the

learner's needs '

1.1 W E TEACHER AS YEDUTOR

Rtchards (1990 163) IS of the vtew that the fteld of second and foretgn

language teachtng requtres a comprehensrve vlew of how successful learntng

and teachtng IS planned for and accompltshed tn educational setttngs Thts

perspective tnvolves approachtng language teachtng as a partrcular phase of

educattonal programme des~gn. Accordmg to htm, one of the consequeoces of

the currrculum-based vlew of language teachtng IS a redefrnttton of the

teacher's role whch IS central to the whole process of teach~ng and learntng:

"No longer stmply a presenter of matenals or an tmplementer of a method,

the teacher now has a role that IS not only more complex but more crucial.

for the teacher must serve vanously as matenals developer, needs analyst.

and investigator of his or her own classroom, negottattng both syllabus

content and methodology with the learner. Rather than methods determining

the curriculum, the school and the classroom are seen as the context in

which planning, development, and supporl activities take place.'

In the process of teaching and learnlng, teachers of English as a

second language In India- where every school-go~ng chlld has to be taught

Engllsh-must be reasonably clear about the students' wants and needs whdt

determine the preparation of the necessary materials and methods of

teachlng. First of all, second language teachers should be 'thoughtful

professionals, not mere day labourers" (Rlvers 1983: vlli). If ELT tn lndta is

to be reasonably effectwe, d esaent~al that the teacher should have a clear

conceptton of the alms of English teachlng and learnlng, d IS essential that he

should be able to say, In categorical and unequ~ocal terms, what goal he is

trylng to reach rn h ~ s teaching and what knowledge, ab~l~t~es and skrlls he is

stnving to Impart to h ~ s pupils. So. the most ~mmediate need that has to be

met In ELT In lnd~a 1s to postulate the educational ams and state clearty the

objectrves whch can be operat~onaltzed Into a pragmatic curnculum.

Rlchards (1 992 9 1) discusses two dtfferent approaches to language

teachlng 'Follow the Method' and 'Develop a Method' He characterizes

flrst as the 'top-down' and the second as the 'bottom-up' approach In the

'top-down' approach, both the teacher and the learner are vlewed from the

perspective of the educatronal theonst, the applled Iingu~st, and the curnculum

planner who often do not have frrst-hand expertence of the process of

teaching and learning In wldety varylng contexts Hence the entire design 8s

lmposed from above on both teachers and students The 'bottom-up'

approach, on the other hand, beg~ns with obsewable processes of claS~r0Orn

teachlng and learnlng and the l o g a l pnnoples and practces denvable

the actual classroom experience. Richards concludes that our concern should

then "focus not on the search for the best method" but rather on the

"c~rcumstances and conditions under which more effectrve teaching and

learning are accomplished.'

In the field of language teaching, it is not the skilled teacher, teacher-

tralner, or course constructor who is regarded as the leading expert, but the

pure theorist, the well-publ~shed researcher, or the applied Lngulst. One of

the worst features of the modem university system is perhaps the way it

enables people who merely know what are regarded as 'parent soences' to

set up as masters of those who know the job for better, but are unable or

unwill~ng to master and explott the kind of theory that has little relevance to

thelr work

Apparently, there are two assumpt~ons beh~nd th~s trend The first is

that theory and practlce cannot be dlssoclated, and that In pnnclple there

ought to be perfect harmony between the two-an assumpbon that IS a pnori

true about all sciences, all behav~our The second and perhaps quest~onable

assumption seems to be that slnce disharmony between the two is

undes~rable, practtce had better conform un~laterally to the demands of

(currently accepted) theory. Current theory (wh~ch has the status of sccence)

IS assumed to be the closest approxlmat~on to truth ever, and a sufficiently

close approxlmatlon at that, whlch entltles ~t to dctate practice, more or less

as In the exact sclences

One important d~fference between the exact sclences and language

teachlng (and perhaps most other human arts or sciences) is not appreaated,

although it is well-known In the former, theory develops by a senes of ever

closer approximatloris and progresswe general~zations of concept and law that

refine and supersede previous general~zations rather than deny or reject them.

In contrast, as Kelly (1969: 396) points out, language teaching theory follow^

a series of cyclic fluctuations and rejections, which reminds us of political and

social revolutions that turn today's dogma into tomorrow's heresy, with the

poasibitky that the latest may be the rapldest rather than the best. instability

of this kind, on purely Scientific grounds, is a sure sign of immaturity of

theory, wh~ch disentitles it to dictate practice. At the North East Conference

on the Teaching of Forelgn Languages, Chomsky (1966) drew attenton to the

~nstability of theory In llnguisttcs and psychdogy In contrast with physics and

engtneerlng, for example, and warned agalnst the tendency to regard

language teach~ng as applled Ilngulstlcs or applled psychology, and warned

generally agalnst the wllllngness to rely on "expertsm--a frighten~ng aspect of

contemporary pollt~cal and soc~al Ilfe.

In the last forty years, theory or 'science' of one k~nd or another has

dom~nated the language teach~ng scene and the trend 1s cont~nu~ng As a

resul, even seasoned practdfoners have allowed themselves to be dlctated by

some theoret~cal prlnc~ple In thls process, practlce has lost the I~mited

autonomy R had enjoyed earher. There IS thus an lnevdable tenslon between

the claims of theory and precttce In language teach~ng. Of course, we cannot

dlvorce theory from practlce or asslgn them separate roles w~thout harm~ng

both Pract~ce needs theory, because we cannot do without reasoning and

understandlng In any human undertak~ng, and theory 1s slmply formallzed

understandlng. That IS why even pragmat~sm needs a ph~losophy and

eclectcc~sm needs a ratlonalizatton Seen In thls I~ght, theory and practlce are

bound to complement each other.

The uneasy but mutual dependence of theory and practlce IS pernaps

best summarized by Mart~al's apt words about a love-hate relat~onsh~p: Nec

tecum possum vrvem neo sine te-'I cannot llve w~th you, nor without you."

The same ambivalence and complexity mark the practitioner's attitude towards

the theorist On the one hand, (somewhat in the manner of Goldsmith's

rustics In the Deserted Village), he wonders at the theorist's knowledge of

theories and approaches and at his inspiring eloquence. On the other h d ,

he superciliously keeps thinking how little thls ideal~st-preacher knows about

the facts, the real problems, the real answers, and feels uneasy about the

latter's lnttusion Into his way of Irfe.

Teaching 1s very demanding and also a very practical act~vlty, even

though everything In the classroom is the t ~ p of a theoret~cal Iceberg.

However, as Shor (Freire and Shor 1987 2) observes. 7eachers are more

Interested In practlce than In theory Whlle every practice has a theory and

vlce versa, most of the research on educat~on IS not helpful In the hener-

skelter hours of the real classroom Further, too much of the ~deology or

philosophy of educat~on comes at teachers In a language fore~gn to them.'

There 1s nothlng more compelling than the facts of real l~ fe According to

Shor, 'the primary goal IS for theory to embrace everyday llvlng This

problem of merglng crltlcal thought w~ th dally l ~ fe 1s always a challenge.

Perhaps nowhere 1s 11 more Important than In teach~ng, whlch 1s a human

expenence full of unpredictable moments' (p 3)

But there IS anolher s~de to the plcture Them~s-noth~ng-new-under-#&

sun krnd of h~stoncal w~sdom, for all ~ ts truth, can degenerate Into lndrfference

and cynlcal conservatism that can harm the cause of new truth And the

anyth~ng-goes klnd of pragmatism associated w~th eclect~clsm can be morally

unsallstylng too, one never knows when ~t means the lmpulse to do better

than current theory of followlng a surer ~nstlnct. 'playlng ~t by the eaf , and

when it means letting oneself do worse than theory by followlng one's own

untrained ear and the moment's convenience

Palmer (1964: 141) saw eclecttclsrn as something posittve and creative;

for hlm, it meant an endeavour lo combine the best in all approaches.

Rivers (1968: 54-Fi5) maintains that practising teachers have always tended to

be ecktk, embracing different traditions, in contrast with mere theorists, who

tend to be cornparatlvely purists.

