International Indexed &Referred Research Journal, May, 2012. ISSN- 0975-3486, RNI-RAJBIL 2009/30097;VoL.

III *ISSUE-32

Research PaperEnglish

Effectiveness of The Teaching of English in The Assamese Medium High Schools of Assam
May, 2012 A B S T R A C T
The goal of teaching English as a second language has been undergone a great paradigm shift. Now the focus is on "communicative competence" rather than on "language comprehension. The changing goal leads to introduction of new methods, and each new method assigns a new set of role for the teacher. Now, an overall demand has arisen for 'need-based' syllabus and a 'client-centred' teaching. But what is the reality of the Assamese medium high schools of Assam? Are they influenced by the changing trends? How far the teaching of those schools is effective? This study tries to find out the answers of those questions.

* Khirapada Dutta
* Asst. Prof, Dept of English, Madhabdev College, Narayanpur, Assam

Key Words: Paradigm shift, communicative competence, need-base, client-centered, effectiveness dents from each school are considered for the study. Introduction: With the advent of globalization, English Two sets of questionnaire- one for the students and has become the language of the new world. English another for the English teachers were prepared for has been recognized as the lingua franca for economic collection of data. and scientific exchange all over the world. As the Findings: After analyzing the collected data, the inresult, a great paradigm shift has taken place in the field of English language teaching. Today, what we vestigator has got the following findingsneed first is not the English literature, but the lan- i) The Methods of Teaching English in Assamese guage. Since the first half of the 20th Century, various Medium High Schools: In our survey, 81.25% of the student responmethods of language teaching had been introduced, dents say that their English teacher teaches a lesson but then replaced by methods based on newer or more appealing theories. Methods such as- Translation by translating it into Assamese. In case of grammar, method, Direct method, Bilingual method, Situational 88.75% students say that their English teacher teaches approach, Audiolingualism, Communicative Lan- grammar deductively and in case of composition, guage Teaching, were adopted internationally during 66.25% of the students say that the composition part their own times. Now, as the language-learning goal of their syllabus is never taught. Again, 83.75% of the teacher respondents has shifted from 'language comprehension' to 'combelieve that English can be taught more effectively by municative competence', an overall demand has arisen for 'need-based' syllabus and a 'client-centred' teach- translating it into students' mother tongue. Regarding. Therefore, this paper makes an attempt to find ing the use of teaching materials in the English classout the effectiveness of the teaching of English in the room, 58.75% of the students say that their teacher regional medium high schools of Assam. The objec- never uses any teaching aids in their classroom teaching. 60% of the teachers say that the students speak in tives of this paper arei) To find out the methods of teaching English in English only when they have to ask or answer a textual question, no student is found to use real English. Assamese medium high schools. ii) The effectiveness of the classroom teaching of Regarding the use of English in the classroom, 57.5% of the student respondents say that they use only English in Assamese medium high schools. Assamese in the classroom, 42.5% students say that Methodology Adopted: The present paper is based on field study. they use both Assamese and English, while none of The data required for the study was collected from the students say that they use only English in the total twenty Assamese medium high schools, randomly English class. Regarding the use of English by the selected from different corners of Gohpur and North English teacher, 60% of the students say that the Lakhimpur sub-divisions of Assam. Ten schools are teacher use English only to discuss the text, on the taken from each sub-division. Twenty teacher respon- other hand 36.25% students say that the teacher's use dents- one English teacher from each school and total of English only to the reading out the text book, the eighty student respondents, consisting of four stu- textbook is taught by translating it into Assamese. This shows that neither the English teacher nor the

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International Indexed &Referred Research Journal, May, 2012. ISSN- 0975-3486, RNI-RAJBIL 2009/30097;VoL.III *ISSUE-32

students use English even inside the English classroom for any communicative purposes. The little English which is used inside the classroom is used only to read out the textbook, or at the most to discuss the textual matters. ii) The Effectiveness of the Classroom Teaching of English in Assamese Medium High Schools: Though almost all teacher respondents consider developing communicative competence to be main goal of learning English, but according to 86.25% of them, the students are developed only in the writing skill, and they blame the teaching method for the uneven development of the language skills. Majority of the students say that they cannot speak English at all. The students' inability to use the language in real life context shows that the classroom teaching of English in the Assamese medium schools is not much effective. Like other subjects, English is also taught in Assamese. This may be a reason for which even after completion of their graduation and scoring good marks in English, majority of the Assamese medium students cannot use the language for ordinary day-to-day communication. Again, it is seen that most of the English teachers of the Assamese medium schools never apply any particular method for their teaching. Showing the reason behind it, most of them say that as they are not much familiar with the different methods of teaching English, they always prefer to teach in the method in which they were once taught. Again 93.75% of the teachers admit that they have never undergone any training which is specially meant for language teachers. Conclusion: In conclusion, it can be said that the teaching of English in Assamese medium high schools are not much effective. The teachers of those schools are not exposed to the different methods of teaching English

and the few teachers, who are somehow familiar with those methods, prefer to simplify their job by translating the text into Assamese. The teachers are not found to be serious in attaining contemporary goal of teaching English. The traditional method that the teachers follow for teaching English is not found to be helpful in developing the communicative competence in the learner. The classrooms are found to be teacher dominated, where the students remain as passive listener. Suggestions: On the basis of the study, the following suggestions can be put forwarded for the improvement of the present situation1. English should be taught as a language, not as a content subject. 2. The teaching should aim at an overall develop ment of all four language skills in the learner. 3. The teacher should be well aware of the different methods of teaching English, so that s/he can find out the most suitable one and by making neces sary modification can apply it in his/her class room teaching. 4. Teacher training should be made compulsory at a regular interval of time. 5. The teacher, instead of teaching should try to manage the process of learning. 6. The use of teaching aid should be encouraged. Proper classroom infrastructure should be devel oped. 7. Instead of concentrating on a fixed syllabus, use of different authentic teaching materials should be encouraged. 8. The syllabus should be designed according to the need of the learners. 9. The evaluation system should be designed in such a way that it can measure the communicative com petence in the learner.

R E F E R E N C E
Brown, H.D., Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1987. Littlewood, W.T., Foreign and Second Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Nunan, D., The Learner Centred Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Richards, J.C. & T.S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Rod, Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition. London: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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