S. Indira Narayan
S. Indira Narayan is an educationist with more than 35 years of rich experience in the teaching field. She has held multiple portfolios. She has been associated with St. Ann’s High School, ICSE, ISC, Secunderabad, for over three decades, teaching English language and English literature for classes 10, 11 and 12. The last portfolio she held was as Academic Coordinator, St. Ann's High School, at Kompally Hyderabad, under the same management.
Indira Narayan has conducted numerous workshops for school teachers and continues to do so. She is also interested in writing and blogs regularly on http://vinplaksha.wordpress.com/
Language matters. It shapes thoughts. It is an understood fact that some impressions good, bad or average are formed about people the minute we speak to them; their pronunciation, their diction and their vocabulary being the yardstick.
What should a language teacher teach apart from the earmarked syllabus? The teacher must teach how a language should be spoken; for that, they themselves have to be fluent in it.
LSRW, which is listening, speaking, reading and writing, are the four skills of language learning. These four aids students to comprehend the language and helps them speak, leading to effective communication. While these skills are applicable in teaching any language in school, I would like to limit it to English language teaching, more so for the listening and speaking skills. English has become a global language and its classes should ascertain that students converse in English and speak the language fluently.
Here is a brief on LSRW -
Listening - Comprehending and absorbing. Comprehension is a receptive skill to understand what we hear.
Speaking - Communicate with no or least grammatical errors. Proper pronunciation is an important aspect of this
Reading - Recognising the letters and their correlation within words; recognising boundaries of words, the meaning of words; deducing the meanings.
Writing - Reinforces grammatical structures and vocabulary and helps develop and string thoughts or ideas together. It is a productive skill as speaking is.
LSRW is not a formula to be just applied to teaching language, it is a concept…a template that provides support to teaching. It is something a teacher should develop. It is my take that a concerned teacher should be able to blend these four skills into her teaching methodology, without compartmentalising them.
All these skills were a part of teaching at one time. These terms came later when a deeper study of language began. While focus was on learning and writing, listening, speaking and reading were understood skills. A conscious effort was not forthcoming in a teacher to spend time ascertaining that ‘listening’ was happening as teaching was going on. Perhaps it was presumed that students were listening.
It has been observed that as against listening and speaking abilities, reading and writing are given more importance in teaching. I believe that the first two mentioned skills play a big role in learning English the way it should be learnt: fluency in expression, proper pronunciation apart from being able to read with the right pauses and intonation and being able to read and write grammatically correct sentences; using a good vocabulary.
The ability to pronounce a word properly lies in listening to the teacher carefully and in turn depends largely on how the teacher says the word/words, especially in the lower classes. Some wrongly pronounced words remain for a lifetime and the person mispronounces them every time, irrespective of the age. Naturally, then the teacher should be up to date with the pronunciations. What we say to students and how we say it is of utmost importance; to say the way the teacher says a word or even a sentence has its impact for good or for bad. Using a string of words in English does not tantamount to proficiency in the language.
To develop the listening skill, a teacher must be clear in expression; speak a little slow to make sure the students have heard and assimilated both the explanation and the pronunciation. Repeat if need be, especially in the beginning. Once the teacher is sure that the students are with her, meaning in sync with her pronunciation and expression, she need not be very slow in her teaching. Listening is the entry point of learning, where comprehending and understanding take shape. A student who listens attentively and is receptive to what is being taught will retain details of the lesson and be an active participant in class. A little bit of face study can help a teacher to know if all students in class are ‘listening’ to her. A good way would also be to just stop teaching and ask what she had last explained or what she had said, picking a student either at random or by observation. This alerts the entire class!
Speaking skills play a big role in grooming students in learning English. It is a skill that helps develop vocabulary, imperative for good communication; and to aid proper pronunciation. A teacher who teaches English, especially from a prescribed textbook, has the wonderful chance to encourage speaking skills by eliciting the summary or the explanation of a poem or the paragraphs just read by her. It becomes a kind of a test of the listening skill and also of pronunciation and fluency in expression. An incorrect sentence, wrong choice of word/s and improper pronunciation should and must be corrected by the teacher then and there by making the child say it. This should not be a onetime correction, but one that should be repeated till it is satisfactory.
Spare a little time, dear fellow teachers, at the end of each class to ask some recap questions on the day’s lesson. It would be a wonderful test for the ‘listening’ and the ‘speaking’ ability of your student.
One may ask, is being able to speak ‘good English,’ very important? Not sure, but it definitely builds confidence and lifts a person’s morale as it has a global language status.