In quest of better insights

Mother Tongues and Multilingual Education

2012-01-30T17:31:00.000-08:00

Mother Tongues and Multilingual Education
(This appeared in The Island/Sri Lanka before)
The term ‘multilingual education’ which embodies the idea of using at least three languages in education, namely, the mother tongue, a regional or national language, and an international language was adopted by the United Nations’ Educational, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its General Conference in 1999. As one of its important roles, the organization provides international frameworks and parameters for educational policy makers to guide their decisions about complex issues. Language, or rather the choice of the language of instruction, is one such area. A 2003 UNESCO position paper about mother tongue and multilingual education makes this observation: “While there are strong educational arguments in favour of mother tongue (or first language) instruction, a careful balance also needs to be made between enabling people to use local languages in learning, and providing access to global languages of communication through education.”
The UNESCO deals with the linguistic rights issue in multilingual societies in accordance with three basic principles:
UNESCO supports ….
1) “… mother tongue instruction as a means of improving
educational quality by building upon the knowledge and experience
of the learners and teachers”,
2) “… bilingual and/or multilingual education at all levels
of education as a means of promoting both social and gender equality
and as a key element of linguistically diverse societies”,
3) “… language as an essential component of inter-cultural
education in order to encourage understanding between different
population groups and ensure respect for fundamental rights”.

The ‘multilingual’ education system we are so assiduously working to establish will most likely give rise to a situation where the sort of linguistic rights concerns we have seen raised by linguists in affluent countries with concentrations of immigrants from diverse cultures could apply in respect of our indigenous languages Sinhala and Tamil. This will be so unless we keep a due sense of proportion in the pursuit of excellence through English. In a context where English occupies an privileged position the speakers of local mother tongue languages are at a disadvantage; and it will be again monolingual education through English, not multilingual education. It could be a scenario which will call for the invocation of principles established over the past half a century by the UN for the protection of the linguistic rights of especially minority communities.
As early as 1984 Professor Tove Skutnabb-Kangas of the University of Roskilde, Denmark suggested four different definitions of mother tongue from the perspectives of origin, identification, competence, and function. Mother tongue by origin, she explained, is the first language that a person learns; mother tongue by identification is of two kinds: a) by internal identification, i.e. the language one identifies oneself with, and b) by external identification, i.e. the language that others associate one with; if competence is the defining element, then one’s mother tongue is the language that one knows best; and finally, mother tongue by function means the language that one uses most.
Professor Skutnabb-Kangas discusses her ideas again in an essay in 2008. She considers how definitions of mother tongue could be made relevant to linguistic minorities found within a multilingual society including such linguistic minorities as the deaf who need an appropriate sign language, and the forcibly assimilated Indigenous or other minority children. She thinks that the four short definitions she has described converge for a linguistic majority; but she avers that for linguistic minorities “often a combination of mother tongue definitions by origin and by internal identification is a good mother tongue definition.”

Professor Skutnabb-Kangas’s attempts in this connection reveal her concern for the protection of the linguistic human rights of minorities. The same attitude is shared by other Western linguists such as Jim Cummins of the University of Toronto, Canada, and Nadine Dutcher of the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC. USA, who have had the experience of pitting minority languages against a dominant majority language (e.g. in Denmark the sole official language is Danish which is spoken by 90% of the population, while among the minority/foreign languages are English 86%, German 58%, and French 12%; in France the single official language is French with minority languages such as Maghrebi Arabic, Berber, Turkish, etc). They are especially interested in the language rights of immigrant populations in the affluent European and North American societies, and in allied countries where the local languages are both the majority languages and the dominant languages, and where ‘linguicism’ is identified as threatening the linguistic rights of minorities. {Linguicism is a concept and a coinage proposed in the mid-1980’s by Professor Skutnabb-Kangas. It denotes what she calls "ideologies and structures which are used to legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce unequal division of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language." The words quoted are reproduced from Wikipedia.}

The suitability of what Skutnabb-Kangas suggests as a good definition of ‘mother tongue’ for minorities (“a combination of mother tongue definitions by origin and by internal identification”) to contexts where the language of power is also the language of the majority as in the European and North American countries is clear: it recognises the right of individual members of linguistic and cultural minorities in such societies to adopt, out of the diversity of languages available, the language that is closest to them as their mother tongue.

Sri Lanka’s multilingual situation is the reverse of that found in Europe and North America because the language of the majority (Sinhalese) cannot be called the dominant language here. Both Sinhala and Tamil are official languages, and English is designated in the constitution as a link language. Those who can speak English form a little less than 10% of the population (9.9%). Only about 10,000 people out of a population of roughly 20 million are said to use English as their first language. (“First language” here must be taken as identical with mother tongue, for if the term ‘first language’ is defined as the language someone mainly uses to function in in day to day life, as in education, scientific research, professions, and commerce, then this figure should be substantially higher since English serves as the first language in this sense for many educated Sri Lankans whose mother tongue is Sinhalese or Tamil, which is their usual home language.) The significant thing, nevertheless, is that English dominates the linguistic scene in our society. So, whereas in UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc English dominates as the language of the majority, in Sri Lanka it dominates as the language of a minority. In other words, we have the case of a (numerically) minority language usurping the place of a majority language.

In the Sri Lankan context, however, the term ‘minority language’ when applied to English can be misleading in view of this reality. Though it is the language of a numerical minority, in terms of its influence particularly in such fields as education, research, business, and international communication, it functions as a ‘majority’ language pushing the indigenous languages into ‘minority’ language status in that sense. This dominance of English is not one of choice, but the result of a complex of historical, political, and economic factors specific to our country reinforced by the impact of the phenomenon known as globalization.

A new manifestation of the West’s capitalist domination of the world, globalization is an inescapable fact of life today. It may be an unmixed blessing for business people and industrialists since it opens extensive markets for industry and commerce. Yet it’s not so for others. Though it’s mainly to do with business, it draws the nations together in all important spheres including education, leading to general progress in those areas. But globalization is not always for their benefit. Among the iniquities that it brings in its wake is its tendency to increase the gap between rich and poor nations. Political instability, terrorism, and civil unrest either caused or compounded by economic hardships encourage large movements of people as helpless refugees or desperate job seekers from poor countries to rich countries.
The movement of populations is thus usually from the poor countries to the rich. The resultant cultural diversity of societies in the host countries is viewed in opposite ways by sections of the local populations: some tolerate it, some don’t. In Canada, for instance, according to Jim Cummins of Toronto University the neo-fascists want immigrants expelled or at least excluded from mainstream society, while the more liberal groups want them to be assimilated. Professor Cummins feels that exclusion and assimilation are similar in that both regard cultural diversity as ‘a problem’ that should be made to disappear.
In Cummins’s view, this way of looking at the phenomenon of cultural diversity that is dominant in EU and North American countries can have disastrous consequences for children and their families. The reason is that assimilation policies tend to discourage students from retaining their native language and culture for fear that it would hinder their ability to identify with the mainstream culture. The subliminal message that is conveyed to them is that they must renounce their allegiance to their home language and culture if they want to be properly integrated into the host society. This involves a violation of UN-recognized human rights (related to language) of communities affected.
Apropos of the multilingual situation in Sri Lanka, there is no question about transforming our education system from monolingual to multilingual status. Probably, however, what multilingual education in our specific context does or should mean is still not clear to many though they think they know. The popular perception seems to be in terms of a so-called quality education through the medium of English with or without a knowledge of Sinhala and Tamil (the mother tongues of 95% of the population). (I’m not saying that this notion corresponds to the policy of the official trilingual plan now underway.)
It has been long established that for a child’s proper education, particularly in the first years, the mother tongue/the home language is the best medium of instruction. Cummins refers to his own writings, and those of others such as Baker and Skutnabbs-Kangas among more recent researches in the field to confirm the importance of the mother tongue for the education of bilingual children. As educators these authorities hold that “children's cultural and linguistic experience in the home is the foundation of their future learning and we must build on that foundation rather than undermine it; every child has the right to have their talents recognized and promoted within the school”. School education should not squander “the linguistic, cultural, and intellectual resources they bring from their homes to our schools and societies”. Though these statements were made in connection with multilingual societies different to ours, the importance of the mother tongue for children’s education, and through it to the society at large is the same.

Language, Culture, and Development

2011-12-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

Language, Culture, and Development
(First published in The Island/Sri Lanaka)
Any human society can be described as a product of three interrelated, mutually dependent processes which are coterminous: language, culture, and economic activity. Social interaction motivated by our innate gregariousness as a species is at the root of these processes. Though almost certainly they had a common origin at the dawn of human civilization these processes, taken in isolation, are today found to have become infinitely sophisticated and multifaceted. They can be looked at from different perspectives, assigned specific functions, and given appropriately diverse definitions. For example, language is much more than just a medium of communication; culture is infinitely more complex than what a dictionary definition like “a way of life of a particular group” or “a set of beliefs, customs, and art forms characteristic of a community” might suggest; similarly, economic behaviour comprehends an infinity of activities around “organized operation of processes of producing wealth, commodities, services, etc”. But they still serve the rudimentary purpose for which they came into being: supporting the survival of the human species by securing their needs for food, clothing, and shelter in interaction with the natural environment (economic activity), which is facilitated by a mechanism for communication with each other (language), and which is subject to a system of customs, beliefs, values, principles, and rules established to control their individual and collective modes of behaviour (culture).
By ‘language’ is meant the language faculty which is common to all humans. Human language manifests itself in thousands of different forms which we call languages. Probably, at the beginning, our cave-dwelling ancestors lived in groups only marginally different in organization from other apes. With the gradual evolution of the social group through collective economic activity, language, and culture from their nascent state humans became the most successful in their long struggle for survival against nature’s unfriendly phenomena including the threat of wild animals; this may explain humanity’s unique expansion across most inhabitable parts of the earth (and perhaps, correspondingly, the extinction of other competing species engaged in a losing battle with them).
Now, the feature that most distinguishes humans from other animals is their language faculty, an aspect of the power of their highly evolved brain. Undoubtedly, greater language ability gave humans a competitive edge over other allied species in evolutionary history. It goes without saying that language largely accounts for human ‘superiority’ over other animals in the matter of controlling nature. Humans control nature not only to ensure their survival, but to increase their physical comfort and mental happiness. It is through language that knowledge about the world is created, transmitted, preserved, retrieved, and tried out, reviewed, and enhanced. Language is knowledge. Applied knowledge is key to the creation of wealth. As Peter Drucker writes in his book The Age of Discontinuity (1969) knowledge is “… central to our society … as the foundation of economy and social action”. If knowledge is a prerequisite of an economy the connection between language and economic development need hardly be stressed.
Though controversy about language policies has dominated at least half a century of Sri Lankan politics, neither the general importance of language nor its central role in the promotion of economic development received due recognition in our education sphere until recently. This is evident in the relatively low importance that was attached to the study of languages with an emphasis on their functional aspect in our school system. However, at long last, an attempt is now being made to solve the problem through the government’s ten year trilingual programme for teaching schoolchildren the three languages of English, Sinhalese, and Tamil. The governmental initiative has resulted in growing popular awareness of the economic usefulness of learning languages among other benefits.
In the highly globalized and technology-driven world of today English is the most important language we need to possess as a tool of economic development. It is both convenient and beneficial for us to adopt English as a second language in order to interact with the rest of the world in all areas including economic development not only because of the English language legacy left by 150 years of British colonisation, but also because of the recent emergence of English as the single most powerful common language of global communication. There’s no question about this. However, the message implicit in the fact that English is still a closed book to more than 90% of the country’s 20 million people even after 200 years of its dominance on their affairs cannot be overlooked. The current three language enterprise seems to have taken cognizance of this message.
As American anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir (1884-1939) pointed out language, in addition to being a vehicle for the expression of thoughts, perceptions, sentiments, and values characteristic of a community, gives individuals social identity. He further said: “… the mere fact of a common speech serves as a peculiar potent symbol of social solidarity of those who speak the language”. Therefore a language is not something that you can take possession of or discard as easily as you can put on or take off a garment. This is the reason why English failed to establish itself in Sri Lanka as the common tongue of its people despite its dominant position in government and business. There already were the indigenous languages of Sinhalese and Tamil to give the respective speakers of those languages their cultural identity and sense of social solidarity.
Ignorance or deliberate repudiation of their own history and culture leads some people to underrate the indigenous languages, Sinhala and Tamil. For the overwhelming majority of us these languages are vital in the sense that Sapir explained. The change of the medium of instruction from English to local languages benefited the masses. The elevation of Sinhala and Tamil to official language status was also a bona fide move. Such measures were in the interest of the underprivileged masses and were meant to safeguard their rights. At the same time the very architects of these changes were not oblivious of the vital importance of English as a tool of modernisation, and initiated a tradition of teaching English to all schoolchildren from Standard Three onwards. But second language English teaching failed mainly because people don’t learn a new language unless there is a compelling reason for doing so. These days we hear about tens of thousands of young people appearing for Korean language tests in expectation of finding employment in Korea. No government encouragement was offered them for learning the Korean language. Still they took the initiative to learn it because they were motivated to do so by their desire to find lucrative job opportunities in Korea.
English should have been much easier for most of our students to learn because of the abundance of resources for learning it, and all the support that they were usually given to learn it. Their failure was not due to lack of these. It was largely due to the non-perception of a strong motive for learning English. But today the situation is different. Most students, parents, and teachers know that without a knowledge of English there’s no future prosperity. This will motivate the learning of English. At the same time, it’s good to remember that the wholesome development of a society comprehends more than mere material development. That society is truly developed whose members are not only efficient economic units, but also cultured individuals. As for Sri Lankans, they need all three languages (English, Tamil, and Sinhalese) to build such a society.

Education for Employment

2011-10-19T03:57:00.000-07:00

Education for Employment
(Previously published in The Island/Sri Lanka)
Education is, ultimately, the process of acquiring the knowledge and the skills that are required for us to survive as a species. But we humans are too advanced and sophisticated to be satisfied with an education that is just adequate to meet this elementary need. Every human society, except for a few forest dwelling tribes, has an infinity of needs in addition to the very basics of life such as food, clothing, and shelter: accessories for physical comfort, health, entertainment, leisure, travel, schooling for children, and so on. The fulfilment of these needs calls for a workforce with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide the goods and services required. In modern times, an efficient workforce must be equipped with not only basic knowledge and practical skills, but a whole host of other resources such as managerial capacity, organizational finesse, familiarity with information technology, and professional values. It’s a major aim of education to enable the young to acquire these abilities, which qualify them for gainful employment.
Educational reforms introduced since the early 1970’s at least have all taken notice of the general criticism that our education system is not adequately employment oriented. Various curricular improvements have been introduced to address this problem under successive governments, though the problem hasn’t gone away completely. It may be that a government alone cannot solve the problem. The collaboration of the business and industrial sector, and the society at large is vital in this connection. It is heartening to see that there is evidence to show that things are changing in a meaningful way at last. The news item in The Island (07-09-2011) under the headline “A’Level students rush to grab jobs in BPO sector” is about a new encouraging development. It says that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector is one of the many sectors that have been growing fast over the past few years, and that it creates job opportunities for professionals in an international setting. The great attraction that the BPO sector has for A Level students represents a new trend: many students prefer professional training and employment to a university education with doubtful employment prospects. The Lanka BPO Academy is an institution set up to train personnel for this sector. The popular Island columnist Yasas Abeywickrama (THE CATALYST/Monday) is associated with this academy. The contribution of young professionals like him is invaluable for the promotion of the education for employment concept among the youth.

