Talati model paper and Junior Clerk model paper 6
introduction of English
The popular response to systemic failure has
been to extend downwards the very system that has failed to deliver. The level
of introduction of English has now become a matter of political response to
people’s aspirations, rendering almost irrelevant an academic debate on the
merits of a very early introduction. There are problems of systemic feasibility
and preparedness, for example, finding the required number of competent
teachers. But there is an expectation that the system should respond to popular
needs rather than the other way round.
We address
this question, therefore, in various ways. First, we hope through
multilingualism to counter some possible ill-effects such as the loss of one’s
own language(s), or the burden of sheer incomprehension. Second, we describe
what can realistically be achieved in given situations, supplemented with
affirmative-action interventions where necessary; the aim is to identify
delivery systems for comprehensible input to the child, whether in the
classroom or outside it. For a fuller understanding of the issues around the
early introduction of English, we have included an assessment of the “critical
period” or “sensitive window” hypothesis to show that this does not entail a
very early introduction of English.
The variety and
range of English teaching in India
The teaching and learning of English today is
characterised by, on the one hand, a diversity of schools and linguistic
environments supportive of English acquisition, and, on the other hand, by
systemically pervasive classroom procedures of teaching a textbook for success
in an examination, modulated by teacher beliefs influenced to varying degrees
by inputs from the English-language teaching profession.3
One way to
broadly characterise English-teaching situations in India is in terms of (a)
the teacher’s English language proficiency (TP), and (b) the exposure of pupils
to English outside school, i.e. the availability of English in the environment
for language acquisition (EE). (The reference for these parameters for school
classification is Nag-Arulmani, 2000.) Kurrien (2005) thus identifies the four
types of schools below:
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