Monday, Feb 08, 2010
Chennai: English teaching in technical institutes may soon be tweaked to help students develop a more functional understanding of the language. While the current syllabus focuses on using English to help students in professional situations by teaching them to write reports, project proposals and so on, lecturers from Anna University (Chennai) say industry feedback recommends that students be taught to use English in everyday life.

“We are working on incorporating this into our syllabus. As of now, the content for the English classes that students attend in their first two semesters is purely technical. They learn grammar, hone their reading and listening skills through certain exercises, analyse and interpret information from bar graphs, learn to summarise information, write project proposals and so on. We can improve this by bringing in a few topics that are relevant to their discipline but helps develop their language skills as well such as introducing scientific concepts through role play or include a few of the Classics in the syllabus. We are considering these suggestions and can expect changes if they are approved by the academic council,” said S P Dhanavel, professor and head, department of English, Anna University (Chennai). The department had organised a national seminar on ‘Teaching of Technical and General English’ on Friday & Saturday in an effort to help gain insights into this issue.

According to Robert Bellarmine, former English Studies Officer – South India, British Council, a primary reason why students from technical institutes lagged behind in English proficiency was lack of practice. “We did a programme with teachers from 20 engineering colleges recently and found that they do not organise any classroom activities. Since they talk 75% of the time, students are rarely given the opportunity to converse with them in English. There should be an effort to make students practice speaking English in classrooms so that they can use the language in day to day life,” he said.

“The ability to use English for day-today purposes should have been developed in school. Students are often told that they can pass their exams with grace marks if they copy the English question paper verbatim. Their real ability to use the language is not tested. So, I believe that this problem should be tackled in management terms because learning, teacher training and testing processes are being carried out very badly,” Bellarmine contended.