But let me start with a sweeping look back at the past. The generation born around the time of independence are now in their sixties. Due to the political and economic reforms introduced after independence in the interest of the common masses, they were able to grow up in somewhat better circumstances than their parents had had any chance to (in terms of education, health, employment, standard of living, etc for instance). The present day young are the children of this post-independence generation. The younger generation have had the opportunity to grow up in a generally more egalitarian, independent, and materially less insecure atmosphere than their elders, even though amidst occasional political instability, corruption, and other setbacks exacerbated by internal and external vested interests, all of which appear to be inevitable concomitants of ‘democracy’.
Times have changed, changed utterly. For the masses, that is. The changes have been mostly for the better, and are most conspicuous in the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres. These are naturally more evident to the older generation than to the younger, who might tend to take the status quo for granted: we have, hopefully, put behind us almost a lifetime of mainly destructive ‘struggles’ and are embarking on an age of goodwill and cooperation between sections of the body politic determined to move towards a common destiny as a young nation. Liberalised economic policies, despite certain limitations, have largely benefited the people. Social stratification is less severe; class, caste, rank divisions have begun to count for little. Culturally, our people are adopting more accommodative and adaptive attitudes than before.
Though positive changes have taken place in the educational domain as elsewhere since independence, such as free education for all the children of the country, the change of the medium of education from English to the mother tongue which benefited children from the Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes, the narrowly utilitarian literary character of general education inherited from colonial times hasn’t changed to the extent it should. In other words, changes in education have not kept pace with changes in other fields; education has remained largely irrelevant to the actual needs of the country.
The idea that education should involve preparing the students for a life of work as much as training them for a life of the mind is not new. In fact, all the various educational reforms introduced so far have drawn attention to the real problem of a lack of balance in our education system between book-learning and practical skills acquisition. Yet the bookish bias in education still remains. One reason for this is that work that demands manual exertion is considered inferior to work that requires mental effort. Practical skills mastery is looked down upon as suitable only for the ‘mentally less endowed’ in terms of traditional intelligence (IQ) testing which usually focuses on a general linguistic and mathematical ability. In the society at large the same attitude prevails. Other economically productive jobs such as agriculture, carpentry, various types of crafts, etc are reserved for the academically less promising. (However, this manual-mental distinction is more evidently unsupportable today.) Though there is a great demand for skilled professionals in these fields, there are a large number of educated youth who won’t fancy a career in any of them, and therefore are not interested in acquiring those skills. This is unfortunate. The bias against ‘manual labour’ is wrong, for whatever work people do also invariably involves knowledge and mental effort appropriate to it; this fact is more conspicuous in today’s knowledge world than before.
The downgrading of jobs in the most vital fields such as agriculture, building construction, manufacture of utility goods, food technology, handicrafts, woodwork, (to name just a few out of hundreds of possible examples) is a problem that must be addressed in the interest of the country’s economic wellbeing among other things. The main point is that it is partly a matter of misconceiving what is meant by ‘dignity of work’. Many of our people cannot get rid of traditional class-bound ways of thinking according to which certain jobs are considered to be of a higher rank than others. In education, this faulty attitude is reflected as a bias in favour of ‘academic’ subjects such as science, mathematics, and languages as opposed to technical subjects such as carpentry, plumbing, and dressmaking.
To promote vocational education among the secondary students in schools such harmful misconceptions need to be eliminated. The way to do this is to convince them of the fact that all forms of work are of equal dignity. What matters is not the public recognition that a person gets for belonging to a particular profession but the meaning it has for the worker and the society at large. Let’s teach our young to see work as an opportunity in the same way as the great American inventor, scientist, and businessman Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) did (and he warned others lest they miss it): “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work”. Edison is also remembered for having said “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”.
When education is not employment oriented, many educated young people are left without jobs even where jobs are found aplenty, but where persons with the necessary skills to take them up are few. This kind of structural unemployment accounts for a substantial part of the problem of joblessness in Sri Lanka. In this context, the importance of vocational education at the secondary school level need hardly be stressed. Secondary school graduates should be given a basic mastery of technical skills including computer knowledge that enables them to find gainful employment, if they so choose, instead of going to university, but still qualify themselves further academically while working. It is encouraging to see that a trend is now emerging where many young school leavers seem to think it wiser to enrol for vocational courses or find direct employment if possible and pursue higher studies autonomously. This is no drawback for students particularly in some fields such as business, banking, agriculture, motor mechanism, etc. Actually, a work environment is very helpful for focusing the mind. Work and study: each becomes a way to relax for employed students when the other tires them out.
The availability of such an option can be very attractive to many students and parents. It will naturally ease the pressure on the existing university system. It is true that university graduates, if successful in finding a job commensurate with their qualifications, do better than non-university graduates. But, in the case of many Sri Lankan graduate employees their education is often irrelevant to the work they are actually required to do.
Close cooperation between the education and industrial sectors is a vital economic factor for any country, for the most important asset it has is its youth. A country’s education sector is responsible for equipping the young people with the knowledge and skills that industrialists and business people demand.

Multilingualism for the New Age

2011-09-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

Multilingualism for the New Age
(Previously published in The Island)
“Knowledge of more than one language points to the expansion of specific types of competence. Multilingualism appears to help people realise and expand their creative potential. In addition, thinking, learning, problem solving and communicating, all of which are transversal knowledge-steeped skills used in our daily lives, show signs of enhancement through multilingualism.” – David Marsh and Richard Hill, from the executive summary of a study commissioned the European Commission (2009)
For us in Sri Lanka the synergy between English and Information Technology is an axial force in making headway in the domain of education for knowledge society. This has been already recognized and is being acted upon as would be clear to anyone sufficiently interested from the various initiatives launched under the aegis of the incumbent government such as the declaration of 2009 as the Year of English and IT, opening of nanasalas (literally ‘Halls of Wisdom’, meaning IT training centres) across the island, the Ten Year Trilingual Plan, and programmes for distributing laptops among school children and university undergraduates, etc. (The state is doing its part; it is up to the bureaucrats, teachers, students and adult citizens to ensure that these ventures succeed by actively involving themselves in them.) We certainly are taking a step towards transforming our society economically, socially, culturally, politically, and institutionally by utilizing knowledge as a source of economic productivity, and as a basis for building a more humane social system.
The phenomenal proliferation of electronic communication resources has enabled millions all over the world to gain easy access to enormous quantities of information at little or no cost. Their capacity to retrieve, process, and store or transmit this information equally cheaply has also increased. In a knowledge society information is gathered and processed for the generation of knowledge. However, that alone does not make it a knowledge society. Applying the knowledge for wealth creation is the vital factor. It should be applied for enhancing the performance of the individuals and the community in general in all such fields as economic, social, political, cultural, and institutional. The liberally available digitalised information and the Internet have made knowledge a powerful factor in the creation of wealth in many countries. According to an Irish government report quoted in the Wikipedia, as much as 70 to 80 percent of economic growth is said to be due to the availability of new and better knowledge. Of course, the knowledge society is not only about economic productivity, it is about people’s individual and social development and empowerment as well.
The correlation between the knowledge society and education need hardly be stressed. Education enhances the knowledge and the creativity of the individuals who constitute the society, and stimulates the strategic application of these qualities to productive processes for the general good. No country can achieve any high level of development, economic or otherwise, without the contribution of its educated sections. A knowledge economy is driven by the members’ brainpower properly channelled. But knowledge is never static; it is an ever renewing, ever growing element, the new driving out or making obsolete the old. Appropriately modernized education is a vital need in a knowledge society.
A knowledge economy promotes economic growth and prosperity. But excessive concern with profit and self interest to the exclusion of humane values tends to strain social cohesion, and threatens social order. An economy based on knowledge essentially serves both private good and public welfare. Education should aim at inculcating in the young those values that favour a proper balance between the two.
In a knowledge based society the economy revolves round the constituent members. Therefore the young need to be taught the values that enable them to work creatively in an atmosphere of cosmopolitan identity, compassion, and community. Inventive economic activity coupled with collaborative interaction instead of selfish isolation and mechanical routine make for social integration.
The amazingly fast rate of change associated with the emerging social transformation (knowledge society) is reflected in a somewhat distressing scenario for teachers at all levels who qualified and joined the profession 20 to 30 years ago, i.e. before the digital revolution, unless they have managed to appropriately keep abreast of the contemporary technological innovations and attitudinal adjustments they call for in the field of education. But they are reaching the end of their careers while the generally IT savvy young are replacing them. Yet the old are not redundant yet, for they are still stronger in certain vital domains including the knowledge of the world, an essential part of which comes from lived experience.
Foremost among those confronting the tidal wave of societal transformations caused by the accelerated generation and dissemination of knowledge through the newest technological innovations are the students, and their teachers old and young. Education for knowledge society means learning to live and work in the new age. In this activity, no subject is more important than the linguistic medium through which such knowledge should be acquired, and processed for the benefit of the community. Language study therefore occupies a central position in the educational curriculum.
In global terms ‘knowledge society’ is like ‘democracy’. Democracy is the most powerful, most prevalent form of government today, and the vast majority of nations are ‘democracies’ with different realisations of the ideal. Democratic states are interrelated. In the same way the world is moving towards being a collection of knowledge societies. If knowledge society means anything, monolingualism is a thing of the past for most nations of the world. To no country is this more relevant than it is to us.
The reason for this is not difficult to find. The knowledge society is characterised by the easy availability of globally networked information. The main task of those concerned with education is to enable students to master strategies of knowledge construction by drawing on this information. For this, the linguistic medium is of the utmost importance. Though there are thousands of languages in the world only a handful such as Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, and Russian are understood and used by very large numbers of people. Even among these probably English is the most widely used language in the world, widely here meaning ‘over a large geographical area’, and ‘covering a wide range of subjects’. Naturally, therefore, English should predominate the knowledge society. To participate in the knowledge society all non-English speaking nations need to learn English in addition to their mother tongues. Since new knowledge can be created in any language it is an advantage for members of knowledge societies to learn more languages. Thus multilingualism is the norm today.
In this situation our special connection with English (which needs no elaboration) is a clear advantage, for it means that the most useful world language for building up and sustaining the knowledge society is within easy reach for us. The much criticised low success rate of the English teaching enterprise has its legitimate causes. Three among these, in my opinion, are prominent: one of these is the non-perception to date of a valid motive for learning English particularly among our rural students; another is the absence of a meaningful and relevant context for interactive communication in the language; a third reason is the scant attention paid to the teaching of language (meaning mother tongues and English) as the indispensable primary resource in the search for knowledge. The current knowledge society project, if convincingly presented to the students, will contribute a great deal towards eliminating these causes. This initiative of the government reflects a recognition of the last mentioned deficiency (among other factors). Education for knowledge society involves, among other things, exploiting the globally networked information resources available on the Internet. This provides the language learner with a live context for interaction with the materials on the Net and even with other students including those from other countries; the resource can be used for interaction within the same class, in addition to normal non-web-based collaborative activities. The realisation that English is THE linguistic key to knowledge generation and application will not fail to motivate the students. Teachers and parents can do a lot to convince the young of this fact.
Since this is the case, teaching/learning English occupies a pivotal position in education for knowledge society. We have to go beyond basic communicative competence. Our aim should be enable the learners to master English as a tool for both constructing and acquiring knowledge by proactively exploring and understanding its linguistic mechanisms and expressive resources as applicable to various disciplines. Applied linguist Professor Bernd Ruschoff (University of Essen) reminds us that instead of the traditional instructivist paradigm the cognitive constructive paradigm is viewed as an important methodological basis for real innovation in foreign language learning today. He further points out that
“….. apart from basic communicative competences, favoured in the communicative classroom of the 80s, developing strategies of language processing and learning competence as well as language awareness and skills in knowledge perception and knowledge construction are needed for the successful outcome of any language curriculum. … ……………….
“Language learning should, therefore, be described as an interactive, dynamic process, in which new knowledge is often acquired when learners are placed in a situation where they can explore sources and resources rather than in a context of formal instruction.”
That is, instead of depending on being ‘taught’ in the traditional sense, students need to turn themselves into independent learners adopting both collaborative and autonomous strategies. The learning of the native languages must be similarly stressed, and their use encouraged between students who speak them as mother tongues and colleagues who speak them as second languages. The trilingual plan, if well implemented, will facilitate the fashioning of a more integrated Sri Lankan community.
Multilingual communicative competency is crucial for the knowledge society. It increases the ‘mobility’ of workers, students and teachers, as well as that of government servants. The mobility factor is especially important for students at higher levels of education who are preparing to assume productive roles in the society. Multilingual ability gives them access to international knowledge sources not available at home; it familiarises them with other languages and cultures, enabling them to hone their linguistic and cross-cultural skills; knowledge of a number of languages exposes them to alternative epistemological traditions of their disciplines; it prepares them for the international job market; and finally, the mobility gained through multilingual competency enables them to assert their democratic rights. The special advantage of having a knowledge of English is that even if they know only English in addition to their native languages, they can draw on the cutting edge sources of knowledge created in other countries without having to learn the languages spoken in those countries because many nations use English as the lingua franca of scientific and intellectual communication.
The education-industry nexus at the higher education level is a particularly important economic factor in business management, science, and engineering. It is also the foundation of lifelong learning for professionals. There’s no professional domain where those engaged can remain up to date and relevant long unless they succeed in keeping pace with fast advancing new knowledge and associated competencies.
In learning to live and work in the knowledge society, multilingual proficiency and IT skills are indispensable. Knowing English alone is equivalent to knowing a number of foreign languages. But all knowledge gained through English will be useless if a person fails to appreciate their own native cultural heritage. That’s why learning the mother tongues cannot be neglected. Multilingual abilities and IT competencies together will enable the present and future young generations to access and utilize the unlimited sources and resources of knowledge available globally in order to enrich their lives and empower themselves in ways we adults have only been able to dream of.