The teacher may strongly feel that the lecture method (or formal

teaching of grammar) is the best for hlm and h ~ s class, and that the

recommendat~ons of theorles favourlng lnteractlonal technique (or

communicat~ve language use) will not prove useful Or d may even be that

h ~ s lntult~on is based partly on this fact and partly on h ~ s unwillingness to

make the effort to leam and take nsks vvlth commun.atrve methods.

Or agam, it may be that the class IS too large, 60-80 strong, or und~sccplmed,

for even fairly skilful teachers to apply the methods recommended. This is

true about most colleges In Indla. In thls context one is remlnded of the

words of Swam1 Chdbhavananda (1982. 3-4) "The role of the teacher In the

present system of educat~on requlres to be revtewed. The system has

reduced the respons~b~llty of the teacher to that of the postman. With the

correct (sometimes wrong) dellvery of the bundles of letters, packets and

parcels apport~oned to htm, the duty of the postman ends. What effect the

duly d&vered articles have on the addressees IS no concern of the man who

dellvers them The teacher today has h ~ s scheduled lessons to glve and

portions to cover wdhln the allotted tlme HIS hrnctlon ends wtth the fadhtul

d~scharge of these duties He IS not bothered 11 the students do not recetve

the lesson in all seriousness.'

In recent years, the frequent confllct between what IS theoret~call~

respectable and what IS usable In practlce has resulted In a crlsls of

conf~dence whch 1s threaten~ng to undermine the second language teachlng

professton In many parts of the world (Allen 1987 55). Bes~des. In the

selection and sequenc~nglstag~ng of mater~als, a lot of ad-hoclsm and

arbitrariness haa set in. And both these factors are seen to be among the

main reasons for the many failures In the des~gn of lnstruchonal material as

well a8 in clamroom methodology for English language teaching (liioo 1 9 w

5; Ramani 1992: 101).

Allen (1992: 72) argues that each type of curr~culum is designed to

account for an important aspect Of language learn~ng, that each type is

incomplete In itself, and that there is a need to comblne all the popular

approaches In a comprehenswe model of second language education In the

d, At sunnse, the Rough MUSK: (Uewellyn 1976, 202, cited m R N ~ B 1983:

134) a land owner glves h s foster son the following adv~ce as a gulding llght

In tlmes of change "There are tlmes," he says, %hen you must sit down,

and take note, count the anlmals, f~nd out what the harvest will be, and go

clearly Into t~me, never bllndly, always ready to change course, as a good

navigator must, when he f~nds the map wrong." Thls plece of advice 1s

equally appl~cable to language teachers From ttme to t~me, we need to

srt down, ponder the possrb~lities for the harvest, and change course ~f we

f~nd our present direction 1s not lead~ng us where we need to go As good

navigators, we must be ready to change course 11 we find our map 1s wrong.

Taklng the analogy further, we need to ask ourselves who our

consumers are In language teaching and what they w~l l want from us now

and tn the near future Our consumers are not only students, but also the

soc~ety of w h ~ h they are a part We must not merely ~dent~fy what we thmk

our consumers need, but also what they want, that is, what they feel they

want. As educators, we must provide for a balance between these two 11

students are to be motivated to learn what we offer So there IS nothlng

wrong in suggesting that teachers can harmonize theory WIW thew eclectic and

pragmatic practice. And this eclectic pract~ce IS motrvated by impllcltly

assumed Inadequacy of theory rather than by any positive 'eclectc theory'.

In second-language teaching, we cannot expect to find ready-made

solutions that we can apply without reflection. Each situation must be

approached according to its own logic, and we are frequently on our own as

we decide what to do next (Rivers 1983: viii). Widdowson (1964: 87) argues

that language teachers "have the respons~b~lity to med~ate changes In

pedagogic pract~ce so as to Increase the effectrveness of language teaching."

He adds "such mediation depends on understanding the relationship between

theoretical principle and practlcal techn~que." For this. "we need knowledge.

not hunches. As In every other field of endeavour, nothing comes wlthout

effoK (Rivers 1983 167) In other words. the new type of teaching materials,

as well as new classroom procedures, requlres an alert teacher whose

role includes far more than merely following the lnstruct~ons w~thout prior

understanding and analysls "Teachers should be made aware of the role

they have to play in the teaching operatton as a whole" (Ahellal 1993: 42).

The maprity of second language teachers relate to applied Iingulstcs as

subordinate reccpients They take it for granted that ~t 1s the responsibilrty of

the Ilngu~st, as a theoreticlan, and the applied I~ngulst, as a mediator, to find

solut~ons for classroom problems and discover new ways of approaching

varlous practlcal Issues Such a vlew reflects the following structure.

According to this view, the relattonship between the three fields 1s uni-

directional, with teaching at the receptive and passive end This top-down

relationsh~p keeps the teacher's role wilhin the confines of the classroom and

restricts his responsibility lo carrying out the 'commands' in the teacher's book.

A more appropriate model is proposed by Campbell (1980. 7) m which

the arrows in the above diagram are bidirectional, grving an interactive aspect

to the model. In this view, not only is the teacher as practitioner gulded in

h ~ s work by the applied linguist, but the latter draws on what actually takes

place In the classroom:

1-1 I Applied Linguistics 1

T

Stem (1983. 43-45) suggests a more comprehensive model lncludlng a

number of other dtsclpllnes, such as anthropology, educational theory, history

of language, and psychology HIS model puts the context of language

learn~nglteachlng as an Interlevel between level one, lncludlng the

aforementioned dlsclpllnes, and level three, lncludlng methodology and

organlzatlon Stem says that h ~ s model should serve, above all, as an ard to

teachers to develop thelr own 'theory' or philosophy In answer to these

questlons Where do you stand on baslc tssues? How do you see your own

teaching? What IS your vlew of language and language learntng? What

needs to be done to teach language X or Y? and so on.

As these models suggest, any language actlvrty tn the classroom ts the

outcome of many variables and the product of an ongolng mteractton between

vanous theoretlcal levels Therefore, any teachlng task should be well thought

out, and second language teachers should be able to answer questlons I~ke,

Why have you chosen this text? Why have you used thls technique? what

are the objectwes of the actwrty? How does fi fit Into the language course as

a whole? How successful was the lesson? and so on. The answers to

these questlons should be traced back to the underlying foundattons of

language teaching. In other words, teachers should be able to relate a

simple classroom exercise to deeper and more theoretlcal conslderatlons.

Similarly, second language teachers should be able to account for the

specificities of the teach~ng situat~on. The textbook prescribed IS usually

designed with potential learners in mind. Sometlrnes It IS even tried out and

subsequently revised before It is used However, the teacher is In a better

position than the textbook wrlter to know what h ~ s pupils need, what their

interests are, and what should be done to adjust these interests to the

requirements of the stated curnculurn. The teacher's dally presence glves h ~ m

daily access to students, to campus Me, to colleagues and to h ~ s own lessons

and enables h ~ m to carry out long-term studtes wlth a h ~ g h degree of

contlnulty.

Many language teachers even today are as sceptml about research & language teachlng as about language teaching theory The Idea of Ifierary

research and ph~lolog~cal scholarsh~p In fore~gn languages IS acceptable to

most, but the teachlng of a language IS often regarded more as a matter of

practical ~ntutt~on, lnventlveness and sensltlvrty than as a surtable subject for

research It all happens because ?he dec~s~ons that determine educational

programmes are rarely made by earnest language-acqu~s~tion researchers,

teachers, trainees, or theoret~c~ans of language-teachmg methodology" (R~vers

1983 134). It IS true that practlt~oners are lrr~tated when the results of

research seem ~nconclusive or remote from the realrtles of the classroom

(Carroll 1969. 59; Clark 1971 3) and they may shrug off research as "useless

lvory tower activlttes' or dlsrnlss it as "playtng at sclence ' But Stem (1983:

54) advocates the recogn~t~on of a research approach as an essential

component of effective teachlng and a necessary counterpart to language

teaching theory but does not inMe the uncrlbcal acceptance of research per se.

McCulcheon (1981: 187) strongly favours the idea of second language

teacher becoming a researcher h language teachmg. Teacher-meaarchers are

concemed about matters faclng them daily, in their particular situations, while

outs~der-researchers may have other priorities. Further, teachers must act,

wh~le outsider-researchers only provlde recommendat~ons as to how others

should act. Additionally, teachers or thew pupils are 'studled", not 'stud~ers",

and have l~ttle or no control over the research, what IS reported, and how it

IS dlssemlnated.

