Introduction:
A teacher plays the pivotal and
vital role in multifarious aspects. His primary goal is to shape the future of
the students today, the citizens of tomorrow by means of his knowledge, and
enrich society and civilization by virtue of his wisdom. It is worthy to quote
in this regard Dr. S. Radhakrishnan’s view: ‘the teacher is the pivot of
civilization’. His role begins with the student in particular and culminates in
society in general. In every profession, one primarily needs a guide, teacher
or coach in the stages of learning to reach perfection in one’s field. The
teacher of English has more responsibilities than the one of other subject. He has to teach any piece of literature in
terms of language: grammar for correctness, pronunciation for aptness and body
language for effectiveness and train his students with in a commitment to
transform them into competent students enabling them to face challenges in
career capture and life settlement. .
The academic opportunities are nowadays
at our doorstep due to the mushroom growth of institutions in the arena of
privatization. Students seek admission in professional colleges with high
expectations. At or after the undergraduate level they wake up to realize the
vital importance of English in the internet generation. They feel English is
life and life is English as English becomes the language of interviews on the
campus or outside, competitive examinations to achieve a successful career.
Their aspirations are too high for them to reach for they are with the
inadequate knowledge of English to face the keen competition in all fields.
They ascribe their inadequacy of knowledge to various reasons: regional
language medium background, shortage of experienced and qualified faculty,
insufficient exposure to English, irregular attendance in the class, etc and
cut a sorry figure.
In professional colleges, the
classroom situation is different as we find the students at various
communication levels and a clear-cut gap between the teacher, especially the
teacher of English and the students:
many below average, some average, a few above average and very rare
availability of extraordinary talents in rural setting. He has to train them in
various aspects starting with fundamentals and bring them to the higher levels
to bridge the gap with the spirit of challenge. As per their standards and
merits, they are in four categories as per classification: the students with
ordinary skills, the students with moderate skills, the students with good
skills and the students with excellent skills.
Students of Ordinary Skills
Most of the
technical students in technical colleges nowadays are below average, not up to
the mark as far as their communication levels are concerned. They fail to
impress the interviewers and see themselves crest-fallen as they lack in
communication skills. They can communicate only certain and limited ideas as
their acquired English is confined to stock expressions: ‘Good morning’, ‘a
nice trip’, ‘a happy journey’, ‘a happy new year’’ nice to see you’, ‘What cost
is it?’, ‘What brand?’ and so on. However, they use the sentences to which they
are frequently exposed. They cannot create new expressions, as they do not know
grammar to go beyond their stock expressions. They cannot express their ideas
adequately. In such situation, the teacher has to teach the students of the
category the essentials of grammar, the building of vocabulary, etc to enable
them to frame correct sentences for accuracy and bring them to the level of the
students with moderate skills.
Students of Moderate Skills
Students with moderate skills
communicate clearly and correctly, as they have command over the rules of
grammar as the life of language is grammar:
They have a clear idea of how they have to construct sentences. For that,
they should be quite aware of structures or the verb patterns. The sentences
with proper structures lead to clear-cut understanding. They know well
grammatical technicalities and syntactical devices but lack in the art of
pronunciation. to have fluency. Under the guidance of the teacher of English
trains them to rise to the level of the students with good skills.
Students of Good Skills
Students with good skills belong to
a better category than those of moderate skills as they maintain not only the
correctness of language but also the aptness of pronunciation. They have the
knowledge of accurate pronunciation with the right tone, accent and intonation
apart from that of correct and appropriate language with structural and
syntactical patterns. The most standard pronunciation is ‘the Received Pronunciation’
(RP) which is acceptable all over the world. It is none but the non-native
speakers who face the problem of pronunciation, as their languages are phonetic
as their pronunciation sounds in accordance with the spelling of words. The
teacher should always guide them to pronounce words as per the appropriate
pronunciation with stress and intonation. Under his great care, the quality of
voice should be properly maintained or modulated. Pitch, speed, modulation, etc
are important ones followed to achieve steady speaking and attentive listening
that should go hand in hand for the clear comprehension of the subject. At this
stage, the teacher enriches their standards with the knowledge of body
language, the non-verbal communication to be the students with excellent
skills.
Students of Excellent Skills
Apart from the correctness of
language and the aptness of pronunciation, the students with excellent skills
have the positive body language with its gestures, postures, facial expressions,
physical appearance, eye contact, etc. to be successful in effective
communication in all situations and contexts. It is the body language to speak
volumes. By means of body language, the speaker can make his presentation
effective for it reflects his inner state of emotions. An effective speaker
establishes a synchronizing coordination between the mind for thought flow and
the body for body reaction in the form of gestures, postures, facial
expressions, eye contact, etc as the face is the index of the mind. Apart from verbal communication:
grammaticality, the correctness of language and the aptness of pronunciation,
the body language (GPB formulae: grammar, pronunciation and body language) is
very essential on the part of the speaker while speaking. We should not forget
the significance of body language on the part of a speaker for it is an integral
part of speaking. According to Patricia Ball, “To effectively communicate, it’s
not always what you say, but your body says that makes the difference.”