Launching into the English Medium through an Integrative Approach

2011-06-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Launching into the English Medium through an Integrative Approach
(Previously published in the Island newspaper, Sri Lanka)

For Sri Lankans English is mainly important in the three areas of education, employment, and international communication. Here we are concerned with education. In addition to being a lingua franca in the job market and in the field of global communication, it is a subject on the school curriculum and it has great potential as a vehicle of education. In a mother tongue medium class, for part of the time, a particular subject may be taught in English to students who need to learn it as a second language, making English an explicit medium of instruction but an implicit object of study. Though, in such a context, the students’ focus is on understanding the content of the lesson, this indirectly helps their mastery of the language. The students can also use the strategy (of integrating the study of English into subject instruction) for self-access work outside the classroom.
Education is essentially the acquisition of factual knowledge, practical skills, and good moral and ethical standards, all of which are useful for participating in the life of one’s community in such a way that one contributes towards promoting the welfare of everyone, thereby improving the chances for happiness for all. Animals also undergo a process of education that is essential for ensuring their survival; but it is a very rudimentary sort of education, and is governed entirely by instinct. In the case of humans, education is an intellectual process almost entirely mediated by language.
To be described as truly educated or cultured, a person must have passed through three basic phases of intellectual development: learning, knowledge, and wisdom. Among common people though, as is well known, if a person displays one of these, they are held to automatically possess the other two as well; but here I wish to give the following highly generalized definitions of the three words: ‘learning’ means taking in or ‘ingesting’, information; ‘knowledge’ is the result of processing that information, of ‘digesting’ or internalizing it; and ‘wisdom’ is the ability to make sound (that is, both practical and moral) judgements based on one’s knowledge and experience, in problematic situations.
It is perfectly possible for an individual to be most highly educated in Sinhala or Tamil without any knowledge of English. A significant difference between English and our native languages where education is concerned, in my view, is that the first offers more resources for learning, for gathering information, a wider area of reference in any field of study. This makes it possible for a person with a knowledge of English to become a better informed person than one who doesn’t enjoy that benefit. For the development of knowledge and wisdom something more than mere information is necessary, things such as intelligence, imagination, analytical power, creativity, intuition, and a moral sense.
All the thousands of different spoken and written forms of the very complex language capability in humans are equal in their potential as languages. But because of historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and many other varied factors, certain languages possess more advanced or more widely recognized literary traditions, more sophisticated vocabularies, and more extensive user bases, etc. than others. This, however, does not mean any natural superiority or inferiority of one language to another.
In our case, while our indigenous languages are adequate for communication within our borders, and at least in theory, can be modernized to accommodate all the knowledge available in the world through translation from foreign tongues (something prohibitively cumbersome and slow for sure, though), the most convenient way for us to enable our children to acquire a sound enough education is to give them a knowledge of English.
Teaching English, therefore, is not simply a case of teaching a language for a limited purpose, for it goes beyond that. We know that Sri Lankan job-seekers today learn a number of other foreign languages as well, such as Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, German, and Italian. This is a very pragmatic and sensible endeavour. Learning one of these languages with the express purpose of finding employment in a country where it is natively used cannot, however, be compared to learning English as a second language. This is because a knowledge of English, in addition to being a valuable asset to possess in the job market, is indispensable for general education in our particular context.
The usefulness of English as a means of enhancing general education is an added incentive for learners of English. Though English is taught as a separate subject, this activity can be integrated into the teaching of other subjects. Even in a situation where the medium of instruction is not English, the subject teachers, provided they possess the ability, may be asked to teach the students the special technical vocabulary used in their domain, explain or repeat a portion of the lesson in English, and encourage them to draw on English language based resources that are available outside; this would make an English teacher out of every teacher. (This idea occurred to me in association with the ‘Language across the curriculum’ proposal that resulted from the recommendations of a government commission in Britain in the mid-70’s for native-language education in that country in terms of which every teacher was expected to focus on reading and writing in their particular subject areas and thus double as a teacher of English).
Many subject teachers and even their students might not fancy this as feasible, considering it just a waste of time when they should be devoting all their time for covering the syllabuses and doing revision in preparation for the vital business of performing well at the examinations. But such an attitude is due to their failure to understand that they will be able to kill two birds with one stone if they use English as a medium of learning at least for part of the time: for such an exercise would be a case of “using English to learn it”; although the focus is not on language teaching or learning, language development will automatically result; that is, eventually the students will be learning not only a particular subject, but also English. Their enhanced proficiency in English will enable them to draw on outside resources to further enrich their knowledge of the subject as well as that of English, and thus a virtuous circle will be set in motion.
In terms of methodology this can be called a form of Content-Based Instruction (CBI). (To be talking about ‘methods’ and ‘approaches’ may sound a little anachronistic; but it beats me how we can perform a vital activity like language teaching without constantly being on the lookout for new ideas and new theories for increasing our efficiency, and this may include revisiting old practices with fresh insights as well as exploring new possibilities.) CBI consists in teaching subject matter in the language that is being learned with no effort to teach the language by extracting it from the content for separate treatment. It draws on the principles of communicative language teaching, where the focus is on real communication rather than on any other linguistic unit of organization such as grammatical structures, functions, etc. Various models of CBI have been in use since the 1980’s at elementary, secondary, and university levels.
Like CBI, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a communicative approach. In TBLT, however, teaching is organized around the completion of tasks that require the meaningful use of language, e.g. reading a text and labelling a map, completing a passport application form for a person who needs help to do that, phoning, etc. The general English language courses conducted in Sri Lankan schools may be described as based on a broad communicative language teaching approach with elements of CBI and TBLT included, the former predominating. The CBI element is realized in terms of theme-based units such as those under the headings the family, the environment, and wildlife, etc., where language acquisition is achieved through focusing on understanding the content of each unit presented in English.
However, my main focus here is how CBI could be exploited in integrating English language study into mainstream subject areas at the higher education level. This is particularly relevant at a time when many of our students in university education who have not been introduced to the English medium yet are likely to find themselves at the threshold of a critical switchover for which they may be hardly ready. (Though this idea is not new to the initiates it may be useful to the new entrants to the higher education domain.)
The proposed change of medium for all university students should not be a critical issue if English teaching at the school level was a success. For all intents and purposes, a move has been made towards introducing English as the general medium of education for all levels. Some secondary schools offer the students a choice between English and one of the native languages as the medium, but it is not going to be an easy change for obvious reasons such as the lack of teachers competent enough to teach in English, good textbooks, a high enough language proficiency level among the students, etc. In spite of this, my fervent hope is that the apparently mandatory switchover that is to be effected sooner or later will at least be an additional motivating factor for them to learn English with a sense of renewed urgency.
This provides a good context for intensifying the application of CBI approaches in English classrooms. The English courses must have a future orientation; they must involve English language instruction designed to prepare students who are passing the initial stages of their education in their mother tongue for a complete switchover at least at the higher education level. A situation where English and local language mediums co-exist can be utilized to introduce a strategy of ‘mainstreaming’, i.e. mixing second language English learners (that is, those studying in native medium classes) with English medium students of the same grade for English lessons and for some subject lessons as well (delivered in English), where cooperation is encouraged between the two groups: in other words, the English medium students with a better proficiency level in English are made to work with peers who have a lower level of proficiency on collaborative tasks such as pair work, group work, discussions etc. CBI principles and the related mainstreaming strategy referred to above might become even more practical during the preparatory university English language teaching courses.
The cooperation between the English teachers and the subject teachers, if such a partnership is available, can be highly productive in any intensive English teaching context. Working together they can design parallel courses in their respective areas of specialization for the new students undergoing intensive English language training: the subject specialists deliver a course of lectures with a specific content, while the English specialists extract the language elements involved in comprehending that content, and embody these in their course. Students can also draw upon outside sources for self-access work based on activities involving content comprehension and associated language practice exercises; autonomous learning through the extensive use of modern technology is one of the surest ways for students to augment their knowledge of particular subjects and their mastery of the medium simultaneously.

END

Jobs, Businesses, and Professions

2011-04-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

Jobs, Businesses, and Professions
(First published in The Island/17 December 2010)

“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” - John Ruskin (1819-1900), English writer, art critic and social reformer

The three words job, business, and profession all relate to work done in expectation of payment or income, but mean different things in terms of the main motive that drives each. A job is what you do to earn a living, a business involves work relating to the production, buying or selling of goods or services, and a profession is work which requires specialized knowledge and rigorous training, and which is considered to be more a form of honourable service to the society than simple labour to be appropriately remunerated. Disciplined performance on all these three forms of employment is essential for a country’s wellbeing. However, in the society today, one is often struck by the way traditionally hallowed professions such as the medical and the teaching professions are losing their aura of nobility, and degenerating into mere jobs or businesses, though there’s no reason to despair that old values are totally gone.
Professionalism, that is, the practice of skills combined with high standards, while intrinsic to professions by definition, is also expected of jobs and businesses. However, we don’t talk about ‘noble’ jobs or businesses, while we do apply that adjective to a profession. What makes a profession noble is the sense of compassion, generosity, and service that characterizes it. There is nothing very exalted about doing a piece of work to make a living, or exchanging goods or services for money to make a profit. But if your work involves, as in the case of the medical profession, saving people from physical and mental pain, or even death, or, as in the case of the teaching profession, fashioning the character of an individual for life, and if you do that out of compassion for fellow beings rather than covetousness, such ‘service’ should be considered noble.
A job is the least complicated of the three forms of employment. It is a regular occupation, and is nothing more than just a means of making a living. The worker is expected to work a regular number of hours each day, and is paid a regular salary. Usually the type of work the person is expected to do is routine, and allows little room for innovation. There may not be much of an opportunity or need to reveal one’s altruistic spirit, once the duties connected with the job are conscientiously performed.
A business makes an initial investment to produce goods or services for a target customer base. The main purpose of a business is to ensure a return for the money that is invested. Though businesses are usually for-profit organizations, occasionally, there are non-profit making businesses too, such as cooperative establishments, where the income earned is distributed among the members, who are themselves the investors, in the form of enhanced services and other benefits. A non-profit making business may sometimes raise money for a special cause, for example, charity. But, in the case of a business, the overriding concern is to augment returns on the capital resources deployed. Perhaps, moral standards seem to be irrelevant to business. This may be why American author Jim Tully (1886-1947) was prompted to say: “The lawyer and the doctor and other professional men have often a touch of civilization. The banker and the merchant seldom”, something borne out by the recent scams and scandals in the financial investment field in Sri Lanka.
A profession is different from both. The only common feature a profession shares with jobs and businesses is that it is practiced in expectation of some income. But, in reality, the purpose of earning some money becomes incidental to its main motive of providing a vitally important public service. A profession is no profession if it allows itself to become a mere job or business.
A number of special attributes of a profession (and by implication, of a professional) have been identified by different writers. Following are the most frequently stressed ones: a profession is based on a systematic body of scientific knowledge, and practical skills acquired through a formally assessed period of serious study and hard training; it should reflect authority and credibility in the relevant knowledge field, and also a widening of the knowledge field through research; a profession should be informed by compassion and a sense of dedication for public service; it should conform to a culture of values and standards; a profession must be committed to a special code of ethics; and it should demonstrate efficiency and competence in the performance of specific, socially useful, tasks which are challenging. These attributes give status and prestige to those engaged in the professions. Professionals generally enjoy more respect and recognition in society than other workers, and their work is regarded as a service. They are usually better paid than others, though people believe that the important work they do using their advanced knowledge and expertise cannot be valued in terms of money.
In the past, only a few forms of employment were included in the category of professions, such as the careers of doctors, educators, lawyers, engineers, or the (Christian) clergy. In modern times, however, the term is used more inclusively. It is extended to any field (such as business management, journalism, and communication) in which the practitioner performs an important task in a spirit of public service, based on his or her advanced scientific knowledge and hard training acquired over a period of time.
This western concept of profession is quite compatible with our own indigenous cultural attitudes, strongly evident in the medical and teaching fields. The (material) poverty of the ‘vedaralas’ (native physicians) who looked after the health of particularly the rural villagers, the vast majority of the population, almost single-handed until perhaps the beginning of the last century before the western system of medical care spread throughout the country is the theme of the following Sinhalese verse (I learned this verse from my late mother who herself had learnt it in her childhood. I regret my inability to relate it to a source):

Saththare denagath vedaralalata
Neththare nidinatha rae thun yamata
Goththare natha kusagini welawata
Paththare mai vedakama hingamanata

“Physicians who have mastered the art of healing have no rest even at night. You forget about your caste when you are hungry. Truly, this occupation of a physician makes a beggar out of you”.

The verse suggests that the local healers of that bygone era expected and got very little material benefit from practicing their profession. They engaged in it as a duty they owed to society. It seems that they believed that those who had gained medical knowledge were morally obliged to serve the community. They considered it a religious duty, a meritorious act. The society also relied on them to behave in that manner, and accorded them great respect and recognition.
In our knowledge-loving society teachers have always been similarly respected. It was only in the 1970’s that the private tuition centres started in earnest. Before that time, students depended entirely on classroom teaching. Sometimes, teachers offered extra teaching free of charge after school hours. We find no evidence to suggest that teachers of those less modernist times wanted to use their teaching to get materially rich.
This is only a neutral reflection on the past. No implied criticism of the highly commercialised medical and educational spheres that one finds nowadays is intended. Today we live in much more complicated times. We are materially and socially more advanced than before. We have more expectations in life and more opportunities to realize them. If private medical practitioners, and private tutors flourish by plying their trade, that is because there is a great demand for their services. Answering the vital needs of the society is no crime. But, even in the highly commercialized world of today, it is not impossible for them to infuse a sense of professionalism and humanity into their activities.
There are many who do, and enjoy the highest reward they can get for their toil as conceived by Ruskin in my quote at the beginning. That is why any indiscriminate condemnation of private practitioners in the medical or education fields as unconscionable profiteers would not be proper. We have many specialist doctors engaged in private practice who maintain high ethical standards by focusing on their profession rather than profit. The same applies to teachers; in both urban and rural schools some teachers who may be adding to their income by doing some moonlighting often provide free tuition to their needy students after school hours. This must be recognized and those professionals duly honoured for their service.

The Ten Year Master Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka

2011-01-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

The Ten Year Master Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka
(Previously published in The Island/3rd December 2010)