1.2 THE TEACHER AS RESEARCHER

Many factors contribute to a teacher shunning research. For Instance, when

teachers feel overmanaged In a bureaucratic system, they may wrthdraw fro;

genulne lnteractlon with puplls Aga~n, when teachers who are ~ntlmately

concemed w~th the educat~on of the students under thew care are removed

from the dec~s~on-maklng process and not appnsed of the reasons for new

pollcles, they may develop a sense of futlllty, seecng themselves as powerless

In regard to v~tal matters

The profile of the teacher as passive executant IS no longer valid.

Therefore, unless teachers try to keep abreast of the literature on second1

torelgn language teach~ng, they will not be able to understand the rationale of

recent and changing classroom practices, nor will they be able to 'mediate'

between theory and practice to make language teaching more effectwe and

meaningful Teachers should wed theory and research to ~mplementatcon In

real world settfngs, the ELT classroom, and they should reduce the

discrepancy between how they carry out lnnovations and how they say they

carry out lnnovations.

"One of the most signlftcant developments In recent years IS a new

determination on the part of language teachers to trust m thew own resou-,

to assert their right to freedom of choioe at the interface between theory and

practice, and to segk practical solutions to pedagogic problems without

constantly looking over their shoulders for fear that the theorists m~ght not

approve" (Allen 1992: 69). ConsequenUy, whereas the past two decades have

been marked by uncertainty and confrontatton between the advocates of

numerous compettng theones, the present trend In second language teachlng

1s towards synthesis and reconclllatlon. To judge by the artlcles In

profess~onal journals and the papers presented at conferences, more and more

teachers are breakrng away from the~r forrner dependence on stncl theoretical

models and are rncreascngty maklng thecr own, more flexible, decisions about

what should be done In the classroom.

Allen (1992' 89) wants teachers to 'f~nd ways of encouraging the

development of systemattc, classroom-onented research wlthln the context of

each natlonal or reg~onal educat~onal system It IS only by undertaking such

research that we can hope lo f~nd emplncal support for the new lnslghts that

are constantly bang generated by curnculum theonsts Flnally. ~t should be

recognrzed that educat~onal research, although v~tally ~mportant, 1s rarely

conclusive It 1s therefore necessary for teachers to read and evaluate the

research l~lerature so that they can make up the~ r own m ~ n d about

controverslal Issues. Teachers should also be aware of the opportun~tles

whlch exlst for lndlv~dual practctloners to undertake thew own lnvest~gations In

the classroom The Loyola Project h~ghl~ghts the fact that "the klngp~n In any

educatlonal reform 1s the teacher h~mself "(Xavier et al. 1987 15)

Stenhouse (1975) Introduced the not~on of reacher as researcher'. He

believed strongly the! educat~onal research and development should belong to

the teacher. He saw the tension between the roles of teacher and psearcher

but put a strong case for ways of resolving the tens~on: "in the end It is

difficult to see how teaching can be improved . . . without selmonltonng on

the part of teachers" (p.165). This view is further strengthened by Widdowson

(1988) with an added dimension. He is of the view that for the professon of

language pedagogy to remain dynamic and alert to new possibilities of

development, it needs to be st~mulated. But the stlmulatlon needs to be

controlled In some way so that ~ t s effects are tempered and made beneficial

to local sttuations Ideas, no matter how stlmulatlng or authontatrve, have to

be referred to the condttcons of particular cultural and educational settings ~t

they are to be effectcve, and these settcngs deflne the autonomous role of

pedagogy

The teacher of Engltsh in lndla is In a more advantageous posrtion with

regard to second language teachlng as Wlddowson (1992: 338) suggests:

"The nattve speaker may have the edge as cnformant We need to make a

dcst~nctlon between the role of Instructor and that of cnformant As an

Instructor, the non-natrve speaker has more natural advantages For although

natcve speakers obv~ously have the more extenswe expercence as Engllsh

language users, the non-nat~e speakers have had the expenence as Engllsh

language leamers They have been through the process of cornlng to terms

w~th Engl~sh as another language" So the teacher of Engllsh as a second

language IS competent enough to have a say In deccdlng what matenal to

teach In consullation wcth the students about thew needs and areas of

Interest

In a scmilar vem, Medgyes (1992: 340) argues that the natrvdnon-natwe

dlstinctfon not only exlsts, but that ~t plays a key role In determincng the

teachlng practtce of all teachers. He pants out that Non-NESTS (Non-Natrve

English Speaking Teachers) can provide leamers wcth more lnformatan about

the English language and are more able to anticipate language diffiCUttleS.

Non-NESTS can be more empathetic to the needs and problems of their

learners. Above all, only Non-NESTS can benefit from shanng the learner's

mother tongue.

It is argued, as a general pnnciple, that non-native speakers may, in

fact, be better qualtfred than natlve speakers, ~f they have gone through the

complex process of acqurring English as a second or forelgn language, have

rnsrght rnto the Itngulstrc and cultural needs of thew learners, a detailed

awareness of how mother tongue and target language drffer and what 1s

dlffrcult for learners, and flrst hand expenence of uslng a second or forelgn

language (Phrlllpson 1992. 15).

1.3 WHOSE CULTURE7

Language teachtng contexts vary globally There are students of all ages, of

all k~nds of cultural and educatronal backgrounds wrth varred reasons for

wantlng to acqulre a second languagesome frankly pragmatc and utrlltanan,

others cultural or personal Some love languages and all verbal actrvit~es,

whrle for others the leamrng of a language 1s a chore from whch they have

found no way of escaptng. In Indra, whrle a large number of students study

Englrsh for pragmatic and utllrtanan purposes, there are st111 many for whom

the leamlng of Englrsh n a chore For students In Indla, leamrng Engllsh IS

often a means to garnrng some soc~al recognition and secunng better jobs.

A response from a Junlor college student rn Sweden to the Rrvers

Quest~onnarre on Forergn Language Learners' Goals, 1978 can easrly be taken

as one from hrs lndran counterpart: ' . I am strongly agarnst settlng up

"Englishness' as a goal for Englrsh teachrng A Swede will always remaln a

Swede, and whether he can mutter the nght words at the bar of a London

pub IS of lmle Importance. What does matter, however. IS whether he n able

to express h ~ s ~nevrtably Swedlsh-views and has such a knowledge of the

interiocutor's-English, Amencan. African, or other nat~onal background that he

is prepared for an exchange based on goodwill and understand~ng' (clted

Rivers 1983: 140). So, to make the Indian student express his views,

~nevttably Ind~an, In Engllsh should be the pnmary goal of Engl~sh teach~ng In

lndla Therefore condtt~ons that are conducive for real~zatlon of such a goal

must preva~l and the ~nstruct~onal rnatenals must be ~nterestmg, ~ntorrnatrve,

and readlly comprehenslble

The relat~onsh~p between culture and language 1s evident, slnce both of

them are closely associated wlth one's self-concept and personal~ty The

necessity of establ~sh~ng a llnk between the learner's culture and the English

language cumculum can be supported on psychological as well as soclologcal

grounds

lns~ghts available from psychology make rt qu~te clear that language

Input presented to the leamer who IS anxlous or tense, IS of no use at all.

Such a reallzatlon presupposes certain laws of leamlng as llsted by Rybum

(1944 146-161) A knowledge of these laws of leamlng, he says, should

help us a great deal In plann~ng our lessons, and In help~ng our ch~ldren to

make good progress In the~r work Of the ten laws framed by h~m, the f~rst

one, the Law of Readmess, states that leam~ng takes place best when a

person IS ready to learn When a person IS not ready to act, 1s not

st~mulated, then bang made to act causes dlssat~sfactlon (p 147) One way

of preparing the student to be ready In the classroom 1s to supply an

lnterestlng and comprehenslble Input. Decades later, Krashen (1989) came

Out wrth hypotheses that reinforced some of the Laws of Rybum.

In 11s essence, the Monltor model by Krashen holds that acqulsltlon IS

sald to take place automat~cally ~f the necessary condlt~ons are met, amongst

others, exposure to mean~ngful (that IS, contextual~zed), appropriately graded,

and suffioently tnterest~ng and relevant Input that the learner can and Wants

to understand. A further psychologccal prerequrstte IS that the leamer must be

in a relaxed, attentive state of mind to enable h ~ m to take In ?he Input'.

