1 A.NANDA, M.A., M.

Phil, Assistant Professor in English Research Department of English Bharathi Womens College (Autonomous) Chennai 600 108

Simple Strategies Employed In Teaching Communication Skills for Rural College Students

Introduction:
Communication skill has been defined as the ability to use language (receptive) and express (expressive) information. The ability to communicate is the primary factor that distinguishes human being from animals. And it is this ability to communicate well that distinguishes one individual from another. Globalization in all fields, call for the learning of a language which is internationally acclaimed. Undoubtedly English Language has become the lingua franca of the world rather than the language of only the English speaking countries. This is because the number of the people who use English as a means of communication exceeds much more than the number of the people who speak it as their mother tongue. English is said to be the worlds most important language having communicative and educative value.

In a multi-lingual country like India, the influence of this universal language has been, directly and indirectly, for more than two centuries. In Indian minds English symbolizes better education, better culture and higher intellect. Hence it is the most preferred language in India and the demand for this language increases. So learning English, the

2 universal language becomes an inseparable branch and also indispensable in Indian education system. It has become the synonym of employability not only in India but throughout the world.

Communication skills:
Communication skills play an important role in getting a job, with the IT revolution and most of the software and operating system being in English. In this competitive world communication skills, an important factor, determines ones employability. A person who is confidently equipped with the necessary communication skills wins the race and finds himself placed in a decent job in the job market. Now-a-days the recruiters who go for campus placements are in need of students with good communication skills, behavior skills, good knowledge of spoken English and basic computer knowledge, apart from good academic records. However, one has to accept that there is an urbanrural divide when it comes to campus placements, because there is an obvious gap between the rural and urban students in art and science colleges. While the demand increases on the one hand, the proficiency of English language capability of rural students presents an abysmal picture. The divide between the urban and rural is further aggravated by the way English language education is making its way as a medium of instruction.

Students from cities possess higher job skill sets, are competitive for jobs with higher remuneration or packages, when compared to rural students. Even if students from rural colleges get through the entry level aptitude tests, they hardly succeed in a group discussion or interview. Students from rural area with good academic record, despite their sound knowledge of the subject, are unable to get good jobs even after the

3 completion of Degree courses. Where as the students from cities are able to secure good jobs though they do not have good academic record. The actual gap always lies in the rural students lack of communicative ability, especially in Spoken English which is a real need among the youth for opening doors of better career opportunities.

Reasons for lack of Communication skills among the rural students:

As a result of lack of adequate social skills and social networking, that is typically found in larger cities, rural students find it more difficult to co-ordinate with their colleagues and employers. When compared with the city college students, the students of rural colleges are considered to be in their initial stage of language learning and their exposure to the language is very minimal. There is an obvious difference in the language ability of the city and rural college students. There are various reasons behind this difference and they are: Inadequate foundations. Vernacular interference. Socio-economic background. Lack of motivation. Lack of awareness. Let us discuss these points in detail: The main factor is that, undeniably, in rural schools, language is taught as a subject and not as a language - a tool for communication. Most of the students in the rural colleges are first generation learners and they hail from regional medium schools where English is being taught as the second language by teachers who are not proficient in English. Learning a second language means acquiring a system of rules, the rural students learn these rules by rote, as portion to face the examination, without understanding how these

4 rules are acquired. This practice of learning a language will not allow them to think critically and present their thoughts in English. As a result they find themselves unable to express in English, they have no idea of proper sentence structure and do not know proper pronunciation, and spelling etc.

Besides, in school most of the time they are listening only to their regional language, both inside and outside the classroom. Hence the chance of confronting with English language is very minimal for these students who come from a rural background and if at all they are exposed to English, they are only exposed to poor and non-standard English at their school level. As in schools they have been taught English through Grammar Translation method, that makes them dependent on their mother tongue. So whatever they read they translate it into their own vernacular and during exams they just read the expected questions by heart since they cannot write on their own in English.