The 10 year National Master Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka (2011-2020) to be launched as a presidential initiative is going to be a massive implementation-oriented language management exercise, probably the most ambitious ever of its kind. A survey carried out by an independent research organization for the Public Survey and Research Unit of the Presidential Secretariat has revealed a clear perception among Sri Lanka’s major ethnic communities of the desirability of a three language system for strengthening national harmony. This is a good trend that should be encouraged and exploited, for the success of any language planning enterprise will ultimately depend on its acceptance by the people.
The Coordinator of the programme, Senior Presidential Advisor Mr Sunimal Fernando, describes the language dimension of the ethnic issue as a chronic wound that has been left untouched in the wishful hope that it would heal by itself in the course of time, for fear of causing pain to the afflicted by probing in it in an attempt to effect a permanent cure. From that perspective, the current undertaking is a bold attempt to bring about a change in the status quo in Sri Lanka’s language planning arena, which, it is hoped, will eventually enhance the prospects of peaceful coexistence among its diverse communities, while opening new vistas of national development. As Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe MP stated in Parliament during the Budget debate recently, “…. multilingualism … is the part of the human resources development that this government alone had the courage to embark on…” (His speech was featured in The Island/28th Monday, November 2010).
Language Planning is a professional activity which is subsumed under Applied Linguistics. It basically involves the participation of three kinds of “language professionals”: politicians, lawyers, and language specialists. These three categories of persons are language professionals in the sense that they use language, in their careers, in a distinctive way, as a weapon, a medium, or an object of study respectively. Language planning is concerned with decision-making about the status, content, teaching and use of languages, especially in volatile contexts where they come into contact, or even to into conflict, involving different groups of people, and where policies and laws must be formulated and implemented. Language planning, therefore, comprises a gamut of activities, which can be broadly grouped into three types: status planning, corpus planning, and acquisition planning.
Status planning is about the determination of the status or standing of a language in relation to other languages in a multilingual society. So it refers to language planning at the macro-sociolinguistic level. Status planning involves decisions about the selection, and the functional allocation or reallocation of a language or language variety (that is, deciding which language/variety should be used for which function, purpose, etc.). In our situation, status planning assumes a conspicuous inter-language character as it involves three distinct languages, in addition to its nature as an intra-language activity when applied to dialects/varieties of a single language. Decisions about which language or language variety should be made a national or official language, or a medium of education, or a link language etc., come within the purview of status planning. Deliberate governmental participation in policy making in this activity is often the case.
Corpus planning is not essentially connected with a corpus (i.e. a computerized collection of language data in the form of written texts and transcripts of recorded speech) though it may use corpora as tools in the process. This is language planning at the micro-sociolinguistic level. It involves selecting and codifying norms in a language, as when it writes grammars, or standardizes spelling, etc.
Acquisition planning is the type of language planning in which a government intervenes in order to influence the status, literacy, distribution, etc. of a language through education. Though nongovernmental organizations may sometimes carry out acquisition planning, government involvement in the process is more common. It is this type of language planning which we are most concerned with on the ten year trilingual master plan.
There are usually five stages to language planning. Accordingly, the proposed trilingual project will involve 1) selection (choosing the standard forms of the three languages), 2) codification (compiling the basic grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks to establish the standard varieties), 3) elaboration (developing these varieties for use in different domains of community life, and encouraging the production of literature written in the standard forms), 4) implementation (the government encouraging the use of the languages), and 5) acceptance (the majority of the population agreeing to use all the three languages in appropriate situations, and to recognize them as a normal part of their social and national identity).
Serious study of language planning as an academic concept started in the 1960’s. Harvard University professor Einar Haugen (1906-1994) is regarded as the pioneer of modern language planning. His 1966 book “Language Conflict and Language Planning, the Case of Modern Norwegian” is still a source of reference for language planners. Our involvement with language planning (though probably it was not described as such at the time) predated the advent of the linguistics of language planning by at least two decades. The change of the medium of education (from English to native tongues) along with the introduction of free education in the mid-1940’s may perhaps be described as a case of acquisition planning because of its connection with education. 1956 marked a watershed in language management. The various amendments brought to the Official Languages Policy under the present Presidential Constitution (1978) since its inception to date represent phases of status planning which have constitutionally guaranteed parity of status to Sinhala and Tamil as national and official languages, while English is recognized as the link language. According to the Official Languages Policy, a person is entitled to be educated through the medium of either of the National Languages; recently, English has rejoined Sinhala and Tamil languages as a medium of education; both Sinhala and Tamil are the languages of administration throughout Sri Lanka; the maintenance of public records and the transaction of business in public institutions are done in Sinhala in all the provinces of Sri Lanka other than the Northern and Eastern Provinces where Tamil shall be used; however, the Sinhala or Tamil linguistic minorities of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, or of all the other Provinces respectively are enabled to have their business attended to through the medium of their own native language, or another language of their choice; the language of legislation and that of the courts, too, are both Sinhala and Tamil; all laws and subordinate legislation are enacted or made and published in Sinhala and Tamil, together with a translation in English. When citizens feel that their language-related rights are being violated, there is provision for legal redress.
If constitutionally and legally there is no room for any citizen to suffer discrimination on the basis of language or ethnicity, then why is that there appears to be a persistent (though usually unexpressed) impression that ethnic harmony is going to remain as much a chimera as ever into the foreseeable future?
From my point of view, a number of answers can be suggested to explain such a pessimistic view. But here I will only write about what I consider the most immediate one among the different causes of the apparent malaise: our failure to implement fully the Official Languages Policy at the grassroots administrative level, where ordinary citizens transact business with the state/government. This failure has a simple cause, and that is the fact that a considerable number of government servants lack acceptable proficiency in more than one language. However, this is a situation that successive governments have been trying to remedy through language training programmes.
The trilingual initiative of the government is a timely one in this context. The idea is to turn Sri Lanka into a trilingual nation within the next ten years. The current peaceful atmosphere, and the growing popular awareness of the usefulness of the scheme would encourage the architects of the plan to hold out hope that it will succeed if properly implemented.
The successful completion of the ten year plan will depend on a number of factors. The commitment of those who are entrusted with the tasks involved in the five stages of the language planning enterprise will be foremost. Hardly less important will be the purposeful mobilization and exemplary professionalism of the educational authorities including teachers. The positive response of the target population is the next essential condition. Here the most important ingredient will be motivation. The students must be made to see a legitimate reason for undergoing the hassle of learning three languages where one or at the most two would appear to be sufficient. In addition to convincing them of the necessity of an English knowledge for a decent education, it will be necessary to inculcate them with an attitude of mutual respect and fellow feeling among the different communities.
In working towards that goal, the colonial origin of the language or ethnic problem should not be overlooked, nor a myth substituted instead. 1956 was not the beginning of our troubles, rather it was the successful conclusion of one stage of our emergence from the incubus of imperial domination, as later 1972 was. During their occupation the imperialists sought to strengthen and perpetuate their predatory stranglehold on our diverse nation by deliberately dividing it along ethnic lines. The privileged status that they conferred on sections of the population which had embraced the English language and the Christian religion was not to the advantage or the liking of the dispossessed masses of all communities. However, even among the privileged who enjoyed imperial patronage there was discrimination against representatives of the majority ethnic community paralleled by preferential treatment meted out to those of the minorities. Since the emancipation of the downtrodden of all the communities ushering in democratic rule meant the end of the perks and privileges that they were enjoying under the occupiers, naturally those elements were opposed to the fulfilment of the legitimate aspirations of the majority. We must come to terms with this past instead of demonising the majority community and blaming them for every problem that the country faces. Mutual hatred and recrimination fed by myths will take us nowhere.
Before independence, the ordinary masses belonging to all communities suffered as third class citizens in their own country except the thin upper crust of the population that collaborated with them. The supremacy of English and the undue privileged status of the small minority (the so-called elite) which benefited from that lingering colonial afterglow was significantly attenuated, if not completely eliminated, by the changes introduced in 1956. The real or perceived linguistic anomalies following from ‘Sinhala only’ (which was no worse than ‘English only’ in multilingual America or ‘Hindi only’ in multilingual India as ‘national’ languages) have been constitutionally resolved since. Today we live in a country where we are all equal citizens, enjoying the same linguistic and other rights. Just as we share equal rights, we must shoulder equal responsibilities.
It is said that divisive tendencies based on the language issue eventually led to the separatist terror which ravaged the country for thirty years. We have now successfully put behind us both of those problems. If the language problem put us in trouble in the past, this time around a trebly powerful language factor has come to our help. We are on the threshold of a new era of national unity and economic development, neither of which is possible without the other. No more propitious time has ever emerged for such a bright prospect for development since Independence. The key to economic and social advancement is a developed human resource base, for which high quality education is a sine qua non. The three language treasure that we have inherited or acquired must be utilized to the full for human resource development in pushing for the goal of Sri Lanka being eventually hailed as the Wonder of Asia.

Technology-mediated Language Teaching

2011-01-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

Technology-mediated Language Teaching
(First published in The Island/Friday 26th November 2010)
Any teaching-learning situation involves a dynamic interrelationship between three components: the learner, the subject, and the teacher. The role of the teacher in this relationship is to initiate and maintain effective learner engagement with the subject. Pedagogy is about how this can be done efficiently. A handy tool that modern teachers can use in their teaching is found in the form of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
Incidentally, the word ‘pedagogy’ has an interesting etymology: According to the Chambers Dictionary, it derives from ‘pedagogue’, (‘teacher’), which itself entered the English language partly through French and Latin from the Greek ‘paidagogos’ (‘a slave who led a boy to school’). Considering the ‘slaving’ (working hard, usually for someone else) that conscientious teaching involves today, ‘pedagogy’ is an appropriate term for a teacher’s strategic role in the instruction process. The technology tool has the potential to ease a teacher’s burden considerably. But, how does this apply to an English language teaching situation?
Each English teacher, whether a novice or an expert, confronts a unique set of pupils in a unique setting (place, time and circumstances), and faces the unavoidable challenge of determining their own classroom practice to suit the pupils. A novice teacher may be required to rely on their own (perhaps totally uninformed) devices or, luckily, on guidance where it is available, while an expert practitioner usually draws on personal knowledge and experience in doing this.
A teacher’s classroom practice consists of the specific teaching and learning activities that are designed. Individual decisions about these are based on the teacher’s ideas, beliefs, or assumptions about the nature of language, and the psychology of language learning on the one hand, and on the other, on their knowledge of English, and their understanding of the pupils’ learning styles. In other words, a teacher’s understanding of how learners learn English in terms of a particular pedagogic ideology will determine their decisions about the overall classroom procedure to be adopted.
According to available information, already about 84% of the households in Sri Lanka enjoy the electricity facility; computer literacy is at 30%, and is fast spreading; English and IT are being promoted as related subjects. (The level of computer literacy that is required in the English language classroom is not high, and is limited.) In this context, using ICT would prove a popular strategy for enhancing language teaching and learning. This shouldn’t be interpreted as a proposal to provide a few computers for each class, and hand over all the teaching to them while the teachers sit back and idle. ICT will only be a tool. It will be used sometimes for part of a lesson with one group of students, while the others are engaged with other activities. ICT use in the class can also be expected to train the pupils to do self-access work with a computer at home.
Today, ICT is in common use, particularly in administration and business spheres. There is no important office, shop, bank, hospital, factory, or firm that doesn’t use it. Not using ICT where the routine work involves communicating and computing would be deemed primitive. School children would love innovations that put them in contact with modern technology which is now a normal feature everywhere else. English language learners do not enjoy being left behind in this general movement towards technological modernity. Young people will quickly embrace ICT integration into English language instruction because it is trendy, in addition to being attractive in other ways.
If ICT use can be ‘normalized’ in our schools (in the sense that the computer becomes as normal a feature in every classroom as the black- or whiteboard has been to date), then it will prove to be an effective leveller between urban and rural schools. The need to attend expensive urban centres for educational support will be greatly reduced for rural students, because they will be able to access the necessary sources of information online. We already have a number of government and private sector-sponsored online education programmes. Technology-based education in Sri Lanka has a promising future. (Ref. my column for 27th August and 3rd September 2010)
In terms of pedagogy, the two most important advantages of technology-based English language instruction will be: 1) it will be highly motivational, and 2) it will create a highly productive context for effective language learning. Of these, the second advantage may be elaborated thus: ICT provides multimodal interaction, that is, communicative activities involving all the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing; it will allow differentiated instruction, which is a strategy in which students of mixed ability levels are helped to proceed at their own rates while learning the same concepts; ICT also encourages autonomous learning. The first advantage, the valuable motivational factor, is due to the novelty and the variety that modern technology constantly brings into the language learning experience.
Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) first appeared in the early 1980’s. CALL programmes required learners to respond to cues on the computer screen, and involved tasks such as matching sentence halves, filling in gapped texts, and doing multiple-choice activities. CALL materials of the present day are more sophisticated than these. Access to ICT has enabled both teachers and students to go beyond the use of computer programmes to the use of the Internet and web-based resources. In view of this, the term Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) was coined in the 1990’s. In an attempt to reflect the growing possibilities offered by the Internet and ICT, other terms have been suggested to replace CALL and TELL such as Web-enhanced Language Learning (WELL), Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL). Since the use of the computer remains relevant to all of these, experts in the field still prefer to stick to the original term, namely, CALL.
Teachers can use CALL materials prepared by the authorities, or those that they compile by themselves in an institution. The Internet offers a wide variety of CALL materials. These can be used to supplement a course that is already being delivered. The language teaching professionals who develop such materials subscribe to a particular philosophy. For example, assumptions about the three components of a teaching-learning situation mentioned at the beginning of this essay are implicit in most CALL materials. One assumption is that, in order to become independent learners, students need teachers to guide them in choosing what to learn and how to learn it, and the specific language (that is, the style of English: formal, informal, etc.) that they should focus on. An assumption relating to the subject (English) is that the English language represents a variety of styles that serve different purposes. For instance, the language needed to ask someone you know for a favour differs in grammar and vocabulary from that needed to request a similar favour from a stranger or a social superior. Teachers guide pupils not only by selecting appropriate materials, but by structuring the activities for learning, and for monitoring their progress; teacher guidance helps the learners to continue learning English and to expand their knowledge of the language.
It is now generally accepted that second language learners learn a language by specific stages, as Tony Erben et al (Teaching English Language Learners through Technology. Routledge, 2009) point out. Teachers can’t force it on them all at once. Learners will acquire new language structures only when they are cognitively and psychologically ready to do so. For example, learners listen and respond non-verbally to simple commands, and become able to say short formulaic structures such as “yes”, “no”, “Good morning”, “Thank you”, and develop a receptive vocabulary of a few hundred words, before they begin to manage one or two-word answers or short utterances. These two phases of language acquisition represent the first two of four such stages that Krashen and Terrel (1983) described (viz. preproduction, and early production stages; the other two are the speech emergence stage, and the intermediate fluency stage). Incidentally, according to Tony Erben and his co-authors, in spite of there being various other taxonomies (ways of classifying and naming) to categorize stages of language development, many education systems in the US adopt the four-tier model proposed by Krashen and Terrel that I have just mentioned. Later researchers (e.g. Pienemann, 1989, 2007) have confirmed that there is an immutable language acquisition order.
A teacher cannot alter this natural process. But they can definitely quicken the pace of language development. The multimodal resources made available through ICT are an ideal way for activating the natural phases of second language acquisition. Technology enables the teacher to create an ‘acquisition-rich classroom’ via interactive pedagogic activities. The authors of the above-mentioned book summarize ‘useful research generalizations’ provided by Ellis (2005) among others into five principles for generating such an acquisition-rich language learning environment.
The first of these is that the English language learners should be provided with many opportunities to read, to write, to listen to and to discuss oral and written English texts expressed in a variety of ways. This involves not only the ability to listen to a spoken text or read a written text, and learn what is there to learn, but also the ability to communicate the information acquired to another person (who wants to learn it ). Academic literacy is today defined as the ability to use speaking, listening, reading, writing, and critical thinking to learn what they want to learn, and to communicate or demonstrate that learning to others who need it.
The second principle is that the learners need to focus their attention on patterns of English language structure. To become efficient communicators, they must learn the language structures that help them express themselves clearly, and the rules that govern the appropriateness of language for a particular context. The assumption that there is a natural order or sequence of language acquisition implies that grammatical structures emerge in the communicative utterances of the learners in a fixed, regular order. The teacher’s responsibility is to create a language-rich environment which induces them to use grammar relevant to the acquisition stage they have reached.
The third principle says that the language learners need to be given classroom time to use their English productively. This is based on the assumption that the interaction that takes place when second language learners, engaged in talk with their colleagues, ‘negotiate’ for meaning. That is, conversation is not usually a straightforward matter of exchanging ready-made pieces of information between the interlocutors; the messages get clarified, or even modified, the meaning more defined through questioning, agreeing with what is said but with reservations, or totally disagreeing, or asking for clarifications, and so on; this is supported by other forms of feedback including non-verbal clues such as facial expressions revealing incomprehension, confusion, or disagreement, etc; thus meaning is newly created in the course of a ‘negotiating’ process. Interaction through such negotiation for meaning is assumed to facilitate language learning. In the domain of second language acquisition (SLA) theory, this is known as the interaction hypothesis, which has been primarily developed by M. Long (1996, 2006). The availability of input of the right quality and quantity, together with provision for output (i.e. opportunities for using the second language) advances language development.
According to the fourth principle, students need to be given the opportunities to spot their errors, and to correct them. Teachers should encourage learners to reflect on their language, on ‘correct’ forms of language. This must happen at least in the English classroom. For most of the time that children spend at school, they engage in activities which focus on their understanding of subject matter; rarely do they have an opportunity to notice the contribution language makes towards communicating the content of the lessons clearly without misrepresenting it. Wrong grammar is a problem where there is a need for clarity and precision of presentation. It is only when students are aware of this, and make a conscious effort to discover their errors, and correct them that they can become efficient communicators. Teachers should help them in this. Ideally, every teacher must be a language teacher.
The fifth and final principle in our list is based on all that preceded. It advises the teacher to design activities that maximize interaction among the learners in English. Students’ active involvement in linguistic communication in the class is the main factor that ensures successful language learning.
The five principles delineated above provide parameters for a curriculum that addresses the language acquisition needs of the learners. Sensitivity to the four stages of language development should be an essential feature of such a curriculum.
Of course, technology can be used in English teaching within the classroom without having to constantly go online. For example, teachers and learners can work offline with pre-downloaded instruction materials, or with such materials photocopied, which would be safer in places where there are frequent power and connectivity breakdown problems.