All this has an important bearing on the matenals for teach~ng English to our

students.

What is widely prevalent In India as tar as English Language Teaching

at the terttary level IS concerned IS the teacher-fronted lecture classroom. In

the teacher-fronted classroom, one-way communication from teacher to learner

IS the norm. The teacher 1s pnmanly engaged In transrnmtng content w~thout

any sertous attempt to negot~ate wlth the learners. Somet~mes, the input

might be beyond and outslde students' grasp or need Two of the teacher's

problems articulated by Naidu el al (1992. 252-263) are ?he tssue of relating

some of the prescribed l~terary texts to the students' l~ fe expenences" and

thew "tnablllty to handle a w~de range of student responses to our quest~ons

In class" (p 253)

In the same van, Mukherjee (1975). In her Foreword, cltes R. K.

Narayan as nanatlng an anecdote about a pnmary school teacher In a village

'A IS for apple pte'." the teacher told hts pup~ls who had neQher any notlon

of what a ple was, nor had they, In the~r trop~cal South lnd~an cltmate, ever

seen an apple When they asked for the meantng, the teacher whose own

Ideas were a l~ttle hazy about these allen objects, satd an apple was a ktnd

of frutt and a pte must be a sweet The students had to be satisfied w~th

that The anecdote potnts to how the lndtan student learns early tn h ~ s life-

what one reads In an Engltsh book IS not related to what one expenences In

Itfe. Thts gap between the wntten word and real l~ fe expenence, she adds.

contlnues until the student comes to accept th~s d~chotorny unquest~on~ngly:

Without being so narrow as to demand that one must see a

daffodil, or hear a nightingale before beginn~ng to enjoy Wordsworth or

Keats, it IS possible to belleve in the interact~on between l~terature and

the fell experience of life. The lnd~an student of English is constantly

exposed to literature that IS based on another cultural context, and is

faidy remote from the life he leads. Ideally, this should not be a bar

to the enjoyment when the reader IS well-trained in literary apprec~ation.

Bd for students who are still m Ihe process of leammg the language,

th~s remoteness might become a bar to first-hand response to literary

writ~ng (emphas~s added)

The students tend to develop an attrtude of awe and veneration towards the

matenal Uwy have to study Such a sad state of affairs easts because nerther students

nor teachers are very clear about why they learn or teach Engbsh. A meeting of 17

college teachers from vanws colleges affil~ated to Madras Unwerslty was convened

by the Englwh Language Teachers' Assoclatrw, of India (ELTAI) on 27 August 1992.

They d~scusaed the reactms of the practlslng teacherr to the recently revised syibbus

for General Engltsh at the hrst-year degree level The rneetrng made a val~d point:

'Developtog lnerary smsrtrvlty In students IS, no doubt, a laudable alm; but ~t IS wishful

thlnklng to expect students who cannot wnte even a slngle sentence comedy, to be

tnspred to ecstasy by the lines of Shelley and Colendge' (Revam1 1992: 138). They

also ernphauzed that the vtews of practlstng teachers at the undergraduate level

should be considered before effecting changes

Even soc~olog~cal conslderat~ons force us towards the Idea of

assoclatlng themes and values related to lndlan culture with an ELT

programme In lnd~a The spread of Engl~sh beyond ~ t s orig~nal geographic

boundaries IS amazing and It has been used in a few countnes llke India so

exterrsivety and for such a long penod that the language has almost been

assimilated into the culture of these countries I f Engllsh IS to be accepted

as an 'International Language', its perpetual association with only Brit~sh or

American culture must be questioned

Kachru (1992 11) strongly believes that for a proper conceptual~zat~on

and study of world Engl~sh, two types of shifts are needed. First, a p a r a d ~

shin In research. teaching, and appl~cat~on of sociolinguist~c realities to the

functions of Engl~sh Second, a shift from frameworks and theones which are

essentially appropnate only to monol~ngual countries It is Indeed essent~al,

he goes on to say, that world Engl~shes represent certatn Ilngu~stic, cultural,

and pragmatic realtt~es and plural~sm, and that plural~sm IS now an Integral

part of world Engllshes and ltteratures wntten In Engllshes The pluraltsrn of

Engltsh must be reflected In the approaches, both theoretcal and applied, we

adopt for understanding this unprecedented llnguisttc phenomenon

As an offshoot ol Kachru's premtse, the present research recognues the

krnd of English reflecting the Indran soctal and cultural aspects as a suttable

m e for students of Englsh as a second language in lnd~a, partcularty at the

tertiary level There are a few who hold a dlfferenl W n m Barrow (1990 4)

asserts that transmcning the spec~frc values and beliefs of English-speaking

wcmry, that IS. the Bnttsh or lhe Amencan, to learners a not only ~nevltable

but also 'desrrable'. as some cultures are 'supenor' to others in terms of their

Irteralure, moralrty. industrial capacity, and so on

Philltpson (1990), among others, argues that this line of thought carnes

rac~st and tmpenalrst overtones, moreover. R rests on the not~on that a given

language ~nfluences, or even determines. 11s speakers' world view Barrow

adds that 'If we c o m d e that In practce the manner and extent of people's

thtnking IS governed by the lrmlts of thew language. it follows that d~fferent

langueges may make a material ddference to the nature of thought tn d~fterent

communiltes' (p 4) Along the same I~ne, Valdes (1990) stresses the bellet

that one cannot avod leachutg culture when one teaches language. Besides.

Valdes claims that cultural information makes the language lesson more

interesting and therefore )ess difficult.

Students who are Inevitably exposed to the target cultural context as

they leam the second language, find the second language Learning experience

rather dtfficult, for they lack the requlred 'schematic knowledge' (Wlddowson

1990 102), or soclally acqulred knowledge whlch natlve speakers share.

To expect a teecher to grve the learners all the schematc knowledge required

for understanding the second language discourse 18 unreallst~c. To think

further that instilling new schemata on allen culture-specific data can c a u d

the language lesson to become motwanng and therefore easy for the students

1s to gnore substantla1 evidence whcch repud~ates such a bellef (e.g., Canell

and ElstemoM 1983, Alptektn and Alptek~n 1984) Hence. Valdes concludes

lhal rather than preaching a methodology based exclustvely on the second

language cultural conlext, whch IS forergn to the learner, we should prov~de

culturally fam~lrar content as a polnt of departure for lntroducrng culturally

unfam~ltar content

Bes~des, we should not Ignore the fact that one language need not

always be lnexlr~cably bed to one culture As Sm~th (1987' 3) polnts out,

Xoglrsh already represents many cunures and 11 can be used by anyone as a

means to express any cultural hentage and value system.' So II 1s possible

lo use English to express lnd~an cultural hentage and value systems as well

and texts lncorporatlng such aspects wtll help the lndlan students of ESL

rdent~ty themselves wlth the themes and characters famlllar to them more

easib than wlth those of unfam~lrar soc~o-cultural backgrounds

One then wonders whether the currently used ESL matenal loaded

wlth allen culture will be able to motlvate the learners and facilitate the

process 01 language acqu~srtlon Jane and Mlchael (1990) answer In the

negative. Such mater~als. the authors argue, are full of over-Posltlve

rterclotyphg d t~ dominant group m the English-speak- Wsoccety. along with

negative stereotyping In such matters as race and gender This IS sa~d to

cause the learner to develop feelings of inferiority or resentment, whlch are

likely to influence the leamlng experience negattvely.