The problem of teaching English to the rural students starts from the pre-schooling. Their environment and family background play vital role in success of learning process. This is because majority of them come from villages, also their antecedents are farmers and uneducated who can not support their wards in learning the language and, as mentioned earlier, they are first generation learners who hail from a poor economical background too. Hence, the students are mentally discouraged by their family conditions and this poor socio-economic background of these students naturally develops an inferiority complex in them.

Another important factor for inadequate communicative skills in rural college students is due to lack of motivation. It is very important that teachers are required to motivate

5 their students to involve in creative thinking and critical thinking, but the teachers in the rural schools fail to do so. Moreover language teaching by itself, is in fact, a selfmotivated task now-a-days, but the teachers themselves are less motivated and do not adopt any specific methods of teaching in order to make it easily understandable and interesting to the students. Instead their teaching is focused on only to meet the requirements of examinations and not to hone the communication skills of students, naturally.

One more important factor is that, most of the students do not realize the importance of English as a language of communication. For them English has not been a language but only a subject. So their only motive is to get pass marks in the subject and not learning the language

So it is here, in college, the English teacher has an important role to play. Foremost it is very essential that, teachers of English must possess the following communication skills: proficiency in English, positive motivation, effective body language, sense of humor, interpersonal skills, etc. The teacher, more than being a teacher, has to be very flexible in her /his role as a facilitator. I strongly believe that if a teacher plays his/her role effectively in classroom no doubt he/she can create miracles in improving the communication ability of even the rural students.

Role of the teacher in the language classroom: 1. Understand the psychology of students:

6 A teachers primary role is not only to enable the students to understand what he is intending to say or teach. It is also the duty of the teacher to understand what the student wants and says. In teaching-learning process, two things play the vital roles; one is the delivering capacity of the teacher and the other one is the receiving capacity of the students. Without these two aspects, the teaching-learning process will not be a successful one. Thus the first and foremost work of an English teacher in a rural college is to understand the psychology of the students. After finishing the schooling in their regional language medium, with all its lapses, when these students get into the collegiate education, they are forced to undergo their studies in English language with out any choice. This sort of a sudden shift makes them feel that they are unfit and they feel alienated and thus they develop a very low self esteem of themselves. The teacher should help the students shun their inferiority complex and to get away with their fear, shyness and low self esteem but very often it is left unnoticed.

2. Make them realize the importance of communication skills:

Even though Teaching English as the second language to students from rural background poses a challenge to college teachers, it can be made easy and possible by making the students realize the importance of learning English and making them understand that English is just like their mother tongue and there is nothing wrong in making mistakes in using English . This will help the students feel confident and comfortable in the English classroom which consequently, will improve the confidence level of the student in learning the language.

3. Use modern methods of teaching:

7 The students of rural colleges are considered to be in their initial stage of language learning, so when they learn English at their collegiate level, the curriculum should be designed appropriately to suit their level of learning as well to equip them to be successful in the job markets through their communicative competence. However, the curriculum prescribed is only an extension of what they experienced at their school level. The same old conventional grammar-translation method is being involved in language teaching, even in college level, the syllabus comprises prose, poetry, grammar and written work. This method focuses only on the skills of reading and writing, with a very little emphasis on listening and speaking. Here the learner does not play an active role, his role is rather passive. The students merely read by heart a few essays and get a pass grade in examination, which in no way test their over all abilities. Also the teacher has little scope for innovative planning to incorporate the actual needs of the learner in the class room and her main concern is to cover all the lessons in the book within the stipulated time.

The objective of a language classroom is to make the learner learn the language and use it effectively. So the teacher, who has a repertoire of techniques in teaching different skills, is more likely to succeed in his/her objective than the one who has limited number of techniques at command. If the teaching-learning situation is to be made learner centered, the curriculum in language teaching needs to be employed with new modern methods in teaching English which emphasizes on listening and speaking, as speech is the basis in language learning. Here the teachers should act as a facilitator and a guide. If these methods are employed the classes will be interactive, informative, entertaining as well as controlled to some extent.