Teaching Language through Literature

2011-01-07T08:08:00.000-08:00

Teaching Language through Literature
(First published in The Island/Friday 12th November, 2010)
Children love to play with language. Toddlers sometimes coin their own non-sense musical phrases and enjoy singing them repeatedly. Older children play games in which singing is an essential accompaniment to physical movements. They like to listen to stories and relate ones which they already know or which they make up. Children display a natural dramatic talent. They enjoy reciting poetry. The love of using their language creatively for the sheer joy of it is natural to humans, and is at the root of the creation of, and the engagement with, literature. This situation can be exploited to promote the learning of English as a second language by including a literary element in the English curriculum from the beginning.
Some educators in the past rejected the use of literary texts as ‘drill materials’ for the development of the four basic language skills on the grounds that in such a situation students would learn neither language nor literature sufficiently well. Therefore they preferred to defer the introduction of literature to a later stage when the students would be expected to have gained enough mastery of the language to respond to literature without difficulty. However, with the communicative language teaching approach steadily gaining currency, and the ‘drill’ aspect of language practice becoming less emphasized, this attitude changed. Today it is normal to incorporate literary pieces in English language textbooks.
Literature provides interesting language practice materials. It affords a chance for the learners to be aware of the creative possibilities of language that enable them to communicate ideas and states of mind beyond the merely routine, utilitarian level. Behind its apparent triviality, literature hides that which makes us human in a profound sense. It has its birth in the human passion for creating beautiful forms by drawing on the resources of language, such as the sound and sense of words, rhythm, rhyme, etc. Words are the raw material that literary artists shape into formal beauty. There is pleasure in creating literature, and in reacting to it. In spite of the pleasure element that literature is ordinarily associated with, it is nevertheless serious business, for it is concerned with intensely felt experience. Through its formal beauty literature helps us to reflect on the deeply sorrowful aspect of our existence (bereavement, betrayal, loss, and endless other eventualities) which all humans share, and just as well, to celebrate the most cherished things in life (love, marriage, birth of a baby, fulfilment of hopes, discovery of beauty, and the rest). In the end, we experience the “serene joy” of coming to terms with the bitter-sweet nature of our existence. Thus literature increases our capacity for making sense of our world, for expressing it, and for sharing it with our fellow humans, which enriches our humanity.
In literature, therefore, language is used for exploring a level of experience that goes beyond the merely physical to encompass our emotional life in which we actually ‘live’, in the sense that we are concerned with such things as the ultimate meaning, the frustrations and the fulfilments, and the agonies and the ecstasies of our existence, and above all with the ultimate joy of living in the face of these contradictions. It is not that these abstract notions about the value of literature should be conveyed to the students verbally; in reality, it would be after many years of familiarity with literature that generalisations such as those come within their powers of comprehension. But children have an instinctive fascination with the mysterious power of language to transport them to a different plane of experience.
Literature usually involves four forms: essay, poetry, fiction, and drama; but now we also include film in this list. Though both drama and film are primarily for watching, the manuscripts of plays and the shooting scripts of films can be read and enjoyed as literature. All these literary forms represent language being used for interpreting the world of experience, and communicating it to others through the engagement of their aesthetic sense (= ability to enjoy things of beauty).
The prevalent communicative language teaching principles would suggest that literature is an easily exploitable resource for language instruction. The great potential of literature as a context for pleasurable as well as useful language practice lies in its intrinsic appeal to youthful creativity, its inclusion of all the four basic language skills and more, and its wide scope for collaborative engagement among the students, in addition to individual interaction with the texts.
My comments here relate to the teaching of English as a second language to Sri Lankan students. Of course, no such thing as teaching the language exclusively through literature is intended. Literature is viewed here as one important way of using language. Language teaching and learning should involve more than literature. The important thing is that when specimens of literature are presented as components of an English teaching course they should be subordinated to the actual purpose of using literature in that situation, which is providing an interesting context for authentic language use. But the value of the texts as literature should not be discounted. Otherwise, there will be no difference between the other forms of texts included in the same course and the literature pieces in their treatment, rendering the latter redundant.
However, it is obvious that we cannot initiate our students to all the intricacies of the literary experience from the word go, although its essence is nascent in the crudest form of their contact with literature. Just as an insistence on perfect grammar, pronunciation, and accent, etc tends to frighten students out of a purposeful attempt to learn English, so a perceptibly rigid concern on the part of teachers to deal with literary texts exclusively as literature will kill the second language learners’ interest in them. What the teachers can exploit, particularly at the beginning level, is literature’s appeal to the children’s native love of using language creatively for the pleasure it generates.
In the language teaching context, therefore, the value of literature lies in its potential for providing a context for authentic linguistic communication in a unique aspect of language use. Creative literature uses language for exploring the world of imagination, thought, and values, as distinct from using it to deal with merely factual and utilitarian information. The usual English language textbooks contain a few examples of literature such as simple poems, short stories, extracts from longer fiction, or drama, and essays among a majority of non-literary texts. The way that student interaction with non-literary texts is stage-managed (that is, the way non-literary texts are taught, in traditional terms) is not suitable for stimulating interaction with literary texts.
The sort of literature presented to students for engagement and enjoyment should be graded according to their age and their level of attainment in English language proficiency. Thus at the primary level, singing nursery rhymes would be a good introduction to the literary experience through the delightful music of the words, and the visual images that the rhymes conjure. Children may be given the opportunity to draw pictures to illustrate their songs as an additional activity.
At the same time, the amount of contribution that they make towards the real purpose of the lesson – linguistic development – should be the determinant criterion in the selection and assignment of learning tasks. For example, what useful purpose will learning and singing nursery rhymes serve apart from the delightfulness of the activity itself? It will serve to teach the children the pronunciation of English sounds; when they memorise the verses, they remember some chunks of English which they can repeat later in appropriate contexts, and this would increase their familiarity with English, and also give them a sense of confidence about their ability to learn the language. It would also be good for students to be asked to compose their own poems.
There are other criteria to be taken into consideration in the selection of samples of English literature for the English curriculum.
Since our real focus is teaching English as a second language, and not teaching English literature for its own sake, the specimens chosen should necessarily exemplify contemporary English, English from around the world as well as what we are familiar with in Sri Lanka. English literature is being produced in many countries and cultures, and there is an inexhaustible literary commonwealth for curriculum makers to draw on. So there probably is no vacancy for Chaucer or Shakespeare in an English language course book except in a modernised version. Selections may be from any number of English using countries around the world including our own.
The selections should be appropriate for the age, the interests, the proficiency level and the cultural background of the students. The literariness of the texts can be increasingly emphasized as the students’ language proficiency grows. Since unconventional use of language is normal in literature, especially in poetry, sophisticated literary texts are not suitable for beginning language students. These should be introduced at the higher levels where the learners know what the conventional forms are well enough to identify deliberate deviations from the norm that writers use to create special literary effects.
The purpose of including literature in the English curriculum is to exploit the potential it has for generating interesting classroom interaction and discussion in the language. A story, a poem, an essay, or a piece of drama can lead to lively discussion among the students, when it is well handled by a knowledgeable teacher. Usually, there are two kinds of questions that are asked to guide the students: specific and general. To illustrate these, I’ll refer to James Thurber’s (1894-1961) short humorous essay “The Moth and the Star”. If teacher guidance is limited to asking such specific comprehension questions as “Who did the young moth tell about his love of the star?”, “What was her reply?”, “What did she ask him to set his heart on instead?”, or “Was his father happy about the moth’s behaviour?” etc, these will get ready answers from the students, but lead to limited classroom discussion. An exclusive general question like “Whose point of view, in your opinion, is the author supportive of, the young moth’s or his parents’?” should naturally invite a variety of responses, and hence create more discussion, but may be a bit too challenging for the majority of the students to tackle. (Readers may visit my literature blog heli29.wordpress.com for the text of Thurber’s essay) A more sensible approach would be to first ensure the students’ understanding of the facts of the story through specific questioning, and then to enable them grasp what interesting point of view or argument or theme the separate facts build up to.
If, for the sake of asserting our common humanity, we want English to bring the peoples of the world to us, and to take us to them across all kinds of cultural, political, social, and other barriers, reading English literature from around the world and adding our own share to the ever expanding literary commonwealth will prove the surest way to do that. By incorporating good specimens of English literature in the second language textbook materials for developing language facility through maximising communication and interaction among the students in the literary use of the language, we can take our first steps towards that lofty ideal.

Launching into the English Medium through an Integrative Approach

2010-12-26T05:24:00.000-08:00

Launching into the English Medium through an Integrative Approach
(First published in The Island/Friday 5th November, 2010)

For Sri Lankans English is mainly important in the three areas of education, employment, and international communication. Here we are concerned with education. In addition to being a lingua franca in the job market and in the field of global communication, it is a subject on the school curriculum and it has great potential as a vehicle of education. In a mother tongue medium class, for part of the time, a particular subject may be taught in English to students who need to learn it as a second language, making English an explicit medium of instruction but an implicit object of study. Though, in such a context, the students’ focus is on understanding the content of the lesson, this indirectly helps their mastery of the language. The students can also use the strategy (of integrating the study of English into subject instruction) for self-access work outside the classroom.
Education is essentially the acquisition of factual knowledge, practical skills, and good moral and ethical standards, all of which are useful for participating in the life of one’s community in such a way that one contributes towards promoting the welfare of everyone, thereby improving the chances for happiness for all. Animals also undergo a process of education that is essential for ensuring their survival; but it is a very rudimentary sort of education, and is governed entirely by instinct. In the case of humans, education is an intellectual process almost entirely mediated by language.
To be described as truly educated or cultured, a person must have passed through three basic phases of intellectual development: learning, knowledge, and wisdom. Among common people though, as is well known, if a person displays one of these, they are held to automatically possess the other two as well; but here I wish to give the following highly generalized definitions of the three words: ‘learning’ means taking in or ‘ingesting’, information; ‘knowledge’ is the result of processing that information, of ‘digesting’ or internalizing it; and ‘wisdom’ is the ability to make sound (that is, both practical and moral) judgements based on one’s knowledge and experience, in problematic situations.
It is perfectly possible for an individual to be most highly educated in Sinhala or Tamil without any knowledge of English. A significant difference between English and our native languages where education is concerned, in my view, is that the first offers more resources for learning, for gathering information, a wider area of reference in any field of study. This makes it possible for a person with a knowledge of English to become a better informed person than one who doesn’t enjoy that benefit. For the development of knowledge and wisdom something more than mere information is necessary, things such as intelligence, imagination, analytical power, creativity, intuition, and a moral sense.
All the thousands of different spoken and written forms of the very complex language capability in humans are equal in their potential as languages. But because of historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and many other varied factors, certain languages possess more advanced or more widely recognized literary traditions, more sophisticated vocabularies, and more extensive user bases, etc. than others. This, however, does not mean any natural superiority or inferiority of one language to another.
In our case, while our indigenous languages are adequate for communication within our borders, and at least in theory, can be modernized to accommodate all the knowledge available in the world through translation from foreign tongues (something prohibitively cumbersome and slow for sure, though), the most convenient way for us to enable our children to acquire a sound enough education is to give them a knowledge of English.
Teaching English, therefore, is not simply a case of teaching a language for a limited purpose, for it goes beyond that. We know that Sri Lankan job-seekers today learn a number of other foreign languages as well, such as Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, German, and Italian. This is a very pragmatic and sensible endeavour. Learning one of these languages with the express purpose of finding employment in a country where it is natively used cannot, however, be compared to learning English as a second language. This is because a knowledge of English, in addition to being a valuable asset to possess in the job market, is indispensable for general education in our particular context.
The usefulness of English as a means of enhancing general education is an added incentive for learners of English. Though English is taught as a separate subject, this activity can be integrated into the teaching of other subjects. Even in a situation where the medium of instruction is not English, the subject teachers, provided they possess the ability, may be asked to teach the students the special technical vocabulary used in their domain, explain or repeat a portion of the lesson in English, and encourage them to draw on English language based resources that are available outside; this would make an English teacher out of every teacher. (This idea occurred to me in association with the ‘Language across the curriculum’ proposal that resulted from the recommendations of a government commission in Britain in the mid-70’s for native-language education in that country in terms of which every teacher was expected to focus on reading and writing in their particular subject areas and thus double as a teacher of English).
Many subject teachers and even their students might not fancy this as feasible, considering it just a waste of time when they should be devoting all their time for covering the syllabuses and doing revision in preparation for the vital business of performing well at the examinations. But such an attitude is due to their failure to understand that they will be able to kill two birds with one stone if they use English as a medium of learning at least for part of the time: for such an exercise would be a case of “using English to learn it”; although the focus is not on language teaching or learning, language development will automatically result; that is, eventually the students will be learning not only a particular subject, but also English. Their enhanced proficiency in English will enable them to draw on outside resources to further enrich their knowledge of the subject as well as that of English, and thus a virtuous circle will be set in motion.
In terms of methodology this can be called a form of Content-Based Instruction (CBI). (To be talking about ‘methods’ and ‘approaches’ may sound a little anachronistic; but it beats me how we can perform a vital activity like language teaching without constantly being on the lookout for new ideas and new theories for increasing our efficiency, and this may include revisiting old practices with fresh insights as well as exploring new possibilities.) CBI consists in teaching subject matter in the language that is being learned with no effort to teach the language by extracting it from the content for separate treatment. It draws on the principles of communicative language teaching, where the focus is on real communication rather than on any other linguistic unit of organization such as grammatical structures, functions, etc. Various models of CBI have been in use since the 1980’s at elementary, secondary, and university levels.
Like CBI, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a communicative approach. In TBLT, however, teaching is organized around the completion of tasks that require the meaningful use of language, e.g. reading a text and labelling a map, completing a passport application form for a person who needs help to do that, phoning, etc. The general English language courses conducted in Sri Lankan schools may be described as based on a broad communicative language teaching approach with elements of CBI and TBLT included, the former predominating. The CBI element is realized in terms of theme-based units such as those under the headings the family, the environment, and wildlife, etc., where language acquisition is achieved through focusing on understanding the content of each unit presented in English.
However, my main focus here is how CBI could be exploited in integrating English language study into mainstream subject areas at the higher education level. This is particularly relevant at a time when many of our students in university education who have not been introduced to the English medium yet are likely to find themselves at the threshold of a critical switchover for which they may be hardly ready. (Though this idea is not new to the initiates it may be useful to the new entrants to the higher education domain.)
The proposed change of medium for all university students should not be a critical issue if English teaching at the school level was a success. For all intents and purposes, a move has been made towards introducing English as the general medium of education for all levels. Some secondary schools offer the students a choice between English and one of the native languages as the medium, but it is not going to be an easy change for obvious reasons such as the lack of teachers competent enough to teach in English, good textbooks, a high enough language proficiency level among the students, etc. In spite of this, my fervent hope is that the apparently mandatory switchover that is to be effected sooner or later will at least be an additional motivating factor for them to learn English with a sense of renewed urgency.
This provides a good context for intensifying the application of CBI approaches in English classrooms. The English courses must have a future orientation; they must involve English language instruction designed to prepare students who are passing the initial stages of their education in their mother tongue for a complete switchover at least at the higher education level. A situation where English and local language mediums co-exist can be utilized to introduce a strategy of ‘mainstreaming’, i.e. mixing second language English learners (that is, those studying in native medium classes) with English medium students of the same grade for English lessons and for some subject lessons as well (delivered in English), where cooperation is encouraged between the two groups: in other words, the English medium students with a better proficiency level in English are made to work with peers who have a lower level of proficiency on collaborative tasks such as pair work, group work, discussions etc. CBI principles and the related mainstreaming strategy referred to above might become even more practical during the preparatory university English language teaching courses.
The cooperation between the English teachers and the subject teachers, if such a partnership is available, can be highly productive in any intensive English teaching context. Working together they can design parallel courses in their respective areas of specialization for the new students undergoing intensive English language training: the subject specialists deliver a course of lectures with a specific content, while the English specialists extract the language elements involved in comprehending that content, and embody these in their course. Students can also draw upon outside sources for self-access work based on activities involving content comprehension and associated language practice exercises; autonomous learning through the extensive use of modern technology is one of the surest ways for students to augment their knowledge of particular subjects and their mastery of the medium simultaneously.

