In defence of Communicative English

At the request of an internationally renowned social worker, the writer and his colleagues began the arduous but rewarding task of helping Rekha, a 30 year old woman learn English. The time given was twenty-eight days, two hours daily.

Rekha had dropped out of elementary school after three years. Her father, a farmer, married her off at a very early age. The marriage did not work out and Rekha, with a son in her lap, was abandoned by her husband. To the consternation of her parents and relatives, she left her only son with her parents in the village and began work at an NGO. Later, with her hard work, perseverance, and indomitable courage, she became the driver of the afore-mentioned social worker.

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After working for thirteen and a half years, Rekha was offered a driving job by the country director of an international organisation. The job and the return offered were one that Rekha had never dreamed of. But the challenge before her was that she had to learn to communicate in English and would be interviewed in English. Rekha, her Boro Bhai (that is what this great social worker is called by hundreds of his colleagues), and her teachers took up the challenge.

Rekha had to relearn the English alphabet and copy at least two pages from an English book given her by her Boro Bhai. She wrote almost ten pages daily, and that too, after her eight to ten hours of driving work. Rekha and her teacher met every morning for two hours.

The teacher would demonstrate and say, for example, "Sit down, Rekha." Rekha would sit down. "We are climbing down the stairs now." Rekha would repeat the sentence and climb down the stairs along with her teacher. The teacher would say, "That gentleman is Dr. Qureshi, the Dean." Rekha would repeat it. "She is Ms. Sharmine, teacher of English." Rekha would say the same thing. Then the teacher would ask her questions, for example, "Who is Dr. Qureshi? Who is Ms. Sharmine? Who is your Boro Bhai? Is your Boro Bhai married? How many children does he have? What are their names? Are you married? Do you have children? What is your son's name?"

In a very short time, seven class days, Rekha was able to respond to the simple questions mentioned above. The teacher tried to get Rekha to write questions and answers, but she could not, because she did not know the spellings of words and neither did she have any idea of English syntax. The teacher gave up the idea. Not a big deal, he thought. Rekha needed to communicate with her interviewer in English. She was not expected to write grammatically correct reports in English. She needed to learn how to talk and respond to questions.

All Rehka needed was encouragement and a lot of practice listening and speaking. She heard grammatically correct English, but was not able to reproduce exactly what she had heard. But what she said was understandable. The "he" always became "she," and her grammar was very weak. But her teacher persisted. He continued repeating the same questions and eliciting the same kind of responses daily before asking new questions. Rekha and her teacher did not communicate sitting in a class-room but walking in the university campus.

The teacher would ask, "What tree is that, Rekha?" and Rekha would answer, "Coconut tree." The answer was accepted and appreciated. To the teacher's utter surprise, Rekha was able to name many different kinds of trees and plants which the teacher did not know. In a fortnight, Rekha was able to introduce her teacher to many workers of the NGO where she had been working. She was also able to give her teacher a lot of information about these people. The most amazing thing was that Rekha was able to tell her teacher the addresses of almost all the embassies in Dhaka and also the shortest and hassle-free routes from a particular place to those embassies. At the end of her 28 class days, Rekha was interviewed by her prospective boss and she was found suitable to be the director's driver. Her interviewer and she communicated in English. She was hired. Her communication skills were appreciated, not by a non-native teacher of English, but by a native speaker, who has mastered her language. This is what Communicative English is all about!

The National Curriculum and Text Book Board have rightly selected "English For Today" as the set text for the examinations to meet the need of teaching and learning how to communicate in English. Every unit has been meticulously and painstakingly selected to help our learners learn the technique of communication. If only our teachers were properly trained and if they were more sincere in their efforts, thousands of students would not fail their English exams every year and the experts would find no reason to shed tears and write prescriptions for the country to go backward and provide the means for the teachers to become the only beneficiaries.

The principal of a women's college in Comilla invited the writer to visit his college to find out the reason for the high number of failures in English. The writer sat in three classes and to his utter dismay found that none of the three teachers knew exactly which lesson they would teach that day. In the note for the teachers in the text books, the editor very clearly gives the guidelines on how to handle the book. It would not be an exaggeration to say that very few teachers read the editor's instructions, and even if they had read it, very few knew how to handle the text. The problem is the teachers' lack of interest and skill in teaching Communicative English. Most of them still want to go back to the good old days when they would sell their all important "notes" for the students to memorise and regurgitate in the examination hall without understanding much of what they were supposed to read in school or college.

The HSC syllabus of the past consisted of four short stories, one essay, ten poems, and limited sentences based on some grammatical items. Board question papers would reveal that the five prose pieces did not have more than ten essay type questions and about twenty questions expecting short answers that would be set at alternate years. Most teachers had the answers prepared beforehand and used to sell them to their most liked students (their fortune makers).

But only a few were able to read, understand, write, and speak English properly. The lucky ones became lucky not due to the great teaching of their teachers, successful administrators, and the effective syllabus, but because they had had a congenial atmosphere of hearing and speaking English at home. Their parents are to be lauded for this, not the teachers or institutions or syllabi. They would have done pretty similarly had they not attended a single English class in college.

The writer of the Nov. 14 piece gives evidence of the kinds of errors students of the new syllabus make because, according to him, the new syllabus, Communicative English, does not encourage teachers to teach elements of grammar. This is not true. On the top of the page, beginning each unit, there are hints for the teacher about the elements of grammar that the students are supposed to learn at the end of that particular unit. It is the teacher's job to teach and verify whether her/his students have learned those items of grammar or not. If not, have them review the chapter, and rewrite, rewrite, speak, speak, and speak, of course in English (both the teacher and the students) in the class-room. Until the teacher is convinced the chapter has been mastered by, if not all, most students, the leap to the next chapter would not be fair to the students.

It is too short a syllabus for two years compared to the number of units in the book and the number of working days. The kinds of grammatical errors the writer points out and blames on the new syllabus may also be directed at those who graduated from high school and college before the new syllabus "Communicative English" was introduced.

The writer of this article had the opportunity to give "English Teaching Methodology" classes to about three hundred secondary school teachers, English Language classes to more than a hundred bankers, many police officials and physicians, and almost the same kind of grammatical errors were detected in their writing and speech. The fault, therefore, is not with "Communicative English," but with the not very acceptable teaching standard, lack of motivation and sincerity of students, teachers, and administrators, and above all, a non-conducive English Language teaching environment in almost all government and government-aided schools and colleges. With a proper English Language teaching environment, training, and sincere work, teachers can bring about a radical improvement in our schools and colleges in a short time. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Terence Penheiro is Associate Professor and Head Department of English, Gono Bishwabidyalay, Savar, Dhaka.