English Teaching

English teachers should concentrate more on how to teach than what to teach, observes N.C. Nandagopalan, Secretary of the English Language Teachers Association of India (ELTAI), Coimbatore Chapter. For the 61-year-old retired Headmaster of Thambu Higher Secondary School, who is currently the Secretary, PSG Schools, teaching English is a passion bordering on obsession. “About 20 years ago, as an experimental measure, I tried teaching Social Studies to Tamil medium students in English for about a month. They loved it,” a recipient of Dr. Radhakrishnan Award tells G. Satyamurty.

His love for the language was born when his maternal uncle handed over a dictionary to him and asked to memorise 20 words a day. “I was then 12 and I virtually memorised the entire dictionary.” After post-graduating in History, he chose to post-graduate in English also. It was followed by another PG in Education as well. To top it all, he had a 4-month training in Regional Institute of English, Bangalore, where modern methods of teaching phonetics, grammar and methodology, etc. are taught. Besides, he could interact with teachers from all the southern States and understand their linguistic competency.

“The language lab at the institute helped me learn pronunciation, stress, pause and intonation better and I chose to do a PG Diploma also at the same institute.” Understanding the basic flaws in English teaching, he was one of the founder members of the ELTAI in Coimbatore in 1993 with Dr. Kumaravadivel of San Jose University, US, as the President.

The association with 150 members, which is purely self-funded, convenes meeting every month in some school or other in Coimbatore. There teachers from the primary to the university level share their experiences in English teaching and pool in their resources. Their doubts are clarified and model classes in prose, poetry and grammar teaching are conducted. “Even non-members can attend. The recent meeting on Role of Successful Teacher of English attracted as many as 85 participants. I would consider it a great success,” he adds.

He admits that hardly 10 members from the colleges turn up for the meeting. Similar is the attitude of the aided and Government school teachers. But it is from the matriculation sector, major portion of the participants is drawn because “their survival depends upon their efficiency.We invited even the teachers in the Sarva Shiksha Abyan project but drew a blank.” Mr. Nandagopalan visits a number of institutions and keeps on impressing teachers and students on the necessity of learning English and how it could be learnt well. He even makes power-point presentation on the intricacies of the English language and effective communication. He stresses the role of grammar and how spoken English could be improved.

“We should motivate them to learn for which their fear psychosis or the sort of phobia that they have should be dispelled. We should try to make them think in English. For this, apart from reading a lot, it is essential to listen to English news broadcasts.” He is very conscious of the weakness of the students regarding vocabulary and also the sentence pattern. “For me word power is world power. As you get your dresses from ward robe take your words from word-robe. Words are the blocks on which the edifice of language is built.”

Mr. Nandagopalan’s thoughts on teaching English cascade despite his efforts to stem the tide.“Any item, including chair and table, could be used to teach English. What is required is just triggering the students’ curiosity by interaction. The teachers should know how to use memory pegs.” He comes out with a number of examples of how homophones could be differentiated. For instance, “I tell the students I will die rather than dye my hair.” “This stationary lorry has brought stationery items.” “I accept that all are present except Ram and expect him to attend the school tomorrow.” “I quite agree with you that it is a quiet place and I promise never to quit it.”

However, English is not taught as it should be. Teachers do teach the content but the language is lost. Thus, the primary purpose of learning the language is lost. Every English teacher should have a pronouncing dictionary on the table. He should read and listen as much as possible. Above all, he should keep his eyes and ears open. He explains how “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water” is rhythmic. “Twinkle twinkle little star” rhyme is a consonant cluster which is not found in Tamil. “Make children think and imagine and English can be learnt very easily. And the enthusiasm of the teacher should infect the children,” he concludes.

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