END

Teachers as Nation-builders

2010-12-22T07:07:00.000-08:00

Teachers as Nation-builders
(First published in The Island/22nd Friday, October 2010)

A nation comprises the people of a country, not its land, buildings, or natural features, though these may help identify a particular nation as its possessions. Nation building, therefore, means the development of the human factor along with the other resources of the country so that its people are able to enjoy a comfortable, happy, contented life in a free, fair and peaceful land.
The greatest asset that a country has for achieving such a state of existence is its youth. The education of the young is the heaviest responsibility that any nation must shoulder. Since it is teachers who play the central role in educating the children, they may be described as the foremost nation builders.
From time immemorial, Sinhalese folk wisdom has accorded pre-eminence to three occupations: ruling, healing, and teaching. The saying “rajakama neththam vedakama” (If you can’t become a king, the next best thing is to become a physician) shows the high esteem in which healers are held in our society. However, neither rulers nor physicians have ever been assigned any divinity as a tribe, though perhaps our ancient kings might have been formally called “god” or addressed as such. Yet, good teachers are even today honoured with the “god” title: “gurudevi” (teacher god). At school felicitation ceremonies, it is a deeply emotional sight when sometimes senior university professors, administrators, and army generals among others pay obeisance to humble old school teachers who had taught them, guided them, praised them, and even punished them on occasion in their childhood, by falling at their feet.
In moral terms, teaching is arguably the noblest profession in our culture. This is not to belittle the other professions, but to stress the fact that people’s acquisition of knowledge and skills in any field, and the assimilation of sound values and a good moral sense always originate in the formative years of their lives as school children; above all, it is from good teachers that children learn how to educate themselves in later life. No other professions are possible without the profession of teaching.
In our country, it is usual for teachers to enjoy the privilege of having their former ‘golayas’ (pupils) who offer to help them in any government office or other institution they visit. Persons in exalted positions in society often remember their school teachers with more affection and respect than their university professors because of the greater personal influence that the former had on their education and their life in general. A teacher’s work is thus praised, and respected as an act of generosity and service by the beneficiaries of such ‘nobility’, which means the whole society feels grateful to teachers. Such adulation is a recognition of the contribution that teachers make to the personal development of individuals and thereby, of the nation.
This sentiment may sound a little too idealistic under the current circumstances, for like the medical profession, the teaching profession is unfortunately losing its traditional aura of respectability as a result of being highly commercialised, and politicised: business is usurping the space earlier occupied by service, while labour politics is displacing professional ethics.
However, in spite of this, teaching in the formal education system still continues to relate to the life of the individuals, and through them to the life of the society at large, in a vitally important way that no other profession can. A teacher’s work involves providing the learners intellectual guidance for exploring the world of knowledge, and for imbibing the moral values of their society, in a word, educating them. No other professional affects a client’s life so intimately, so profoundly, and so permanently as a teacher does.
While there has been no change in the way teachers influence the life of the individuals and the society, how teachers teach has been subjected to fresh thinking, and improved a great deal. The traditional view of the teacher as the repository of all knowledge whose business is to fill their pupils with learning as if they were empty pitchers became obsolete decades ago, although it is still more or less dominant in our country. The concept of teaching has undergone radical transformation, especially over the past century due to new research findings in educational psychology, teaching methodology, and other allied fields of study, and also due to the phenomenal increase in the number of sources of information resulting from revolutionary innovations in Information and Communications Technology. Whereas in the past the teacher was at the centre of the teaching process, the more modern insights into how learners learn have tended to locate learner initiative at the centre of the educative process. Educationists began to see that learning belongs to the learner, and that a teacher at best could only help a learner to learn; teaching is today considered to be teaching learners how to learn, rather than just dispensing information.
However, the rational idea that learning is the responsibility of the learner was already a couple of thousands of years old when it began to be stressed again in modern education. In a short essay entitled “Teaching” in his book The Prophet (1923) Kahlil Gibran (1883-1933), Lebanese-American philosophical essayist, includes the following aphorism as spoken by the prophet to his audience: “No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.” This actually echoes Socrates (467-399 BCE), the ancient Greek philosopher, who saw teaching, not as a telling, but as a drawing forth. The Socratic method involves developing a latent idea in a pupil’s mind through questioning that guides him or her to think independently. Kahlil Gibran, in the same context, makes his prophet say: “If he (the teacher) is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”
The traditional model of teaching encouraged rote learning, in which students committed to memory ‘undigested’ bits of information that the teacher presented. Today supplying mere information is the least of a teacher’s responsibilities, because the available sources of information for the learner to tap are many. Instead, a modern teacher needs to provide the environment for the learner to create knowledge in collaboration with other learners.
The principles of constructivist learning are based on the assumption that knowledge is socially constructed through collaborative engagement; it is neither delivered by an all-knowing teacher nor generated by one’s own unaided effort. Constructivist principles are embodied in new models of teaching.
Since the learner has moved to the centre of the teaching-learning arena one might say that education is more a matter of learning than teaching. But this doesn’t mean that the teacher’s role is being written off. In fact, the truth is that the new models of teaching that have been developed based on decades of research make the teacher’s responsibilities even more onerous than before. To be a successful teacher one must be an inspiring and persuasive presenter of information, skills, ways of thinking, ideas and values; a teacher must engage the students in cognitive and social tasks, and teach them how to use them in the future to further their education. Two examples of models of teaching (out of many) are given below:
The first is based on inductive thinking. Inductive thinking is thinking that enables you to draw a general rule to explain a number of specific ideas or observations. Promoting this kind of thinking is one of the many modern models of teaching. Analysing information to create concepts is used not only in the sciences, but in other subject areas as well. Rules of grammar can be worked through inductive reasoning. (Below, I am using an example found in Bruce Joyce and Marsha Weil’s book “Models of Teaching” (5th ed. 1997.)
Children are seated in pairs for the lesson. In front of them is a pile of small objects. Each pair is given a U-shaped magnet. The teacher tells them that the object is called a magnet, and that she wants them to do a bit of exploration using the magnet. The children are asked to sort the small objects according to what happens when they bring the magnet close to or touch them with it. The teacher also takes notes on the categories the children form, and use these categories to begin their study of written vocabulary.
Here is my own second example of a model of teaching: The brief short story “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway presents, in his characteristic compact style, (probably) the last of many quarrels between a young woman called Jig and an American (who is not named in the story) who are enjoying a tour, visiting many different cities. In the course of this tour, the girl becomes pregnant. The quarrels are over the man’s insistence that the girl agree to a simple operation to end her pregnancy. But the girl apparently wants to have her baby, marry the man, and perpetuate their loving relationship. This story, which I think would be suitable for an English literature lesson with a (preferably) mixed class of our twelfth graders (presumably adult enough for such a story), would invite what is known as “the group investigation model of teaching”. With this model, the teacher has the students read the story, and share their reactions to the plot, characters, setting, action, central theme, etc. of the story and argue out about the moral issues involved, positions they would take, and the values they would adopt. Then, the students are provided with copies of another story by the same author for home study: “A Very Short Story”. They come ready for a discussion comparing the two stories in terms of their themes, issues involved, attitudes expressed, etc. After sharing, the students are asked to write a homework assignment about the two stories compared. (Incidentally, interested readers are invited to visit my literature blog heli29.wordpress.com for the texts and short discussions of these stories, though they may be of little relevance to the subject of this article.)
The two instances given above are just random examples. In this type of teaching, instead of the teacher dishing out some prescribed information, the children engage in active inquiry in a social context, and discover new knowledge with the teacher helping them as a guide and a partner. Such teaching-learning activities are intrinsically interesting, challenging, and rewarding at the same time for both the students and the teacher; the teacher also learns in the sense that s/he gets the opportunity to understand how different pupils respond to challenges, how they cope up, how classroom management may be improved, and also to reflect on his or her own practice. When teaching is managed this way, it helps to inculcate useful attitudes of mind in the children such as independent inquiry, rational thinking, sharing with and caring for others, and collaboration instead of competition.
One of the major tasks we assign to education is citizenship training. Qualities of self-reliance, critical thinking, mutual helpfulness, and broadmindedness are essential for the citizens of a democracy such as ours. We are a diverse society, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically. A normal classroom in Sri Lanka is a microcosm of the society outside, and therefore is a suitable venue for citizenship training. How teachers conduct their teaching has an important impact on students developing the correct perceptions and attitudes that promote harmonious co-existence between diverse racial, religious, and cultural groups, and a sense of common allegiance to the motherland.
An adequate level of literacy and general knowledge is absolutely essential for citizens to take part in a democracy. They must be able to read and write well enough to become aware of, and assert, their democratic rights; they need the same ability to discover and discharge their responsibilities. These things too, people usually learn from teachers at school.
All categories of workers contribute to nation building by performing their specific jobs for the benefit of the people. Of these only two categories of workers have to deal with persons as their direct objects of attention: medical professionals and teachers. But there’s a significant difference between them: doctors and nurses usually work on their patients whereas teachers work with their students; a teacher cannot produce good results by trying to work on their pupils, instead of working with them. That, in essence, is the difference between the traditional approach to teaching and the new models of teaching.
Teachers are the prime nation-builders, not by default, but by the very nature of their profession. To do their job well, they need to be knowledgeable and cultured (that is, educated, in the real sense of the word). There are teachers who deserve to be worshipped as ‘teacher gods’. But obviously, there aren’t enough of them. If there were, repulsive scenes like the recent mayhem that certain university students caused at the Ministry of Higher Education wouldn’t have occurred.

Letting the genie out of the bottle

2010-12-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

Letting the Genie out of the Bottle
(First published in The Island/1st October 2010)

Cynics might see some contradiction in the rehabilitation of English as a medium of general education, with prospects of eventually making it the universal medium of teaching in the future, in a country where sixty years of teaching it as a second language must be considered a failure, and where the general educational achievement level even in the mother tongue leaves much to be desired. Barely 40% of students pass in English at the GCE O/L, though success is ensured by compromised standards. However, this low success rate is not uniformly shared across the country; the performance level in the rural areas is usually far below that in urban areas. Students do hardly better in such important subjects as science and maths. And this is also a country where a significant 6% of the children of school-going age do not attend any school at all because of poverty; some families need the money that their children earn to physically survive; the picture would have been even more dismal but for the welfare measures introduced by successive governments such as free textbooks and free school uniforms. And on top of these still unresolved problems is the issue of the likely linguistic, cultural, and sociopolitical impact of English medium education on the island nation.
However, it appears that the current changes are inevitable and are here to stay; English is regaining its pre-eminence in education. As for the swabasha medium, the genie is out of the bottle. I don’t want to be an alarmist or a wet blanket by saying this. My intention is to stress the importance of realistic planning, and determined plan implementation. To avoid the disastrous pitfalls that the changes already initiated are likely to involve, sound forethought is an absolute necessity on the part of planners and policy-makers. At this juncture, we need to manage the changes in such a way that the future generations will remember us with gratitude for daring to take a step backward in order to go forward in earnest.
The most important reason behind the rather hurried reinstatement of the English medium is the need to participate in the global “information economy” that the former US President Bill Clinton talked about at the dawn of the new millennium; in our circumstances, English is perceived to be the key to this resource, and thus, it figures prominently in our education and employment domains. The Sri Lankan government declared 2009 the Year of English and IT. There is a conscientious effort being made by the authorities to normalize a healthy level of proficiency in these two interrelated areas among the youth of the country. An English medium education is believed to immensely facilitate this.
The success of the change will depend, among other things, on the students’ acceptance of this reason. The general failure of the school English teaching programme to date has been mainly due to their non-perception of an actual need to learn the language. If the powers that be are able to convince them now that they must go beyond learning English as a second language and adopt it as the medium of instruction in view of the vital educational goal which they cannot reach through their own mother tongue, they will be totally amenable to such a switchover.
Unfortunately, however, while English is being boosted, it looks as if Sinhalese and Tamil are taken for granted. The deleterious effects, if any, of the medium substitution could be more pronounced on the former than the latter, for Sinhalese enjoys little geographical space beyond Sri Lanka for its survival. What is going to happen to these indigenous languages vis-à-vis English in the longer run is hard to predict, though a tentative prognosis may be hazarded: In a situation where English gradually expands its dominance in the mind of the language user pushing the indigenous language into relative unimportance, processes that languages in contact normally undergo may be expected to operate. One such process is known as cross-linguistic influence in which linguistic elements from the sociopolitically more dominant language percolate into the I-language system of the less dominant one. { ‘I-language’ is Chomsky’s coinage for the idea of language as an internal (and also individual) phenomenon; it refers to a person’s unconscious knowledge of the rules underlying their language, which, in linguistics, is also called their declarative knowledge or competence.} Cross-linguistic influence is inherent in all language contact situations such as the emergence of pidgins (When speakers of two mutually unintelligible languages try to communicate with one another using a mixture of those languages, a pidgin develops; a pidgin has only a reduced grammatical structure, and is never any community’s native tongue), the development of creoles (pidgins that have acquired a grammatical structure, and become the mother tongue of a particular language community), and even the process by which a language eventually ‘dies’; the reverse phenomenon takes place when a foreign language is learned through classroom instruction or individual study: elements from the learner’s native language appear in the new language. When the learner’s proficiency increases, the two languages begin to coexist in the mind of the learner without any further traffic either way. But in an authentic language community such as that which may emerge when English is made the exclusive medium of education, it could even displace the indigenous language altogether resulting in a language shift. Such an eventuality would of course be an unprecedented catastrophe as far as Sinhalese is concerned.
But considering the fact that we have preserved our essential linguistic and cultural identity over the millennia despite unrelenting foreign pressure, any possibility of the Sinhalese language being soon counted among the world’s dead languages should probably be ruled out. Sri Lankans are not an uprooted or transposed slave population without a definable history on whom a foreign language can be imposed to indulge somebody’s whim. However, planners and policy-makers should be mindful of their responsibility to do everything possible to preserve our ancient language.
It is assumed that we are moving towards a form of bilingualism, or even trilingualism. My personal opinion is that while universal bilingualism (in English and Sinhala/Tamil) is a feasible objective about the necessity of achieving which there’s no question, universal trilingual proficiency seems a bit over the top unless it is adequately justified, for how can one hope to persuade all Sinhalese and Tamil students to learn each other’s language when there’s no apparent reason for doing so in a context where English serves them as a link language? Some might say, “Let those Tamils who have a good reason to learn Sinhalese do so; let the same apply to the Sinhalese with regard to Tamil”. This, in fact, is what is happening in informal and formal situations even now.
However, by making proficiency in both Sinhala and Tamil compulsory for all its employees, the government is providing a meaningful reason for people to learn both languages; this is not like asking them to learn both languages for the sake of communal harmony, and national unity, which would be unconvincing (because it is common interests more than common languages that unite different communities). If properly implemented this requirement will serve as a good motive for prospective government employees to learn both languages. Such a situation would encourage voluntary language learning. Since future educational schemes are likely to be more job-oriented than now Sinhalese and Tamil students will be able to make a choice of Tamil and Sinhalese respectively if they know that they will be required to interact with people speaking only one of those languages in a particular social/working environment in the time to come. Unless such a worthwhile target is offered for them to focus on second language Sinhala or Tamil will suffer the same fate as English has done over the past sixty years.
The English medium will potentially prove to be even more problematic than teaching English as a second language for other reasons. Decisions about language always involve coming to grips with complex sociopolitical issues relating to such vital areas as national identity, human rights, equal educational opportunities, etc. Raising Sinhala and Tamil to official status displacing English which was the language of a very small privileged minority did improve the situation in those areas. Now the problem is if the return of English could mean the undoing of whatever was achieved under the language policies adopted after independence. For example, will it confer certain advantages on one section of the population while depriving another of the same?
I am not suggesting that the English medium should be abandoned; it should be there, just as much as Sinhalese and Tamil mediums must be there, for there are Sri Lankans, though a minority, whose mother tongue is English, and others who choose to study in English for their own reasons. Parents must have the freedom to choose the type of education their children should receive. That is a fundamental human right recognized even by the UN. So, let’s have all the three mediums side by side, but proficiency in English as a second language must be made compulsory for the Sinhalese and Tamil medium students. There must also be freedom for all students to change their medium when they find that necessary, after proving their eligibility to do so.
It is worth considering how the changeover to the English medium is likely to impact on the Sri Lankan school system, which consists mainly of a large network of government schools and a relatively small number of non-government schools (the latter expanding at a rate, though). Government schools are of two types: national schools and provincial schools; the national schools come under the central Ministry of Education, and the provincial schools under the provincial councils. Private schools and International schools, which are non-government schools, are generally autonomous institutions. Though not controlled by the Ministry of Education, private schools follow the regulations and curricula of the Ministry in all three media. On the other hand, the international schools, which have only the English medium, follow foreign, mostly British, syllabuses. Naturally, the socio-economic background of the students who are generally likely to attend these different categories of schools will determine the degree of reception that the English medium will enjoy.
My feeling is that it will find a better haven in non-government schools than in government schools for obvious reasons. Usually, only those parents who can afford to pay high fees will send their children to private or international schools; often they themselves have had a background of English education, or can afford to reinforce their children’s education with further help from private tutors. Children in government schools who opt to follow the English medium must depend on their teachers and other meagre resources available in such an environment. At the beginning at least, there will be an acute scarcity of teachers capable of teaching different subjects in English. However, it may be said, with some reservations, that this problem will not affect the private and international schools to such an extent since teachers who want to serve in those schools will invariably be required to have the ability to teach in the English medium.
In any case, continued public acceptance of the English medium will depend on how successful it is in the government school system. There are already about 10,000 government schools across the island, and this number will increase when the Ministry of Education creates in the next few years a system of 1000 well equipped secondary schools (as envisaged) on par with today’s so-called national or popular schools; according to its plans, some of these schools will be newly built, while the rest will be existing schools appropriately upgraded; they will be located in all the electorates, fairly distributed according to demand. This is a measure taken in order to put an end to the current mad rush for securing places in the so-called “popular” schools in towns that leads many parents to resort to fraudulent practices such as doctoring documents and bribing school authorities. An added incentive for them to seek admission for their children to town schools is that these schools offer the English medium. The special schools that the Ministry is going to establish in the provinces should also have this facility.
There are already more than one hundred International Schools in the country today, and we can only expect more of them to be established in the future. Begun in the early 1980’s for the children of expatriates in Sri Lanka working under various projects these schools were later thrown open to local students too whose parents could afford to pay high fees for an English medium education of international standards. At the beginning these International Schools were mainly located in urban centres such as Colombo and Kandy; but today they are found even in some remote places, and cater to a mainly local student population. International Schools are business ventures registered under the Board of Investment (BOI) and as such do not come under any government ministry responsible for education. They are autonomous private institutions the majority of which prepare students for British examinations.
International schools are probably the least ‘national’ in a vitally important sense, though not all such institutions would deserve that description. The education they deal in may be of ‘international’ standards. But if it has no ‘national’ value the country will be just wasting its resources. The education of the country’s young is an unavoidable national responsibility that we all share. The government should help the international schools to be pro-national institutions without writing them off as a systemic aberration.
Today, the formal education system in Sri Lanka is being subjected to some profound changes, albeit tacitly. The reintroduction of the English medium along with the reauthorization of private education amounts to a virtual reversal of the post-independence reforms, obviously demanded by the exigencies of the fresh national resurgence that is taking place in the wake of decades of relative stagnation. In this context, the state cannot and should not relinquish its responsibility and initiative in education. Whether the schools are government or non-government, national or international, they are all sustained on the country’s wealth, and the people have a right to demand value for their money. What the country needs out of education is a generation of young people equipped with the knowledge and skills, and the moral character necessary to work for the happiness of all Sri Lankans without discrimination.