In another reallsttc and lnslghtful article, Holly (1990) suggests that

leamlng a lrngua francs ltke Engllsh IS ltkely to result in the learner's

'~deologbcal colonlzatlon', whereby learners do not s~mply acquire just another

language but undergo self-alienat~on by reluctantly submmng thernsetves to a

d~fferent 'set of expenences whlch are felt to be somehow supenof (p.16)

Holly nghtly wams EFL learners and teachers alrke about the perils of cultural

~mpenallsm, as the language dealt wtth happens to be "the language of the

dominant poltt~cal-economlc system of the modem world" (p 15) It IS a

valuable contrlbutlon to the scanty yet relevant l~terature on the detrimental

effects of psycholog~cal problems (e g , self-altenatlon) on EFL learners as a

resutt of cuttural dominance

In Abbolt's (1992 176) vlew, many would accept the 'weak' verslon of

the Saplr-Whorl hypothes~s (1941), wh~ch states that language structures can

lntluence cognltwe calegonzatlon and processtng Even In rts dllute form. the

hypothes~s adds credence to the bellel that In attempting to account for

underdevelopment, we must constder a fundamental factor, namely ?he

damaging psycho-social eflecl of havlng one's own culture (the main exponent

Of whch ts one's language) devalued tn favour of an allen one' (Abbott 1992:

176)

Hamson (1990) potnts to the nsks of teachlng English literary texts to

learners from non-westem cultural backgrounds He spec~ally ment~ons two

problems, one of which has to do wlth tnterpretatlon d~fficult~es. The other

S t m from the readers' lnabtllty to respond to the texts personally due to the

absence of such a trad~t~on In the~r educat~onal tra~ncng The lack of a

peraonal responee can be the outcome of the culture-specrfic specializatron

penem that second Language learners may bnng & them to the c h w o ~ m .

For Cortazzl (1980), d~verse student expectations based on d~fferent

culture-based soclallzatlon patterns requlre the second language teachers In

the Was4 sellq!. say, England, to be lnfonned about, and be seosttwe to, the

learners' cutlural backgrounds wrth a v~ew to adjust~ng the~r own expectat~ons

lo lhose of the learners. In the same context, the author suggests the

~oclus~on of both crosecultural tratnlng matenals In language programmes and

crosecutlural proMems m course matenals The 1s an exceltent suggesbon m

thal Buch malenals atm at rnahg accukuratm an ~nteractnre process whereby

teachem and leamen help each other rntegrate what they know to what they

do not know

Hawever, rt 1s very rare to have a s~m~lar srtuatron In lnd~a wrth regard

to second language teach~ng h fact. all the students In the classroom and

teachers of Engl~sh share Ihe same tradltrons and cultural aspects In lndra

wilhtn the same soclal mwronrnent What Cortazz~ describes may apply to a

European context, say. In Loodon, where the natrve teachers have to face a

heterogenous group ot students drawn from d~fterent natlonallt~es and the~r

accompanytng cullural. soctal and conceptual d~fferences k k r ~ l l ~ ia thc kdiln

ELT dunng the 1970s. language came to be seen In wtde soclo- cukural

conteas This M, m tum, to wder approaches In language teachlng The

maln oblect~ve became 'commun~cat~ve competence'-the abllity to use

language appropriately In venous mio-cultural circumstances The questton

lhat m t & y a m ur m m whose soccocultural c~rcurktances? It was not

enough for students to put words together to make sentences. and to master t

an abstract Ihguwtic system lt was necessary. too, to pracl~se the language

h r8.lbhc contem. So the queshon of authority moved to centre stage: how

could we be sure that students would learn language as used In the real

world for real purpofas, that IS, outside the classroom, rather than language

'invented' by linguists and textbook writers? One ktnd of guarantee, it was

felt, would be to base classroom acttvtttes on 'authenttc' matertals-that IS.

matenals produced by nattve speakers for nat~ve speakers' use.

1.4 AlKHENTlCtTY OF MATERIALS

Dunng the debate whlch followed, as Baddock (1991. 16) says, three kinds of

authenttcity came to be seen as trnportant to language leamrng: the f~rst

questton IS about the authentcity of the rnatenal Is the language material

'the real thtng', in the sense lust descrtbed? Is tt true of the language

samples In a textbook, for example, that 'nothtng of the or~gtnal text IS

changed and also that 11s presentatton and layout are retatned?' (Grellet

1981) Any effort to make language stmpler, or more structured, for the

student wtll automatically make d drfferent from the way nabe speakers use it

In real Itfe So tt IS argued that rnatenals art~ftctdly prepared for language

students mll delay or retard the leamtng of authentc language (Clarke 1989)

A teacher of Engltsh tn lnd~a tends to ask Do the lndtan students studytng

Engl~sh as a second language need such an authentic rnatenal? Invariably,

the answer will be In the negattve

The second ktnd of authenttc~ty relates to the questton of the

'appropnacy' of the task Are we asktng the student to do somethmg Hnth the

matenel whch he wwM want or need to do tn real Itfe? Authenticity tn this

sense meens that the trnportant factof IS not the text ttself but the reader

and whether he has the necessary knowledge . . to ~nterpret it correcny,

that is, be capable of the 'appropriate response" (Clarke 1989: 78).

Authentklty, here, is a matter of what the student does, or is asked to do,

wfth tho materials, and depends on hrs attitude to them. So the success of

teaming depends upon the student's aPtltude and also on the way the text

helps him to reach personal dectstons about h ~ s own values. Consequently,

the text should not create a mlsrnatch between the student's attttude and his

own values

The htrd kind of authenticity of second language teachtng relates to the

leachtng of the target culture, that IS. the culture of the target language

people. An underslandlng of the customs, habtts, and ways of th~nking of

people from other countries IS now seen as tmportant and necsssary In the

search for cohesion and unlty, natlonalltles are 'real~z~ng' how l~ttle they

understand one another's ways Consequently, students are being tra~ned to

become 'cultural translators'-prejudice-free medtators between cultures.

Indeed, an tns~ght into the thtnk~ng and behavlour of the fore~gn culture is

thus seen as a pan of communcatrve mmpetence (Hughes 1984). As a

result, language textbooks contatn 'everyday' ttems wh~ch shape and refledt

life, hablls and thought In the target culture, e g , reclpes, street scenes.

advertisements, press cutttngs One wonders how far the need for such an

understandfng IS felt desirable tn lnd~a and also whether 11 IS the goal of the

second language students In lndla to become 'cultural translators'. As

Rldrarde (1992 144) suggeas, a language teacher should keep a diary of h s

expertences to loreground important features and problems, and provlde

valuable material lor wodtshops and dscuss~ons

Hallak (1990) IS concerned wcth 'sett~ng educat~onal pnonttes In the

developing world.' Reviewing the state of educat~on In h e Th~rd World as fi

emergbs from It. decade of cnus', h a book Invesw cn the Future pro-

a catalogue of woes. from which the followtng IS an example. The lack of

matedel or equipment can be especially senous In prtmary schools, when

chlldren from IIIHerate or bookless homes are betng introduced to written

figurn and wordntrange symbols to which very simple material couM give

concrete meaning" (p.35).

Abbott (1992. 174) analyzes thls with an insightful psychological

dun-: C ~ l u a t m does start In the mind If, in a more enlghtened s p M

of cultural reiatrvity, we regard 'c~viltzat~on' as the prwd pumud of one's own

~nd~genous cultural systems', then I thlnk we must agree that a staggenng

proportion of the world's young school ch~ldren are vict~ms of what Fre~re

(1972 121) calls 'cultural lnvaslon', a state in which 'invaders penetrate the

cultural contexl of another group and, lgnonng the potential of the latter, . . Impose their own vlew of the world upon those they invade and inhlbd the

creatrvtty of the Invaded by curbtng thelr expression' '

Abbon (1 992 175) mmks that for some decades now, English Language

Teaching has been caught up in this process-more or less, unwtltrngly In

his words, the 'wtdely percerved need to promote technological development

through teaching an lntemat~onal language such as English overshadows an

arguably more baslc need to transmit indigenous inherited cultures.' Since

me concept of devdopment has usually been interpreted from the perspectrve

of Ihe West, Western aid donors and cultural agencles have often been

accused of cultural impercalism 'Perhaps the charge is at least partly

justrl&; but the blame onen Ites c W r lo home.'

Brumtit (1985 35) vocces a stmilar opmcon: 'A language whch can be

~dent~fred w~ th the largest n~neleenth-century imperial power or with the

greatest csp)talia( povm ot the twentmlh-cmlury will ~nevltabb be p e m e d as

an instrument of cultural and tdeological dom~nation in parts of the world

whom the ktguage duation ia unstabb enwgh to demand debate.' H e n c e

in many p r t s of the world, including India. Africa, France, Italy and Latin

America, th. tndttional rok of E n g l i has been seriously questioned in thir

last twenty years. Thus the educated classes of developing countries like

Ind~a may even practise 'a kind of doublethink wlth regard to English, a

love-hate relationship with a language wh~ch is resented yet whose great

cmporlance 1s acknowledged One Irony about cultural imperialism, then, is

that people InHlct il upon others of the same nattonalrty" (Abbott 1992: 175).

