http://www.vsdh.org/vsdh/magazines/dh_centenary/englang.html 11.3.

2013

TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE and LITERATURE by Dr. S. P. Sen Gupta Head, Dept of English North Bengal University The teaching of English literature has been carried on in our Country for well over a Century. The British left India more than thirty years ago, but even today the importance of English language and literature is being increasingly felt. Our teachers and students are fully aware of the benefits of 'English' as a broad, flexible, and liberal discipline, although there have been consistent attempts in recent years to minimise its importance. Indian teachers and students have to face certain difficulties at the initial stage in appreciating English literature. They have no easy access to the inwardness of the language and the whole body of allusions, customs, and manners. They have to study books of social history and of literary and mythological reference before they hope to make a dent in it. A British student shares the cultural heritage, which is denied to an Indian student. It is a paradox that as education in India is advancing, the standard of English at all stages is sharply declining. English is no longer related to a particular social context, and that explains why it no longer holds undisputed supremacy in our educational curriculum. Working knowledge of English has become the main objective of our educationists. They want our students to know a few basic structures and a few hundred essential words, reducing 'literature' to the irreducible minimum. What our educationists; often fail to understand is that literature is useful even in language learning. The most important function of literature, however, is genuinely educational. It forms certain attitudes and inculcates certain positive values. In imparting literary education to our students, the teachers by and large face certain difficulties. In the British

Universities, with which I claim to have a measure of acquaintance, the primary aim is to teach the students how to teach themselves. Normally each teacher delivers two lectures a week and conducts six to eight tutorials. He does not examine his students, who are not, therefore, forced to reproduce slavishly either his notes or his views. The tutorials are of paramount importance, which enable students to express themselves independently by writing and discussion. Never standoffish, teachers go out of their way to have informal contacts with the students in the Coffee rooms and bars, in common rooms and dances. In India the contacts between the teacher and the taught is never very close. Social inhibitions are always there. Teachers are on the pedestal, speaking with pontifical solemnity. For a proper appreciation of English literature at least as smattering of such auxiliary subjects as English History, English Culture, and the Geography of the British Isles is necessary. Hence the auxiliary subjects also assume certain, importance. Since our entire educational pattern is examination-oriented, there is always the inevitable mushroom growth of crib books, with which the market is literally glutted. The lack of response from the students at the school or undergraduate level is a fact which we shall have to reckon with. The teacher of literature is, therefore, presented with an uphill task. He does not know how to infuse an interest, when most students are concerned with getting the School Leaving Certificate or the University hall-marks at any cost, or learning the English language for purely social or financial advantages. For such students, and they account for the bulk of the community, interest in English literature is virtually nil. Teaching aids and visual aids can, I imagine, come to our rescue. There are, of course, critics, who object to the use of such aids, since they inhibit imagination. Their criticism, however, can be conveniently brushed aside. Let us hope, the visual aids stimulate and not deaden the imagination. You are reading, for example, one of the poems of Wordsworth with your students, and a picture or a filmstrip of the Lake districts is of considerable help. If you are dealing with an abstract theme like classicism, the picture of a classical Greek temple serves a useful purpose. The Parthenon of ancient Greece is self-contained within an unbroken line, and its

ravishing beauty lies in the perfect proportion of the parts to the whole. The Gothic Cathedral, which illustrates the spirit of Romanticism is not enclosed within an unbroken bounding line. Its spires lead your eye upward to infinity. T.V. programmes have been playing a significant part in the relatively sophisticated educational institutions. Better teaching of Poetry and drama is possible by gramophone records, which have invariably a much greater impact. Background lectures make the study of English literature meaningful. While reading a Greek classic, a few lectures on Hellenic civilisation may not be out of place; for a student of Victorian literature a series of background lectures on the Industrial Revolution, the Oxford Movement, the rise of democracy, the expansion of Science, the rapid changes in the social fabric of England, and the epoch-making advances in geological and biological studies are worth while. The teacher has to re-create the thing. The lectures must not tend to be factual but creative, so that what you are talking about comes alive in the minds of the students. Let us not have the self-complacency to claim that we teachers are all oracles. We are not. H.G. Wells in his Salvaging of Civilisation says that a first class M.A. of 1891 becomes a complete fossil in 1921. I am afraid, the process of fossilisation starts much earlier. , Summer Schools , and Seminars may help us considerably in this regard. A teacher of English literature comes to a summer school to bring himself up to date and broaden his outlook. He knows much about the current writing which kindles his enthusiasm, to be transmitted to his students. Practical criticism fosters the spirit of independence. I.A. Richards has made excellent experiments in this direction. Practical criticism helps a student meet a piece of literature himself. A teacher of English literature, ever since independence, has been told for umpteen times that the medium of instruction at all stages should be the regional languages. English which had been enjoying the pride of place is now being accorded stepmotherly treatment. We are often blind to the fact that the gateway to world-culture is English. A grudging provision is being made for it in the syllabus of every State. Teachers of our country do not find a congenial atmosphere for teaching a

subject, which is on sufferance. "English should be taught as a tool subject rather than as a content subject" - that is the slogan of our educationists. From purely utilitarian consideration some say that a working knowledge of English is possible by reading prose alone, and, therefore poetry and drama may be dispensed with. These are some of the impediments in the way of the teacher of English. A sense of insecurity looms large. Academicians that we are, we cannot hope to overcome them. It is for the politicians to tackle it. We can, however, devise ways and means to do whatever is possible within our limited resources. We can, I suppose, bring the students closer, so that they may have a greater involvement in the class room. We can ask them - "Well, do it yourself". Spoon-feeding may be partially given up. The teacher must see that he is carrying the class with him. He must not be one, who is much admired and little understood. It is quite a job to adjust oneself to the sharply different mental levels of students in the same class. A teacher willy nilly has to be a psychologist. For without being able to enter the minds of the students, he cannot realise their difficulties. A grim fact the young teachers are blind to, and elderly teachers are keenly conscious of, is the sharp decline in. the standard of the students. We often ensure the percentage of success by distinctly lowering down the standard of valuation. Examinations today are not the infallible test of one's attainment in English. It often happens that a student gets the highest degree at the University and acquits himself creditably inspite of his lamentable inability to express himself. It does not need the intelligence of a Sherlock Holmes to know how far he has crammed like a parrot. If teachers as examiners are determined not to put a premium on the ability of a student to reproduce what others have written, they may, in the long run, force the examinees to rely on themselves. Let us not have a nostalgia for the past, when the English Department in any School or College was, for all practical purposes, the imperial department. It has fallen upon evil days. But the position is not irreclaimable. English has, no doubt, lost its privileged position. The future of English depends largely upon the teachers of English themselves, although they are not allowed to shape the educational

policies. As teachers, we are to be conscious of our growing responsibility and attract an ever-growing number of students. This apparently impossible task can be achieved only if we take up teaching as a mission. We are to search our hearts and undertake teaching with zeal and devotion. We must not be caught napping. Before finding fault with our students we should find fault with ourselves. What Chaucer said about corrupt priests is a timely warning to us all - "If gold rusts, what shall iron do?"

Dr. S.P. Sengupta giving away the Class Prize to Mridula Sen, Speach Day. 1978.