While I was schooling, I remember, it was when I had entered the third grade that I began to study English at the school. Of all that I was taught then, all I can remember now is Muru, the Nigerian lad, and Taro, the Japanese lad and Mr.Wolf, the time-keeper(or was he Mr.Wulf?) At the very beginning, now I see, it was a monumental failure. Our English teacher could hardly inspire us to learn English, the foreign subject, with enthusiasm. I am not certain whether it was her fault or mine that I started to hate studying English almost as soon as I had begun to learn it. At the time, I think, none of my peers was genuinely interested in studying the damned subject, either.
What I want to emphasize here is that it is easy to begin with the beginning only if a particular English teacher is equipped with sound teaching skills and the ability to inspire the beginners in addition to adequate academic qualifications. Bungle it all at the starting point and the forty odd students in the classroom would squander years before they are able to grasp the basics of English language they are supposed to understand at the outset itself. If the worst comes to the worst, some of them would never really be able to make it to the required level.
The challenge is then up to those who train government school teachers at various training colleges and academies. Given the English language skills of the majority of children from the outstation schools, and the ever rising failure rate of students at the G.C.E. O/L English paper, I really doubt the effectiveness of those training programmes/courses designed to equip the teachers with sound pedagogical skills. Also, a great many of English teachers from government schools I know are only really interested in sticking to the text books and cover the syllabi within the pre-determined time frame. The last thing they seem to want to accomplish is to inspire students to learn this beautiful language. New teachers, I am aware, are only too willing to follow the ways of their senior counterparts. Or it is also possible that they reserve their teaching skills for the tuition classes conducted by them in the after-school hours. In Kuliyapitiya, my home town, I know there are a couple of guys who continue to practise this apparently under the aegis of the principals of the schools. I suppose so because whereas it is public knowledge that they continue to engaged in this little action has been taken against these fellows.
Getting back to the beginning, I must admit that I picked up something from all those who taught me English up to my O/Levels. And it would be both incorrect and unethical for me to say I learned nothing from them. Also, what I had gained from them was certainly helpful to me when I started to study English in depth and more systematically. But, I remember, while at school, my peers who had some English background ie. children of teachers and of other white-collar professionals were at a definite advantage over me when it came to learning English probably owing to the fact that neither of my parents knew the superior tongue. Had my English teachers been able to convince me that I had to study English as a language and not as a subject and there was a great deal more to it than just to score higher marks at the term tests, I would have learned English much sooner than I did, in reality.
It is not that I bear the pessimistic view that all the English teachers of all the government schools are perfectly incapable of teaching English, but that I see the majority of them only really aim at completing the syllbi in time. They do not seem to mind whether students learn English or not. However, my letter will hardly be impartial unless I admit that there are teachers who are really doing a great job. But the sad fact is that they are very rare and constantly run the risk of relegating themselves to the position of their more practical counterparts. Therefore, it necessary to teach all these teachers to teach students and also to learn from the latter to teach them better.
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