Brumtit (1985' 39) also makes the pocnt that 'the process of l ~ v e

language use which 1s Increasingly being seen as necessary for language

acquisct~on as well as language ma~ntenance depends on the languages,

whether natwe or fore~gn, express~ng lwing culture" Consequently, while it is

possible to mainta~n that In pnncple the teach~ng of a language amounts to

teachtng a tool for use wfth no fdeolog~cal or social ~mpl~cat~ons, The

successful take-up of th~s teach~ng must depend on learners integrat~ng the

language wdh the~r own tdeologlcal and soc~al needs'

1.5 TWE PROSPECTS FOR THE TEACHER

S~nce knowledge of the Engl~sh language IS acknowledged as essential In

Indca. the so-called 'cultural ~mpenaltsm' can be m~n~mczed by cntegrat~ng the

language wtth the lndtan students' soctal and cultural milleu Broadly

speak~ng, there has been a shrfi In course des~gn from a pre-ocapatcon with

form to an ~nteresl In content -In spite of surface differences, the concept of

cutiure implid or explrc~t in most ELT methods and materials unt~l recently,'

says Prodromou (1992 39). 'has been predominantly monocultural and

elhnocentric. the content of such matenal has been cnhcued for not engaglng

the student's pema l l t y to any scgn~ficant extent '

In the history of Engl~sh Language Teach~ng, the advocates of the

Audio-Lingual Method claimed to place English in the cultural context of

rn- BrWsh or the U S.A (Howatt 1984) In the materials of those times,

the conkxb am only a pretext for practioe in language forms and we come

cross prefatory statements like. W e have set all the narratives in England.

te provide, where appropriate short notes on the cultural background in

rhich Ji l l~an and Martin l ~ v e . They have-we hope-someth~ng In

ommon wrth many young, educated, classless people in many large cities all

(ver the woriB (Bamett et al 1968. 23)

In the communlcattve model put forward as an alternat~ve to

itructuraltsm, people Invrte, apolog~ze, make requests, and so on In London,

3nstol, or Cambndge Wilk~ns' concept of 'authent~c material' confirms the

arget cunural l~mits of earty tunctionaltsm %y th~s 1s meant matenals which

were ongmally dtrected at the native-speaktng a u d m " (Willons 1976' 79)

Valette (1986 131) divides cultural goals into four categones for the

:lassroom teacher 'develop~ng a greater awareness of, and a broader

nnowfedge about, the target culture, acqulnng a command of the etfquette of

the target culture, understand~ng drfierences between the target cutture and

the students' cutlure, and understandtng the values of the target culture'

It IS important to bear in m~nd that Valette is wnt~ng in the context of

Engl~sh as a second language m the Un~ted States. where the learner may

well be seek~ng lo become integrated lnto the target community It IS also

clatmed, as a corollary of th~s Wm, that the succ0stul Learner s one who

has a positive anrtude towards the target culture (Svanes 1988). Prodromou

(1992 45) asks a val~d questlon in thts context How appltcable are these

assumplions to a context where Engl~sh IS a foreign language?

In the context of Engltsh as a fore~gn language (rather than second

language). Alptek~n and Alptekin (1984). wriilng about Turkey, feel that the

local culture, regrettably. will be submerged into the domtnant culture of the

foreign Iangwge. They question the desirabllQ of idenh(ymg the leamlng of

English m the culture of the nathm speakers. and propose the use of local

var~etres of Engksh. Rampton (1990) also quest~ons the supremacy of the

'native 8peakef at a tlme when World English IS a mosalc of many non-native

and 'nat~vczed' vanetles. Some of those cnvolved In teachlng Engllsh may

questlon the relatlve emphasls to be glven to cross-cultural and target or

local culture components In course des~gn.

Rob~nson (1985) belteves In the Importance of developing cultural

versatrltty to help learners meet the demands of an lncreaslngty muttwultural

world, the 'cultural background of the target language' approach IS critwtzed

for 11s lmpllcttly al~enatlng effect on the learner 'cuttural cnstruct~on does not

usualty bulM bndges belween the home and target culture students are

asked to role-play and ~mttate the target behavror rather than synthesize tt

w~th the~r own experience' (Robtnson 1985 100) In this context, several

queet~ons crop up Are the teachers of Engllsh as a second language

Interested In eflectlng such a synthescs7 Do the students have such a

synthesis as the goal of language-leamcng7 How do they feel about all the

clams made for them, and the concern shown for thew cultural tmprwement?

Prodrowmu (1992) conducted a survey desgned to ellctt students' vwws

on Ihe 'cultural background' of the target language, that IS. Engllsh. The

survey was In the form of a quest~onnalre dlstnbuted to 300 Greek students

and the begmners were gwen the questonnalre In a Greek tramlabon. They

were asked quest~ons on the need lor the teacher of Engltsh to have a

knowledgo of studenla' mother tongue, as well as the~r culture, the part~cular

model of English they w&ed to barn: (8.g.. Bnt~sNArnencm, the Importance

for M to speck Enghsh like a natrve speaker, and the nature of the content

or subject matter of thew Engllsh lessons.

The rurvey suggested that there was a place for matenals based on

local culture. in this case Greek culture, In the EFL classroom. Adaskou et

al. (1990: 9) devtsed materials for Morocco based on assessment of the

teachers' attitudes to the cultural content of textbooks, conststent wtth

Prodromou's approach.

Nunan (1988) asserts that a bottom-up traditton IS now gradually

buildtng up tn curnculum planntng. syllabus destgn, and methodology, rather

than the trad~tronal approach whtch is 'handed down' by 'experts' Into the

languaw classroom He also sets out to class~fy language leamtng tasks tn

the book so that good teachtng materials can be publtshed with local colour

and cutlure by noo-natlve teachers and text-book wnters As Brumflt (1985.

40) points out. ' it is rare for language users to achleve total separatm

between the vanous social roles that they play The stronger the movement

towards a kmt~onal view of language teachtng, the greater the necesvty for it

to be seen as co-ordtnaled with the soctal, polittcal, economic, even ethlcal

and rel~glous needs of learners.'

One kind of pragmatic or tndexical meaning, according to W~ddowson

(1992 335). ts the use of language to express attitude or belief or soc~al

value the functm of the form In the realizatton of effect He has In mlnd

The klnd of b3eologcal b8d1ng of language, the implicattons and tnslnuatrons."

It IS here that 'cross-cultural differences and conflcts are l~kely to become

most acule It is perhaps lor that reason that this ktnd of meanlng is

frequently avotded in language teachlng In preference to safe but relatively

vacuous texts and transactms' (p.335).

~ u t then. ws am teachtng an lmpovenshed pragmatm and we PDV*

little basu for the kad of awareness of other cuttures and communit~es which

IS clatmed to be one of the purposes of foretgn language study--Engltsh for

MtBmatioMl u n d e m n g . What does the term. 'Engl~sh as an ~ntemattonal

language' imply about the culture or cultures to be associated wlth it?

