LANGUAGE IN INDIA

ELT in Yemen and India -
The Need for Remedial Measures

Arif Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Al-Ahdal, Ph.D. Scholar

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the ELT scenario in both Yemen and India at the school level with an aim to project /highlight the problems of both the situations and present some suggestions that, once carried out, can improve the teachers' performance and thereby enhance the standard of teaching of English in the said contexts.

Key words: ELT problems; remedial measures; teachers' performance

Introduction

Yemen is a monolingual country with Arabic as the mother tongue of most of its nationals. English is a foreign language in Yemen. It is taught for three years in preparatory schools (classes7-9) and for three years more at the secondary stage (classes 10-12) in government schools. Thus, most of the students will have studied English for six years before they enter the tertiary stage.

Like learners in many other countries where English is taught as a foreign language, Yemeni learners of English are exposed to English in the classroom, but communicate in their own language outside. Therefore, they cannot communicate well in English either inside or outside the classroom even after completing the tertiary stage of education. They also find it difficult to cope with lectures given in English in the college.

On the other hand, India is a multilingual country with English as the second language of most of its nationals. English is taught for three years at the upper primary stage ( classes 6-8) , and for four more years at the secondary stage ( classes 9-10 and +1- +2 ) in government schools ( the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2000, quoted in Aslam 2003). Thus, most of the students will have studied English for seven years before they come to the tertiary stage.

Unlike Yemeni students, Indian students are exposed to English outside the classroom as well. There are many occasions when an Indian student communicates with a shopkeeper, for example, in English. However, students do also communicate among themselves in their mother tongue/ native language outside the classroom.

One problem common to both the situations is that teachers of English teach it in a traditional way, i.e., they just focus on teaching grammatical items in a graded manner. The learners receive knowledge alone of English usage, thus they fail to communicate/ speak fluently in English outside the classroom. The poor linguistic ability of school leavers necessitates a thorough change / improvement in the teaching techniques, among other things at the pre-tertiary stage of education. Concrete efforts for improving the English teaching situation in India have been made.

In the preface of his book Teaching English in Changing India, K.P. Thakur states that a "Study group on the teaching of English was appointed by the Ministry of Education, Government of India in 1967 under the chairmanship of Prof. V.K. Gokak to suggest the extent of the knowledge of English which a student should have at the end of the secondary stage with a view to maintaining standards". However, no committee has been formed /appointed for such a purpose in Yemen. This shows that English is given greater attention in India than in Yemen.

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