Concluded

English in General Education - A Historical Perspective

2010-11-23T23:34:00.000-08:00

English in General Education - A Historical Perspective
(First published: The Island/1st October 2010)
For well over two hundred years now English has been playing a predominant role, in one form or another, in all spheres of national activity in our country such as civil administration, justice, business, industry, and education. During most of this period, the majority of the population had reason to believe that it was a weapon wielded against them by a foreign power bent on subverting them spiritually as well as temporally. But today, they are witnessing an apparent sea change in their attitude towards English. They are courting it as an agent of modernization and development, at some cost though.

The history of the present form of formal education in our country opens with the establishment of a rudimentary school system by the British in the first half of the nineteenth century. Rev. Cordiner arrived in Sri Lanka (then known among foreigners as “Ceylon”) in 1799 to serve as chaplain of the British garrison in Colombo. Later on, he became the principal of all the schools in the settlement. The Christian institutions created by Governor Edward Barnes (1824-1831) in 1827 were intended to train suitable young natives for “communicating a knowledge of Christianity to their countrymen”. Obviously, the cultural subversion of a predominantly non-Christian population was one of the foremost aims of the colonisers. Protestant schools established in the island numbered well over two hundred. Christian schools and colleges dominated formal education until 1886. The English medium education provided in these institutions also aimed at turning out the personnel necessary from among the local youth to work in subordinate positions in the government and business enterprises owned by foreigners. These schools catered to the elite which mainly comprised the Westernized English speaking Christians of all communities. There was also a system of primary vernacular schools meant for children from the downtrodden classes who formed the majority. But vernacular education did not qualify them for a position above the level of a school teacher or a notary public. These young people were deliberately debarred from access to the superior education that was available only in the English schools: the English schools, which were highly subsidized by the government and could offer free tuition, charged fees in order to make them too expensive for the majority of the country’s young to attend. Secondary and collegiate education in English cost the government Rs 84 and Rs 214 per student per annum respectively, whereas the corresponding figure for a child in a vernacular school was Rs 14-16.

This discriminatory treatment of the subject population created a relatively contented, privileged, English speaking, elitist, Christian minority and a hostile, dispossessed, discontented, native language speaking, mainly Buddhist, and Hindu majority. Both groups were ethnically diverse. But while their common language and religion, and the comprador status united the privileged minority, there was nothing for the dispossessed majority to share in harmony than their wretchedness under the foreign yoke.

The Sinhalese Buddhist revivalist movement led by patriotic nationalists like Anagarika Dharmapala attracted the attention of theosophist Colonel Henry Steel Olcott from America who arrived in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in 1880. Colonel Olcott, together with local leaders, pioneered the establishment of Buddhist schools such as Ananda College in Colombo and Dharmaraja College in Kandy. These were English medium schools.

The grant of universal franchise in 1931 accelerated reforms in many areas. In that year, English schools which alone provided secondary and collegiate education had on roll 84,000 students; this contrasted with 476,000 students in primary vernacular schools. Dr C.W.W. Kannangara, as Minister of Education (1931-47) in the State Council, introduced far-reaching reforms that benefited all classes, particularly the previously neglected rural children. It was during his tenure that the Central College system was inaugurated which made an English medium education available free of charge to the village students; the University of Peradeniya was also established in the same period. But the most outstanding achievement of his which he is remembered by was the Free Education Scheme (1944). He managed to see the Free Education Act through the State Council in the teeth of opposition from the elite. The replacement of English with native languages as the medium of instruction was effected in 1945.

Changes brought about in 1956 and after were aimed at restoring justice to the common people who had long been denied it both under the Europeans and, following their departure, under the local ruling class dominated by the Westernized English speaking elite. The takeover of private schools (1961) was another significant move in the same direction. Those who pioneered the policy changes of 1944, 1945 and 1961 were nevertheless mindful of the importance of the English language for education, and did everything possible to promote the teaching of it as a second language. However, the next two decades did not see the expected level of acceptance and mastery of English among the general mass of students as a tool of enhancing their education that they now received in their own mother tongue as their right.

Various well-meaning educational reforms have been introduced particularly since 1970 to date by successive regimes resulting in some moderate improvement in the critical areas focused, such as the lessening of the traditional mismatch between the education provided and the society’s actual needs (“The university has departments; the society has problems” as an eminent academic once put it), improved prospects of bridging the perennial urban-rural gap, increased focus on the employability of the youth, etc. In the meantime, the normally poor knowledge of English one sees among the majority of our students has been identified by most as a central defect responsible for the less than satisfactory performance of our education system, and this has ramifications for all other issues.

A stock reaction to this situation is to question the wisdom of the language planners, and policy-makers of the past who substituted Sinhala and Tamil for English as the medium of instruction. Those who thus criticise the Kannangaras and the Bandaranaikes either ignore or are ignorant of the fact that the high level of English knowledge from which an inexcusable decline is alleged to have occurred was not a universal phenomenon. In fact, the high level of English language proficiency was rather the exception than the rule in the context of the new free education system that was suddenly expanded to include every social stratum without discrimination between the rich and the poor. Earlier English medium education used to be the exclusive preserve of a privileged few. When education was made free, it was obviously not possible to make it available to all the children of the country in the English medium because English had been used until then by an infinitesimal minority among the population. According to the census of 1946, after nearly one hundred and fifty years of government sponsored English education (restricted as it was to a minority), only about 6% of the total population had even a very elementary knowledge of the language.

We shouldn’t forget that since the 1944 reforms English as a second language has been an important component of the school curriculum for all the children of the island irrespective of their social background. For the vast majority of our population any serious contact with English in educational terms should be considered as originating there. So, when some people talk about the excellent standards of English that obtained before the introduction of swabhasha education, and blame its decline on an allegedly misguided insistence on the necessity of teaching in the mother tongue by the nationalists, they are making it appear as if English had been available to all and sundry prior to those reforms. Plainly, where general English language proficiency was concerned, there never was a paradise for the poor devils to lose.

In keeping with the best informed expert opinion and the democratically most acceptable choice of the time, English was replaced with the mother tongue of the child as the medium of instruction. In the Central Schools, which originally offered English medium instruction to the generality of rural students, the switchover to the mother tongue was complete by the beginning of the 1960’s. Although official attention to the teaching of English was never relaxed the period 1960-80 saw a steady waning of enthusiasm about acquiring a knowledge of English among school children and even among students in higher education (as already pointed out) because they found or rather believed that an education received in the mother tongue was adequate for their purposes. No doubt, this attitude was shared among many ordinary people.

That was a brief two decades in which, at least some of us Sri Lankans, perhaps the majority, felt almost completely free from the baleful influence that English exercised on our lives as the language of imperial occupation during the two hundred years of our association with it. The natural aversion to English meant that the majority of the population, unconsciously perhaps, rejected it when it was offered as a second language; even those who would have hankered after it as a means of gaining power, prestige, and position in the days of British rule now found it a spent force. Such nationalistic antipathy towards English (which, until recently, was only to be expected) was among the factors accountable for the general failure of the state English teaching programme.

This was contrary to what the pioneering educational reformers, language planners, and policy-making politicians intended. They clearly understood that English was indispensable for Sri Lanka to forge ahead educationally and economically, and did everything necessary to promote its learning by the youth of the country; they expected the changed role of English as the key to modernization to be appreciated by the populace in a context where the indigenous languages were restored to their due status. However, these expectations seem to have been broadly frustrated. English, after all, might not have shed its kaduwa associations in the perception of ordinary people. Or perhaps, they’ve believed to date that they could survive without English.

The introduction of the free market economic policies in 1978 proved a politico-economic watershed with far-reaching consequences for the country both internally and externally. The changes brought it more in line with the idea of globalism – prioritising the so-called ‘interests of the whole world’ over those of individual countries or nations. (The term ‘global village’ is already over forty years old, although the concept itself obviously predated it.) Internally, the state of majority vis-à-vis minority politics became more unsettled than before, creating an exposed flank for biased internationalist manipulation against the country. In this context, English has assumed increased significance for us, internationally, as the lingua franca of global communication, and inside the country, as an ethnically neutral medium especially in the education domain and in the job market. At the same time, English is the obvious key to the utilisation of the modern information and communications technologies that are fast advancing. Above all, English is being recognized as the indispensable medium of advanced education particularly in the scientific and technological fields.

English is thus making a resurgence in a fundamentally different role. It is seen as a tool ready to hand rather than feared as a ‘kaduwa’ (sword) to buckle under. During colonial times, English was an instrument of foreign domination and exploitation, except for those who gained from it at the expense of the rights of the majority. Today, “Learn English” is the mantra of modernization which is popular even in the remotest districts of the island; it is more acceptable to the general public than ever. Everybody seems happy. The return of English enjoys the vital political support and official backing it needs.

However, there’s a real challenge before us: that of devising ways and means to forestall the re-emergence or perpetuation of such problems as the denial of equality of educational opportunity to significant sections of the population, failure to create a level playing field for job-seekers from disadvantaged backgrounds, and potential threats to the survival of our cultural identities embodied in our own ancient languages and literatures, etc. which may result from the re-introduction of English as the dominant medium of education. These are the very problems that earlier generations tried to overcome by introducing educational reforms that included the determination of the relative value of English in the scheme of things.

A Way out of Trouble with Grammar

2010-10-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

A Way out of Trouble with Grammar
(First published in The Island/24th September 2010)
Probably, it isn’t much of a problem to use classical grammatical labels to identify words in English sentences. But it’s a different matter when, even today, some grammarians claim, as those of the eighteenth century did, that the English sentence structure should faithfully follow the Classical Latin sentence structure. They will insist, for example, that it is not correct or proper to say “The girl speaks better than him” (which is more usual among today’s English speakers) and that the sentence should be “corrected” to read “The girl speaks better than he (does)”, or that to say “The manager asked the secretary to carefully re-draft the letter” is wrong, because of the “split infinitive”, and that it should be amended as “The manager asked the secretary to re-draft the letter carefully”. This is what is known as the prescriptive approach.
With the realization that the classical model of grammatical analysis would not fit every language, linguists started adopting a different approach which has prevailed for most of the past one hundred years: they collect samples of the language they want to analyse (called ‘corpora’, the plural form of ‘corpus’ meaning a collection of information about a language in the form of transcripts of speech recorded or written texts in that language), and study these to establish regular patterns of structures of the language in actual use. This descriptive approach is the basis of various modern analyses of language structure.
Structural analysis represents one type of descriptive grammar. Its main purpose is to study the distribution of forms in a language. The usual method is to set ‘test-frames’ such as sentences with slots in them.

The …………… makes a lot of noise.
I heard a …………… yesterday.

We can suggest a lot of forms that will fit into these slots (e.g. dog, parrot, beggar, radio, train). Because they go into the same test-frame we can say that they are probably examples of the same grammatical category. This is the category we label as “nouns”. But there are many other forms that do not fit these test-frames (e.g. George, a train, an engine). Different test-frames are needed for these.

…………… makes a lot of noise.
I heard …………… yesterday.

Among forms that occupy these slots are the engine, a train, the vendor with a megaphone, and an ambulance. They can be said to belong to another grammatical category. The label given to such forms is “noun phrases”. (The example test-frames are from George Yule’s “The Study of Language”, Cambridge University Press, 1997).