Widdowson (1992. 336) feels that the only lntemat~onal culture IS the culture

of multtnational business or of transnational sc~ence and technology: Ynglish

1s only cross-culturally general to the extent that rt IS speclflc to certa~n

genres of mtemattonal domalns of use We are agaln compelled to grapple

wdh basic ~ssues, llke the role and nature of Engllsh, the content of what we

teach. the role and nature of Engl~sh teachlng, and the methodology we use

In teach~ng 11 '

Dlfferences In meanlngs arlslng from culture are bound to pose a

problem In bammng a second language (Lado 1971/1986 23) Every tlrne &t

textbook or the teacher mentms a word, or describes or refers to someth~ng

that the lnd~an student does not understand culturally, or m~sunderstands

because of ~ t s cultural content, there IS an lmmedlate pressure to deal with

the cultural d~fferences tnvolved, causlng anx~ety among the students and

taklng much of the ttme allotted cn the classroom Th~s pressure LS present

even 11 our fnlent~on IS only to 'equ~p learners w~th the necessary language

sktlls lor (unctmurg m Engltsh,' as enasaged In the CDC Report (1989 29)

Some, ltke Lado. go a step furlher and offer suggestcons for teachlng

cultural content tn a target language A good f~ lm In the target language

seems best, though the students may not understand what they hear and

see Good musc from the target culture will Increase the~r desire to get to

know the language of those people Ptctures, sl~des, or a f~ lm may help

s~gnif~canlly to prov* cultural content for observat~on by the students Th~s

may be supplemented by the teacher explaln~ng for clantylng the cultural

conlent of the materiels presented

However, authenttc experience of another culture IS dlfflcult to get

without living in that society for at least a year, but our students cannot be

expected to do this. Another unrealistic recommendation of Lado (1971/1986:

154) IS that the language teacher should spend a full year in London or New

York, and subsequently pay shoner V I S ~ S from time to Itme to revive fad~ng

memones and to leam of new developments But at what cost? Such v~slts

by our Engl~sh teachers are ne~ther feasible nor necessary

In this context, d IS worth quot~ng Muggendge (1972 110) as narrated

by Nagarajan (1982 30) Muggendge, while work~ng In the Alwaye Christ~an

College In Kerala, found that there was no Interest In the study of 'an alien

ltlerature In an allen tongue ' Report~ng Gandhijl's v ~ s ~ t to the college, he

wrltes that the effect of Gandhijt's Engltsh speech on the students was

terrlftc' "They jumped up and down shout~ng. 'Mahathma Gandh~ KI Jal,

Mahatma Gandh~ Kt Jac.' the~r eyes glowing and the dreadful tnert~a of the~r

excurston through Sesame and L~lres. the~r mournful celebrat~on of Dryden

flnd~ng Engl~sh br~ck and leaving rt marble. all oblnerated and forgotten"

Shared htstory, religion, or l~terary tradit~on clearly contributes to the

ease wtlh whtch the learners wtll ~nterpret cultural symbols even across

Ilngu~sltc boundaries Brumfit (1985 117) says that ~t 'is much easler to

move from ltal~an lo Freoch or Span& cutture than to Chmese, or even Arab

Cutture ' Columbus IS a syrnbolc fgure for much of Europe, and a date like

1066 has greater resonance In Bntaln than In Italy Ltkew~se. Gandhljl, the

year 1947. Swam1 V~ekananda. Dr Ambedkar. Guru Nanak. Kalldas, and SO

on, have an instant appeal to the Indian students In terms of llterary

conventtons, the sonnet form IS cross-l~ngu~stic In Europe. whtle the

convenlions of county love and the degree of moraluatm dmer from tradiim

to tradition

Traditional praclice has been to include discussion and analys~s of

literary texla h the aecmd language class on the assumption that learners will

somehow 'catch' the abillty to read appropriately from the process of

d~scuss~n and analysis. According to Brumfit (1985. IlB), some thought may

go into the selection of texts, but the activtttes based on them usually tum

out to be unplanned and random In many schools and colleges, even the

selection of texts IS determrned more by traditron or the Interests of the

~eachers than by the needs and mterests of the learners. This aspect will be

d~scussed m detail In the second chapter of this thesls.

Few would expecl the teachers to be able to Yeach' students to ltke a

partcuiar book, but they can help students to avold disliking a book simply

because they mcsunderstand the conventions belng used or because the

language IS d~fficult, or because the cultural references are ~naccess~ble.

There ts no need to demand from non-natcve speakers of Engllsh a closer

understandtng of D d m s than we would expecl of natrve speakers, at least at

the earty stages of leamlng (Brumfit 1985 119)

The flrst stage. then. 1s a mlnlmum language competence The

development of literary abil~ties (competence) presupposes a fairly fluent

capacRy to read and understand Engltsh The pure lrterature syllabus can be

lustlfled in its own nght, educal~onally, for ~nstance. for spec~al Engllsh

students, but ~t should not be confused wnh syllabbses for the teachlng of

language 'A good language syllabus may mlude Iderary texts,' says Brurnfit

-but will not necessarily do so' (p 120) He points out 'Students worklng

through a second language whose culture may Indeed have very different

assumptm trwn those of Western Europe about aesthetn and language will

have certainly learnt the language tor educational and instrumental purposes

before they have looked at soph~sttcated works of literature of any kind' . (p.122). 1 Is emphasized that certain preltminary abilttles must have been

developad in lh w n d language classroom Good literary texts am not

nece88adly good for non-literary purposes, partlculady for learners with non-

literary learning intentions (Brumfn 1985: 120).

L i Prodromou (1988) from Greece, teachers often ask themselves why

a particular piece of 'authentic' matenal falls flat in the class-room, why a

functional syllabus does not always 'function', or why a communicative

methoddogy does not atways produce much communicabn All too often, the

teaching matenals, their content, and the pedagogy suggested, are culturally

lnappropnate The reason why this happens IS that the 'role of English in

!he soclo-lingutste context of each languageusing Third World country is not

properly understood. or is conven~ently ignored' (Kachnr 1986 101)

Learners of English rn India have realized that English IS not necessary,

as ~t had eadler been assumed In the literary humanistrc tradrtion, for the

shaping of character. the deve-ent of the aesthek sense, the cultrvatm of

ethical thinkrng, or lor gening crvilized, because these can be effectively

achieved through the nch tradittons in the languages and literatures of India.

As Krishnaswamy and Snraman (1994 25) point out. English 1s needed for

rnobrlrty and socral and economrc success English is the language of

opportunrtms and has a lot of 'surrender value' and leamen want to cash m

on lhat They also add that learners of English m lndra do not want English

l~terary culture to be put in the service of Western~zation and perpetrate

'cultural colonialism'. but at the same time they do not want to close their

Engltsh books (p.27)

1.6 CDC AND tnP AWS OF ELT

Curriculum Development Centres (CDCs) were set up in various subjects

including English at diflerent universit~es towards the close of 1985.

The Introduction to the Report of the CDC In Engltsh (CDC Report 1989)

spells out the directions given to the Centres. ' . . the main thrust of the

proposed curriculum should aim at sh~ftlng emphas~s from teaching to learning.

which has to be an important element In the new approach to education.

Thls will necessitate re-organlzlng the curricular packages, possibly in a

modular form Greater emphasis should be placed on the student's motwatm

to learn than on the teacher's ability to lecture Further, the curriculum

should be so deslgned that It would make the education more meaningful to

the needs and aspirations of tts beneflclanes as well as to make 11 soc~ally

relevant

About the nature of the exlstlng course content for the compulsory

General Engltsh courses, the Report says that the 'syllabuses framed tor

these do not seem to take mto a m n t learners' needs and ~nterests. In fad.

no attempt to make a systemat~c assessment of learner needs has been

reported The passages nonnally selected are ill-surted to the leamen' abilrty

levels and the exercises that follow the passages are haphazard Thus.

General Engllsh courses contribute very little to the development of the

drfferent language shlls' (p 17) It s true that national commmees set up lor

curncular reforms have never asked the learners what they expect from the

courses meant for them. why they want to learn Engl~sh, how they want to

learn 11. what mater~als they prefer, and so on 'Members of Boards of

Studies are nominated on the bass of sentonty, o f f ~ e held, rotat~on, election.

and etc , rather than on the bass of expert~se In Engl~sh language teachlng

NO speclal committees exlst to undertake per~odic reviews of syllabuses,

teaching methods and testing procedures' (CDC Repofl 1989 19)

Annexure II of the CDC Report states that the 'new curr~culum

onginales from the concept of educetion as an instrument of human resource

develqmgnt. With this concept In mind, an attempt has been made In the

Curriculum to cater for the needs of the leamer on the one hand and the

demands of the society on the other" (p.29). The proposed undergraduate

curnculum comprises a General Engllsh course and a Spectal English course.

The General English courae 16 compulsory for all students, "keeping m vtew

the fact thal all students need some Englrsh for academrc and professtonal

purposes and lor socral rnteract~on . . The pnmary need of learners at the

undergraduare level today appears lo be an abrlrty to use the Englrsh

language effeclrvely bolh for the pursud of academrc studres and for success

m future careers' (emphasis added) Besides, the General Engltsh curnculum

IS now 'specrfied, not In terms of a set of texts, but instead. in terms of the

communratton skrlls of Irstenlng, speaking, readtng, and wnting: and thus d

ams at enablmg students to acqutre the comrnunicatrve use of Engltsh" (p.29).

