1. ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING
In India, language evokes emotive feelings. People deify their languages and begin to worship them. They personify their languages as goddesses or divine beings. They would like to show their devotion and loyalty to their languages in several ways, often singing in their praise. Since the languages are elevated to the divine status, people are often unwilling to look at their language critically and accept the necessary reforms needed to modernize their languages. While things have been changing a bit in recent years, the teaching and learning strategies have not made much progress. Since our tradition emphasizes memorization of everything, the focus in language teaching continues to be on memorization of the verses. Literature is equated to language, and pre-occupation with the correctness of usage takes precedence over the creative and innovative usage and effective communication. Language teaching does not adequately prepare our students to write materials that address day-to-day functional needs.Well, this is all known to us. And I do not want to belabor the point. My purpose in writing this rather longish essay is to relate certain principles of applied linguistics to the context of teaching and learning the Indian languages, mainly as a first language or mother tongue.
2. SPEAKER-LISTENER CO-ORDINATION
If a language is not used properly, there will be always a possibility for miscommunication and this can lead to several problems at different levels because the mechanism of communication involves some co-ordination between the speaker who is the encoder and the listener who is the decoder. This co-ordination may be exhibited in:
3. THE TEACHERS' ROLE AND LIFE-LONG LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
The students should have adequate practice using all the elements that are being taught and learned. The role of the teacher from the beginning to the end is very important. Often there is a belief among the teachers and others that when a student reaches the collegiate level, his language acquisition is rather over. The fact is that language acquisition takes place until the very end of an individual's life. The societal and cultural experience that an individual gains at every given point of time in his life helps him in improving the communicative skills. It is this experience coupled with the systematic teaching of language that improves the effective communicative skills of the students. Thus, it is imperative for the language teacher to provide his class with a varied and rich experience in his classroom and outside it.
There is practically no experience provided by the mother tongue teachers of Indian languages in our schools. Literary and debating activities, drama, and singing dominate the language-related activities of our schools. These are very valuable activities, but not directly related to language textbooks and learning situations. Moreover, the student participation is more or less in the role of a passive audience in the cultural programs.
4. THE LANGUAGE TEACHER AND THE LANGUAGE HE TEACHES
The responsibility of the language teacher is a continuing process. Our language teachers should have a good knowledge of the structures of the concerned language they teach. At present their knowledge of grammar is largely confined to the traditional system. While a knowledge of the traditional grammar is a great asset, the teachers need to be aware of the specific characteristics of the dialects of the language, because in actual student performance the structures and characteristics of the dialects come to play a significant role. For example, many problems of language learning in Hindi, especially at the reading and writing levels, are a consequence of the dialectal influence.
I notice a growing trend in every Indian language, Tamil included, that tries to close the gap between the standard/written form of the language and the spoken forms. In Hindi, the students have to learn the standard speech and writing almost as a distinct language from what they speak in their daily practices. We have traditionally believed in the superiority of the written speech, and our teaching emphasizes the acquisition of written standards. This was possible in the past because things were accepted just as they were presented; the authority of the grammarian was highly respected.
Now there is great freedom and license in the air. So, people tend to innovate; new spellings and pronunciation are offered every day! Modern communication channels such as movies, TV shows, tamashas, and even the dramatization of mythologies have begun to integrate the spoken forms in their presentation. Indians can do nothing without politics. Our life-blood is political blood. The political idiom is now more colloquial than in the past. The vote-catchers need to convince their prey in a subtle manner and in a style understood by them. This has necessitated drastic changes in all Indian languages, including those spoken in the north-eastern states of India!
So, the written formal style supported by the traditional grammar and thinking is no more in great demand. And students need to know how to manipulate the living language. If they are not taught they may either fail to acquire the relevant skills or develop a disregard for our language teachers. Throughout India, the munshis have lost their pre-eminence. If our language teachers become only the peddlers of traditional grammars, their role in the school will also become irrelevant.
5. CERTAIN THINGS THAT THE TEACHERS SHOULD KNOW
Let me suggest some important things that the teachers of Indian languages in our schools should know:
Only when the language teacher has some adequate knowledge in the areas mentioned above, he/she will have the confidence and will be able to play a holistic role as a language teacher, as a norm setter for language standardization among his students, and as a language developer in his community.
Language teachers have played a great role in the linguistic movements of the country. Every state in India had some politically-oriented linguistic movements for causes such as the linguistic re-organization of the states in India, re-naming the names of the provinces to reflect the linguistic identity of the states, re-naming the cities after linguistic/culture heroes, for changing the language of administration, education, and mass media, etc. Language teachers have participated in these movements and have helped these movements to succeed. While these are great and important public causes, the primary duty of a language teacher is to teach the language effectively and to enable his students to use that language effectively to meet their functional needs. Applying linguistics to Indian languages helps us move forward in this fundamental direction.
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