Some of the modern methods are:

a) Structural Oral Situational Approach (S-O-S): It is the presentation and

practice of carefully selected and graded grammatically structures of English in effective, meaningful situations, initially through speech and later through reading and writing.

Techniques used: object description, role-play, small talk, etc.

b) The communicative approach: It deals with the shift from the teacher-fronted
language learning or teaching to the learner-fronted. This method aims to make the learner attain communicative competence, that is, use language accurately and appropriately and helps them acquire oral and written communication skills.

Techniques used: language games, mind engaging tasks, role play, retrieving text
order, group work / pair work etc.

c) Humanistic approach: This approach deals with the methodologies developed

by people outside the language teaching profession who believed that the language teachers should not damage the self-image of the learners, at least in the beginning stages; the language teaching professional should be supportive, non-critical, understanding, nurture the qualities of independence, autonomy and responsibility. Here the learner is an active participant and does all the talking.

Techniques used: group discussion, presentation / seminar, Picture comprehension.

4. Introduce Simple Strategies:

9 Whatever methodology the teacher adopts in language teaching, he/she should have it in mind that it is done in an effective and enjoyable way and this can be achieved by employing various but simple strategies in the classroom. It is very important that teachers are required to motivate their students to involve in creative thinking and critical thinking. My paper attempts to emphasize on the roles of the teachers in introducing various but simple strategies like language games, pair work, group discussions, role plays, etc. in the class room in order to improve the communication skills of the students. I have specifically taken the examples of Language games and Role plays here and would like to emphasize how these simple strategies help the students in improving their communication skills.

As discussed earlier the students from rural background are with inadequate foundations in language learning and are exposed to poor and non-standard English at their school level. The teacher has to make her/his teaching more effective and interesting in all possible ways, therefore the very old method of teaching English, which is even now followed in language classroom, are no longer going to help both the teachers as well as students, in imparting and imbibing the communication skills, respectively, because the age old or conventional lecture method makes the students mute spectators or passive listeners in the classroom and ultimately they feel bored.

I, as an English teacher, strongly believe that language learning could be better in a relaxed atmosphere. Students would be relaxed and comfortable when they are

introduced to language games and activities like group work, pair work, and role play and remember things faster and better .In recent years, language teaching has focused on the learning process rather than the teaching of the language. The emphasis is not

10 only on linguistic competency of the language learners but also on the development of their communicative ability. In order to develop the learners' communicative ability, the teacher needs to create a situation to teach the language in a vibrant, active and interesting manner.

Generally there is a misconception that language learning is a hard task which can sometimes be even frustrating. Constant effort is required to understand, produce and manipulate the target language. Well-chosen games are invaluable as they give students a break and at the same time allow students to practice language skills. Language games are highly motivating since they are amusing and at the same time challenging. They can lower the learners anxiety, thus making their acquisition of input more likely. Further, they employ meaningful and useful language in real contexts. They also encourage and increase cooperation and also promote fluency. Through games, students can learn English the way children learn their mother tongue without being aware they are studying; thus without stress, they can learn a lot and even shy students will volunteer to participate in them participate.

Examples of a few language games and what students benefit through them: 1. Passing the secret:
The students are divided into groups of 7 to 10. One leader from each group is chosen. The leaders are given the card which has the sentence, like George had repaired

many cars before he received his mechanic's license." (Any grammatically

correct sentence can be used.)He is asked to memorize the sentence, go back to his

11 group and whisper what he has read on the card to the person on his right. Each person is asked to whisper the sentence to the next person and the sentence is said only once. The last is allowed to say the sentence aloud. Which ever group repeats the same sentence as written on the paper wins the game.

Benefits of this game:

The speaking and the listening abilities are improved. The grammatical structure of the sentence is learnt. The proper pronunciations are learnt.