However. the use of textbooks cannot be dispensed wtth

The Reporl observes thal 'the tradrtronal General English cumculum IS

charactenzed by a I~terary-humantstic and heav~ty content-based syllabus. This

1s beyond the I~nguistic competence of many college entrants, and besides, d

does not equtp learners wlth the necessary language sktlls for functlonlng in

Engl~sh' (p 29) The same Report later states that In order to meet tts

ob~ednes, Ihe new undergraduate cumculum envisages the use of matenals,

methods and teachtng procedures different from those used tn tradittonal

courses The ltlerary texts to be used are carefully selected to wit dffferent

learner Ievekf (p 30)

So textbooks contrnue to play the key role even in the proposed

curriculum. However, rnatenals to be used in the classroom have to be

chosen carefully so that students are 'acttvely engaged In the learnlng

Procecs. the teacher motlvattng them to communtcate In the classroom and

Pranduq f- (p.30) All this strengthens the stand taken tn thts study,

namely, materials lor second language teach~ng in Indla, especially at the

tertmry level where the students are In a better position to be aware d their /' needs, shouM be relevant, interest~ng, and motivating. Thrs can be achleved

by selectrng materials that are socrally and culturally relevant to the

contemporan/ lnd~an context. While selecting the texts, rt IS advisable to get

lo know the needs and areas of lnterestlng content through a needs analysis

survey.

And, the marn alm of language leamlng In general, and as env~saged

In the new curriculum In part~cular, is to 'equ~p the learners wrth the

necessary language skrlls for functlonlng rn Engllsh" (CDC Report 1989: 29).

1.7 AT m E POINT OF OEPAR~UF~E

Leaming depmc!s not just on what wuts are made amlabk to the Learner m

the form of rnatenab, but equally on what the learner bnngs to bear on those

Inputs, whlch can perhaps be called the leamer's 'Investment' The learner's

att~tudes, personality or motlvatron are obviously a part of the ~nvestment.

Bes~des. 11 refers to the learner's current knowledge of the world and hrs

current language abrlrt~es-these factors have also to be consrdered In the

constructton of matenals

In the optnuon of Prabhu (1990), matenals represent a selectron of

certarn cogndrve and cultural content, as well as a demand for lrngurst~ effort

at a certain level, as rnput, learners brrng wlth them a certain state of

cogndrve and cultural knowledge, and a ceriarn level of language ablllty, as

Investment Leamtng can be sad to result from an rnteractm between input

and urvestment, the amount of Ieamlng being proporttonate to the amount of

nteractlon. The amount of interaction, in turn, depends on the relatronship

behHsen aput Md h v e m t , wh~ch we can thlnk of m terms of ther relative

closeneu and drstance.

If the level of input m very close to the Level of mvestment, the amount

of interaction called for 18 Small and the gatn in terms of leamlng 1s also

small. If, on the other hand, Input and Investment are too distant from each

other, interaction can become too dlfffcult or ~mpossible, wlth llttle learncng

tak~ng place. What is needed is an appropnate dlstance between the two,

such that inleradm can be maxfmal and successtul.

Further, the teachers of English have to come into thetr own and dare

to be Innovatwe fn all the spheres of their vocabon They have to leam and

teach how to use English W complete fidel~ty to thetr lndlan identrty so that

they are m the mainstream of our regeneratwe movement, not rnerety play~ng

a penpheral role All this rmples that the Engltsh they use and they expect

the learners to use should mesh wtth the truth of our experience wfthout

fals~ficatton

To factlflate lh~s process, the student should have dlrect access to the

culture surrounding the text even outside the class He should be able to

see the 10x1 not only as someth~ng prlnted on a page but as something

related to him In real ltle as well When the cultural connotations of a text

pose no barners. the learner can grapple directly wfth the language as well

as wrth the meaning ol the text Thts pofnt is seldom recognized by those

who are in favour of Englmh texts wnlten by native speakers. They argue

that In learntng a foreign language one also leams about a foregn culture,

and that the two procesws supplement and reinforce each other This may

be true to some exlent, but the point IS that the whole process of leamfng

the Engl* language would be facilitated 11 the Indmn student were to learn

Engliah on tarni!iar before approaching unfamtliar contexts through it.

Ghoah 81 el. (1977. 84) point out that the teacher of English In lndm

m y be in a podtion to r e b e to teach an unsuitable text. They theretore

suggest that The teacher should Ignore a great deal of the passage which

may have little relevance for the student from the Imguistrc, cultural, or even

the plalnly utllltarian (exam~nation) polnt of vtew A college lecturer

should be willing lo gwe up much that IS Irrelevant in relabon to the student's

needs, however much he [the teacher] h~mself may be Interested in i t '

However, their suggestion ralses a basic question Why should we prescribe

such materials when we know fully well that they will not appeal to the

students?

Any text prexnbed, particularly an intenswe reader for undergraduate

compulsory General Engllsh In lndlan Unrverslt~es, should therefore cater to

the students' need to acquire Engl~sh language skills through interest~ng

read~ng matenals Such matenals not only further the students' motwation to

anchor thelr anent~on In the readlng matenal but also ease out thew tenslon

and anxiety In the classroom As a result, thelr skills of comprehending the

rnaterrals are devebped less straln and waste of hme on the part of both

the students and the teacher who 1s pressurrzed to 'cover the portlons in

Itme' Again, lnteractlon elther between the teacher and the students, or

among the students IS smoolhty fac~lltated, w~th the result that teach~ng and

learning will be purposeful and rneanlngtul

The general Impression has been that the Ideas and expenences of

natlve English speaker teachers In nellve Engl~sh speaking contexts are

accorded a privileged status the textbooks whch lncorporate them bear the

seal of quality But, as Wlddowson (1993. 7) po~nts out, "there IS no reason

lo suppose that what 1s appropnate in one context will be appropnate in

another qulte the reverse in fact As with the English language, so with

English language pedagogy, there needs to be a mcognitm that there can be

no imposition of standards, and that continuing effectiveness depends On

e d a p t m to dmermt and changing warn- In resped to both Engl~sh

and Engl~sh teaching, what 18 proper 18 what IS appropriate, not what IS

appropriated' The Present research was born out of mu convlctlon

1.8 AIM AND SCOPE OF W E STUDY

~t wll be adm~ned that not many umverslty syllabuses In lnd~a today presmbe

approprtate readlng mater~als The defic~enues of these syllabuses are high-

1i9hw and they should be sultably mod~fied in the light of the requirements

dtswsed In this chapter The tradrton here lnslsts on Um uncrlt~cal ~ncluslon

of materids whrch are so loaded w~th conceptual drffiwltes beyond the reach

of the second language learners and also wvlth exotlc souoculhrral background

!hat the students' abtllty to deduce meanlng from the context 1s Impeded In

!he Itght of the above argument the researcher has made an attempt In a

small measure lo propose matenals for lntensrve reading from drfferent socaces

based on an awareness of the needs of students for whom they we meant

1 9 THE THESIS A BROAD WEW

The followtng chapter tnittates a dtscusslon about the place of a textbook

wh~m IS the central strtng around whta the W e teach~ng-leam~ng process is

woven Secondly there IS an analysis of about 55 textbooks presutbed for

intenstve study In vartous unlverslties of lndla over the past three decades

Ftnalv, I! spells out the criterra fw the selecton d lntenslve reading matenals

that are to be held-tested by the researcher

Chapter Ill deals w~th a survey conducted to assess the views of the

students on the~r wants and needs It beglns by hlghllghtlng the importance

d needs analysts and them reports on a survey undertaken by the researcher

through a quest~onnalre mth a sample of about 200 undergraduate studeclts

who had canpietad t h r f~nt-year languege programe Finally. 11 bnngs aR

the flnd~ngs of the survey

Chapter IV fir& explains the basis for the selection and the nature of

materiel selected for frekl-testing. Secondly, it describes the actual experiment

conducted by the researcher ustng a few readtng texts m five colleges wtth

about 250 students. Ftnally, tt analyzes the responses of the students

Chapter V summarues the mqor aspects of the study, reports the main

ftndtngs, and offers a few suggesttons