LANGUAGE IN INDIA

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING
K. Meenakshi, M.A., M.Phil.
R. Jayachandran, Ph.D.

THE NEED FOR THE USE OF ICT

The use of ICT furnishes a new platform in which learners build their knowledge and develop an understanding through the creation of links between the new and updated concepts and those that already exist. They help the learners in acquiring knowledge generated by experts, understand, discuss and further disseminate to others in comprehensible terms. ICT serves as a catalyst for all learners irrespective of their age who are in need of updated information. ICT tools, when used aptly, can also act as an efficient resource to augment language learning.

RELEVANCE OF ICT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Generally speaking, the teaching of English in Indian schools is limited to structure/grammar and/or translation method. This is an inevitable consequence of several factors including teacher competence in English. At the school level, structures and vocabulary are taught through a structural syllabus and grammar translation method because we believe that it will help learners construct correct English sentences. At the tertiary level, these structures are modified and more exposure to English is provided with literary texts. Students who have received nearly twelve years of formal English teaching often remain deficient in the use of language, be it spoken or written.

For the present day world, the need is not communicating just by composing of sentences of different kinds but by using sentences to describe, classify, question, request, etc. Indian students from vernacular medium as well as English medium schools fail to communicate properly not because they lack ideas but because they have not been taught to perform communicative tasks. Our scientists and engineers may be technically brilliant and creative but if they cannot communicate effectively to the society for whom they are working, they become ineffective, and their talent goes untapped and unnoticed.

Many industries, for instance, have departments like design, production, marketing and management where people from different disciplines and different mother tongue backgrounds, with different skills and different specializations, work together. It becomes a difficult task to participate fully and meaningfully in all activities, and also to coordinate the work and responsibilities, if a person has poor knowledge of the language through which these activities are organized, communicated and reported to one another. Professionals need to talk in a group setting, attend company meetings, undertake external negotiations, participate in conferences and help solve technical problems. In all these, English continues to be used significantly. Language learning has, thus, become a continuum providing opportunities for life long learning and hence cannot be confined to the traditional classroom.

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