2. Pick out the Differences:

Find or draw two pictures which are the same except for seven features. Photocopy them on separate sheets of paper. Ask students to work in pairs. Give one copy of each picture to the pairs. The pairs are not supposed to show their copies to each other. Partner A's will describe their copy and Partner B's will listen carefully and examine their own copy to find the differences. They can ask questions if they require more detailed information or need any clarification. The pair that finishes first wins the game.

Pick out the differences out of these two pictures:

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Benefits of this game:

Speaking (describing people and actions) ability is improved. Listening and grammar is improved.

Role Play:
Language teaching can be an interesting challenge when teachers make the effort to explore a variety of approaches. Role play is just one of the many methods available for exploitation. With some attention given to the needs of the learners, both the teacher and the learners can play active roles in the classroom, making language classes livelier, challenging and above all rewarding. Role-play make language learning studentcentered and interactive, thereby creating a more spontaneous and realistic learning environment that prepares teacher and their students for social interaction through the

13 medium of a language. It encourages creative thinking in students, also helps the students to get away with their inhibitions.

In a role plays though the teachers role is minimal, he/she does play an important role of an organizer and provider of language items when needed. The teacher only defines the general structure of the role play, but generally does not actively participate once the structure is set. The teacher becomes the controller, and controls the event in the same way as a traffic controller, helping the flow of traffic and avoiding bottlenecks, but not telling individuals which way to go. Rather than a traditional, teacher- centered classroom structure, the teacher keeps a relatively low profile and students are free to interact with each other spontaneously. This reduces student anxiety and facilitates learning.

The teachers role in a Role play:

Should pair or group the students. Should present the situation or the role card to the class. Brief the activity. The role play shouldn't be scripted out in detail, instead should give the student a general scenario with different elements and suggested ideas for complications to occur. Before asking them to perform a role play you should prepare the students by asking questions. The questions should incorporate the major parts of the role play and the vocabulary/idioms involved. After the question answer session the students should be comfortable with what they need to do.

14 Allow them a few minutes to study the role cards and work out some key sentences. Help, if and needed. Each role play should be performed at least twice with the students changing their roles. The best pair among the class can enact to the class. Avoid making corrections until the role play is finished.

Example of a Role Play:Here is a role card.

Student A You are booking into a hotel. Elements Complications You are on your own. You want a shower.

Student B You are a hotel receptionist. Elements Welcome the guest. Find them a room. Complications

You want breakfast in the morning. You have an early meeting and must not be late.

You can't find their reservation. You only have a double room with bath available.

Benefits of Role Play

Creativity thinking and writing skills are enhanced. Speaking and listening skills are improved. Shyness and fear is removed. Confidence to speak is bettered. Active involvement and a positive attitude are seen.

15 The learners ability to express ideas is improved. Critical thinking and problem solving skills are developed due to the simulated "real life" problems.

The teacher must take on some additional responsibilities in role playing/simulation. In particular, the teacher must keep learners motivated by stimulating their curiosity and keeping the material relevant, creating a "tension to learn". Thus a comprehensible input is provided by the teacher in role play because the students engage in genuine communication in playing their roles. Active involvement and participation, and absorbing interaction tend to make students forget they are learning a new language. Students have the opportunity to try out new behaviors in a safe environment, which helps them develop long term motivation to master an additional language.

Conclusion:
Through these simple strategies the teacher helps their students enhance their communicative skills, encourage their participation, change their attitudes towards language learning and above all provide them a realistic opportunity to work with others in the classroom. Constant preparation and practice of such language items make the learners improve their performance, undoubtedly.

Work cited:

16 1. Barber, Charles, The English Language-A Historical Introduction, Cambridge university press.1993. 2. Lakshminarayanan, K.R., The Communicating Art, SciTech Publications (India) Pvt. Ltd.2004. 3. Nagaraj, Geetha, English Language Teaching Approaches methods techniques, Calcutta: Orient Longman Ltd, 1996. 4. C.L. Wrenn, The English Language, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House P. Ltd, 1989. 5. Randolph Quirk, The use of English, Hongkong: The Hongkong Printing Press Ltd, 1977