They should ‘get in touch with the
way the other person feels. Feelings are 55 percent body language, 38 percent
tone and 7 percent words’ as quoted in Communication
Skills for Engineers. The communicative ability of the hands and the legs,
especially the face plays a vital role on the part of the speaker. The speaker
can make his speaking interesting by attracting the attention of audience by
means of eye contact. They build up confidence to have competence to speak in
all situations. They are bold and fearless to speak at audiences. They, at the
same time, modulate their speaking to be convincing and interesting to the
audience. They rise to the level to learn the fact that excellent presentation
mainly depends on the eyes, the tone, the expression, the appearance (dress
style) and postures. They have to learn grammar, pronunciation and body
language (GPB) one after the other.
Teacher’s General Approaches
We are able to express our ideas,
feelings, experiences or reflections effortlessly and spontaneously in our
mother tongue, vernacular, learnt from our mother, family and region. It does
not mean that we speak fluently as per RP and accurately as per the rules of
grammar. The fact is that we express our ideas and the listeners receive them
with proper comprehension and prompt reaction on their part to respond to us,
the speakers in a spontaneous manner. Whoever speaks effortlessly and
spontaneously may not be able to speak fluently and accurately. To speak
fluently and accurately, they need proper coaching and teaching; methods and
techniques; approaches and guidelines in the process of learning. There is a
dire necessity of a teacher to equip students to speak fluently and write
accurately. The teacher may possess enormous knowledge in his diverse
disciplines or in his own discipline but the knowledge he has, must be
translated into the reality of imparting it to students by means of his
pedagogical approaches from the learners’ point of view. In the coveted and
committed mission, his approaches are bound to be from the learners’ point of
view as he plays the most prominent role in shaping not only an individual in
particular but also society in general. He should create a general impression
in their minds that he is there for their welfare and well-being.
The teacher is a living Supreme and
seen Divine when he is for the welfare of students. There is a bounden
responsibility on his part to promote their standards, enabling them to reach
the highest pinnacle of success. He should be impartial in evaluation and
unbiased in treatment, etc. He should pat, encourage and inspire all of them
especially average and below average students to shine in studies. As a teacher
of English in particular, he should see that they overcome their shyness, stage
fright, inferiority complex, etc and the obstacles and hurdles in their path of
success. They should feel that their teacher is there to support them morally
to shape them into good articulates and worthy candidates to have success in
career capture and life pursuits.
The teacher is supposed to have
practical approaches rather than theoretical approaches. The methods and techniques he follows as per
theoretical methods may not be practicable in a given context or situation.
Then the teacher has a wise option to switch over to practical approaches
conducive to the situation to make his students understand the subject he is
teaching as he has a good deal of experience in the field of teaching. The
practical experience is more a teacher to help students than the theoretical
knowledge. He has to cite living examples from his practical experiences to
enable them to understand the content or the subject perfectly and have command
over the subject. When we talk of the learning of English by technical students
at advanced levels, the teacher should have pragmatic perspectives in shaping
them into worthy students to be competent and confident in facing the
challenges in this age of healthy competition of the internet generation. Under
his supervision, they browse the software programs in the advanced levels to
keep his knowledge up-to-date
Many people do not know simple
expressions like ‘one of my friends’ ‘one and half hours’ etc but they say ‘one
of my friend’, ‘one and half hour, ’etc, and think that they know how to speak
English. They never try to know the fact of their mistakes. One must be very
careful about the use of the parts of speech all other items. A student with
the knowledge of grammar can express and communicate clearly without ambiguity,
confusion, etc. The mistakes made by non-native speakers are innumerable “common
mistakes". The teacher has to concentrate on common errors in the
classroom to make his students realize common errors and enrich their knowledge
up to the mark in respect of English for technical budding graduates. Mere the
completion of the textbook does never serve the purpose. The teacher should
have special approaches to the teaching of English in the enrichment of their
standards in respect of correctness.
The non-native speakers are under
their respective Mother Tongues’ Influence (MTI) on their English. They
mispronounce many English words and tend to let others know their identity or
mother tongue or lingua franca when they speak English. Bernard Shaw once said,
“No matter how well is man dressed or behaved, he betrays his origin the moment
he opens his mouth. This holds true for an Indian.” The teacher should enable
them to take meticulous care to minimize and overcome Mother Tongue’s influence
(MTI) on their English pronunciation, stress and intonation. Certain letters in
words receive stress and the others do not. They must be aware of stress-shift
in respect of verbs, adjectives and nouns. The nouns have stress on the first
syllable and the corresponding verbs have stress on the second syllable. There
are letters present in the spelling of words but are missing in pronunciation.
He should cite various examples for the purpose. Stress, stress shift, pitch,
intonation, modulation, volume, speech rate, etc. Kinesics is the first subject
to deal with postures, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, physical
appearance, etc. Proxemics is the second subject to deal with space distancing
between the speaker and the audience during communication or presentation to
maintain dignity and decorum. Paralinguistics is the third
subject to deal with tone, volume, modulation, speed, etc as per the
necessity and Cronemics is the final one to deal with time to be taken in
presentation are the prominent subjects of a teacher for his successful career.
The world in the 21st
century with its growing challenges invites students with excellent communication
skill. The students to settle in their
career must be under the supervision of a teacher par excellence.
Published
EDUTRACKS
Vol. 20 No. 1 Oct-2020
Also published
Strengthening English Language and Learning:
Issues and Challenges
Excel India Publishers, New Delhi.
Pp 305-307