As suggested in the barest outline above, a lot of well founded criticism was made against traditional English grammar, and more accurate models of grammatical analysis were proposed instead. However, students of English and teachers the world over still depend on a common core of traditional grammar (prescriptive generalizations about the form and usage of varieties such as British Printed English (i.e. written variety). The main reason for this is that the terms of traditional grammar, notwithstanding their impreciseness and lack of accuracy, help the average users of English to easily identify and understand most forms in the language. The terms provide the metalanguage necessary for dealing with those concepts. The plethora of ‘grammars’ available in the market testifies to the popularity of traditional grammar, which has enjoyed revived pedagogical attention at least for the past twenty years.
I’ll mention the titles of just three grammar books that happen to be on my table at this moment: 1) A Communicative Grammar of English by Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvick. Second Edition, 1994. Reprinted by Pearson Education Asia Pte. Ltd. 2000; 2) Collins Cobuild English Grammar edited by John Sinclair et al. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Glasgow. 1990. Reprint 2000; 3) Practical English Usage by Michael Swan. International student’s edition. Oxford University Press. New Delhi. 2006. There are hundreds of such grammar books designed for use by English learners at all levels from the beginning to the advanced.
They present what may be taken as the ’common core’ grammar (touched on above) that marks all varieties of English in the world. The existence of a grammatical ‘common core’ is actually a very good thing for learners of English, for it helps them make sense of English in whatever form it manifests itself .
‘Usage’ provides the basis for determining the correctness or acceptability of grammatical constructions. The compilers of the modern grammars rely on corpora (mentioned above) for their examples. Stored on computers these corpora contain many millions of words of spoken and written English as it is used today. Earlier grammarians had to make up their own examples to illustrate grammar points, and unsurprisingly, these examples seemed stilted, and hence rarely approximated real live usage. By way of example, we may take a look at the Bank of English at the Birmingham University which had collected 20 million words of the English language in the 1980’s; the 1987 first edition of the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary was based on this corpus. The 1995 edition of the same dictionary includes patterns of use identified and explained by its editorial team ( headed by Professor John Sinclair) in 200 million words of spoken and written English across the world. To suggest another example, the Cambridge Grammar of English (2006) edited by Professors Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy claim to have skimmed a corpus of “800 million words of real spoken and written English”.
The grammar books I have referred to above can be taken as random examples of commonly available grammars that are more suitable for advanced learners of English who seek a theoretical knowledge of English grammar, especially teachers. For the use of learners of English at the school level there are similarly tailor-made practice grammar books even in greater abundance in the local bookshops {e.g. Essential English Grammar by Raymond Murphy, Advanced English Grammar by Martin Hewings (both available in special low priced South Asian editions), and The Complete Grammar by Michael Strumpf and Auriel Douglas. The last is by American authors; it is a kind of question-answer compendium of English grammar for the average learner of the language without any practice exercises; a low priced Indian reprint of this book is also available.}
All these grammar guides and practice books are written by authors who are from among English speakers of the two main national varieties, British and American. There can’t be any better exponents of common core English grammar than those, in my opinion. Some Sri Lankan authors too have produced very good grammar books. Two examples that come to mind are the latest editions of W.H. Samaranayake’s Practical English (first pub. 1940), and Bertram Chinnaiyah’s Steps to Mastery of English Grammar (first pub. 1985?). There are also cheap, low quality, ersatz English teaching manuals which are mere rehashes of material pilfered from other sources, or which are put together by persons with a smattering knowledge of English in order to make some quick money. It’s up to the teachers, students, and their parents to be discriminating when they shop for good grammar books.
Modern grammar books reflect a sensitivity to both prescriptive and descriptive approaches. Particularly at the beginning levels, prescriptive grammar is a practical necessity: students must be taught the basic rules of the great game of language that is played inside one’s head (thinking), between two people or among many users as the case may be. But all that is said here should be qualified by the principle of unstoppable change that all languages are subject to. All aspects of a language – pronunciation, forms of words, their meanings, even grammar – undergo change over time. It should also be borne in mind that absolutely faultless grammar, either in speech or in writing, is rarely achieved, and that perfect grammatical accuracy is less important than successful communication.
Explicit grammar teaching or learning should not be done as an end in itself. It can only be a necessary initial step towards the gradual development of communicative capacity in the individual learner. In the traditional prescriptive grammar direct explanations are the norm. Language learning is viewed as a linear process; a language is believed to be constituted of discrete entities, and learning it is assumed to involve the gradual accumulation of these distinct items. This is a wrong position to adopt. There is empirical evidence to suggest that language learning is an organic, rather than linear, process. That is, in learning a language there is regression or backsliding, sudden advances in competence, and interaction between grammatical competence and performance; the grammatical forms are not learned in isolation, but in relation to the global context of a meaningful text.
Such a view of language learning supports the idea of grammatical instruction as Consciousness Raising (CR), which may be roughly defined as encouraging learners to focus on a text in order to discover for themselves the grammatical rules in operation there. CR requires learners to think creatively. Explicit grammar instruction can reinforce such independent discovery. Advocates of CR reject the alleged dichotomy between conscious learning and subconscious acquisition (a la Krashen, 1982). Unlike traditional grammar teaching, CR devotes greater attention to the form-function relationship (i.e. how a particular structure expresses meaning). Another speciality of CR is that it focuses on the grammatical structures and elements in relation to a broader discourse context. The rather naïve traditional assumption that once a grammar point has been taught it necessarily becomes a part of a learner’s existing knowledge is alien to CR.
Apart from explicit grammar instruction in the second language classroom, especially at the beginning stages, teachers need to provide for self-learning among their students. There are good grammar books available for this purpose. The Internet provides even better resources for multimodal (not only written) grammar practice. There are hundreds of free websites that offer grammar explanations and exercises at different levels of difficulty. Below are just a few examples of such websites for the interested readers to explore:
http://www.eslgold.com/grammar.html/ (for elementary to advanced), http:www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/English/chairs/linguist/real/index/html/
(for intermediate to advanced),
http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc (for high intermediate to advanced).
From a strictly linguistics point of view, it may even be a laughable matter to be talking about this very complex subject of grammar in this manner. But teachers are bound to be more practical than theoretical by the very nature of their metier. At no time in the history of English language teaching has grammar been ignored as irrelevant or dispensable, though the necessity of teaching it has received varying degrees of attention from time to time. Today it is generally agreed that the mastery of grammar along with that of vocabulary plays a central role in language development. Though ordinarily it is possible for most people to attain an acceptable level of proficiency in English without a serious enough formal grounding in its grammar, the ability to speak and write English correctly and coherently is considered one of the most important attributes of an educated person. The lack of such an ability may reveal a poor educational background.
For the average Sri Lankan learners of English the ability to express themselves in good spoken and written English, particularly in education and job situations, is the ultimate goal. For achieving this target, a good practical knowledge of grammar is essential. Though grammar is a very complex affair, its teaching and learning can be simplified through the judicious use of prescriptive as well as descriptive grammar. Explicit teaching of grammar should be backed by copious practice in multifarious, meaningful contexts.

Talking about Grammar without Grumbling

2010-10-15T03:26:00.000-07:00

Talking about Grammar without Grumbling
(First published in The Island/17th September 2010)
A fairly widely held belief among learners of English as a second language is that the study of grammar is a major stumbling block to their making any headway. They seem to view grammar as esoteric and abstruse; their attitude is: ‘Why should we bother about something which only a few specialists understand and which many ordinary people would have a hard time grappling with if they wanted to learn it?’ Such an outlook is both erroneous and harmful, because the truth is that a sound knowledge of any language is not possible without a proper grounding in its grammar. But learning it by rote is equally unhelpful. When properly approached, grammar will prove that, after all, it is not such a bugbear as some people make it out to be.
The two most important aspects of a language that a language learner must tackle are its vocabulary and its grammar. Learning a language entails fleshing out the skeleton of grammar in words and phrases; in other words, it basically involves the internalizing of grammatical rules and the learning of vocabulary items which are adequate for effective communication in that language in a particular context. Therefore a course of language instruction needs to focus on the teaching of grammar and vocabulary, while maximizing the communicative use of the target language; the latter (i.e. the communicative use of the target language) may be regarded as the mainstay of language instruction.
When Communicative Language Teaching came into general acceptance, the previous insistence on the mechanical mastery of structure under the so-called audio-lingual approach was abandoned in favour of an emphasis on the importance of learning to communicate as the main goal of language learning. However, as before, grammatical rules were left to be inductively learned by the students; in other words, explicit explanation of grammatical points was avoided. Later, this attitude was relaxed, and whatever technique seemed to help the learners to communicate through the target language was accepted depending on the age, the proficiency level, and the needs, etc. of the students. More modern research has revealed that no efficient language learning results from exclusive reliance on discovery learning alone, and that explicit teaching of grammar is necessary. We need to recognize the usefulness of mother tongue/first language translations (a pragmatic throwback, on occasion, to the traditionally discredited Grammar Translation technique, which, however, refuses to be completely banished wherever English is taught in the world); similarly, the usefulness of accommodating in our methods other devices such as mechanical drills on a peripheral basis perhaps, though these may run counter to commonly accepted practice in the field, shouldn’t be lost sight of.
A word of caution will not be out of place here: such strategies should not be resorted to as a means of camouflaging the teachers’ own ignorance, ill-preparedness or plain incompetence. A well conceived methodology makes for efficiency in the long run. But the practical teacher is not averse to trying out even old fashioned techniques that prove handy as short cuts in certain classroom situations.
In spite of the beliefs of teachers and researchers, there are many English language learners who believe that they need to be taught grammar, and that the majority of language teaching experts agree that they are right. However, no explicit teaching should be done for its own sake, but only as ancillary to the more productive autonomous efforts of students who rely, for their progress, on a sense of language awareness driven by an inquiring mind.
By ‘language awareness’ is meant a motivated language learner’s sensitivity to the way a language operates, including a desire to discover structural patterns and relationships that underlie its expressive potential. This is especially important for second language learners. Human babies are born with an innate capacity for acquiring the language that surrounds them. Second language learners have already internalized the grammar of their mother tongue. Their familiarity with how people learn a language enables them to make a conscious effort to make sense of a second language, which is facilitated by language awareness.
Traditional grammar came in for criticism with the advent of the ‘science’ of linguistics at the beginning of the previous century. Later in the same century formal grammar teaching fell into disrepute because of at least four reasons: 1) the traditional Grammar Translation technique focused on the mere teaching of grammar rules, without paying attention to the vital need for speaking and using the language; 2) all structural approaches including the audiolingual method had little to do with real communication which was later identified as the main purpose of language learning; 3) contemporary English language teaching often insisted on grammar teaching that emphasized usage rules or rules of language etiquette; such rules, while containing mere do’s and don’ts, were found to be inadequate to account for the deep structural patterns in the language; and 4) traditional English grammar is modelled on analytical frames applied to the study of classical Latin and Greek, and it does not reveal the truth about the structure of English which is a very different language from them.
Such a reasoned negative attitude to grammar is different from the uninformed cavilling at it that we sometimes hear today. But rejecting grammar teaching/learning even on such grounds as those just mentioned would be premature for learners of English who are still at a basic level of proficiency in the language.
The vast majority of our learners of English learn it as a second language. This means that they have already acquired their mother tongue and may even have had a formal training in the basic elements of its vocabulary and grammar at school, a situation that could facilitate the intellectual feat involved in the acquisition of a second language. To put it in different words, the experience of learning their mother tongue can help them to grasp the basic ideas about the vocabulary and the grammar of the English language.
Very often objections are raised against the learning of English grammar as difficult by students, and even by uninformed adults. Perhaps it is a bit too complicated, but it is not prohibitively so. And one reason for a feeling of relief on the part of the learners is that grammar rules are finite in number, as opposed to the infinity of correct sentences in the language that these few rules make it possible for a competent user of the language to construct. An English language course of more than ten years’ duration that is administered in our schools will be more than adequate for learners of English to learn all these rules, practise them thoroughly, and internalize them.
Then, what actually do we mean by ‘grammar’?
Combinatoriality is a distinguishing feature of human language. This is the principle by which linguistic rules combine elements of language to generate more complex structures. For example, phonemes are combined into morphemes, morphemes into words, words into phrases, phrases into clauses and sentences. In a very generalized sense, the study of these rules constitutes what is known as grammar.
There are at least three basic views of grammar. The first is a psychological view of grammar: each competent speaker of a language has a kind of ‘mental grammar’, an internalized linguistic knowledge which enables them to produce and to understand ‘correctly’ structured expressions in that language; this grammar knowledge cannot be taught; it is subconsciously acquired by individual speakers. (This was a notion identified as “competence” in Chomskyan linguistics.) The second looks at grammar from a sociological point of view, and represents a ‘prescriptive’ approach to grammar: it involves what are identified as the proper or best structures to be used in a language. A third concept of grammar (embodied in a ‘descriptive’ approach) involves the investigation of structures actually found in a language, usually for the purpose of describing the grammar of a particular language as distinct from the grammar of any other language. Modern grammatical analysis usually adopts this third view.
Further, grammar may be defined in two ways according to Dr David Crystal (The Penguin Dictionary of Language, 1998): 1) ‘A systematic analysis of the structure of a language’; in this sort of analysis a distinction is often drawn between a descriptive grammar and a prescriptive grammar. The same definition covers a number of other grammars such as a reference grammar, a performance grammar, a competence grammar, and so on; 2) ‘A level of structural organization which can be studied independently of phonology and semantics, generally divided into the branches of syntax and morphology’; morphology studies the structure of words, and syntax the rules that govern the way words are combined to form sentences.
In traditional grammar, sentential analysis involves the use of such terms as the parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, articles, conjunctions); there are also terms that refer to other grammatical categories: person, number, tense, voice, gender, etc. These words actually originated in the grammatical analyses of the Classical Latin and Greek languages, which were the languages of learning, philosophy, science, and religion in Europe before ‘vernacular’ languages like English came into prominence. English grammarians since the Renaissance (14th to 16th century) considered it appropriate to subject English to the same sort of analysis as that applied to those ‘prestigious’ languages. It was not realized at the beginning that an established descriptive frame used for Latin, though probably suitable for other Romance languages like Spanish or Italian, would not be so useful for dealing with the grammar of a Germanic language such as English. That Classical Latin grammar based analytical concepts were even more unsatisfactory for describing non-European languages became clear when American scholars wanted to investigate North American Indian languages at the end of the nineteenth century. And it was only after the emergence of the study of linguistics, usually associated with Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), in the second decade of the twentieth century that terms used in traditional grammatical analysis were found inappropriate for representing the reality about the structure of the English language accurately.
The imprecision of simple definitions of the usual elements such as the parts of speech found in traditional English grammar is well known to those who are concerned with such matters. Nouns, for example, used to be defined as “names of persons, places, and things”; but this wouldn’t accommodate words such as “happiness”, “love” (as in “He sang about love”), “driving” (as in “His driving is awful”) in the category of nouns although they function like nouns; a more elaborate description of nouns is: “nouns are words that refer to people, creatures, objects, places, states (e.g. parenthood, childhood), phenomena, and abstract ideas as if they were things”. “As if they were things” doesn’t make for precision! Then there are other traditional categories such as person (First, Second, Third), number (singular, plural), tense, voice (active, passive), and gender. In English the gender relationship is in terms of natural gender (the biological distinction between male and female): In “The woman fed her child” the agreement between the ‘woman’ and ‘her’ is based on this biological distinction. In English gender does not have the significance that it has in French, Spanish or German in which languages gender distinctions are grammatically based.

Cultivation of Critical Thinking

2010-09-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

Cultivation of Critical Thinking
(First published in The Island/20th August 2010)
Education is good just so far as it produces well-developed critical faculty . . . A teacher of any subject, who insists on accuracy and a rational control of all processes and methods, and who holds everything open to unlimited verification and revision, is cultivating that method as a habit in the pupils. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded . . . They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence . . . They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.
Sumner, W.G. (1940)

We belong to the species known as homo sapiens (the thinking/rational/wise human) which, according to the Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary (1996), is “characterized by a brain capacity averaging 1400 cc (85 cubic in.) and by dependence on language and the creation and utilization of complex tools” Thinking is innate in us. It is this characteristic that distinguishes us from other animals.
We humans use our thinking capacity basically to meet three native drives: self-gratification, self-interest, and self-preservation. Because by nature our thinking is imperfect this can lead to problems. Our thinking is often prejudiced, unfair, and plainly wrong, as Dr Richard Paul (Director of Research of the Center for Critical Thinking, and the Chair of the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, California, USA) points out, due to our innate ego-centrism (‘It’s true because I believe it’) and our innate socio-centrism (‘It’s true because that’s what my group believes’); it also results from our innate wish fulfilment (‘It’s true because I want to believe it’) and our innate self-validation (‘It’s true because I have always believed it’), and our innate selfishness. Flawed thinking causes trouble in our day-to-day life and also in more serious matters such as education, business, politics, diplomacy, communication, etc which touch the destinies of whole societies.
If confirmation of this is demanded, we have a plethora of evidence around us. There’s the notorious Sakvithi case in which some four thousand eager investors were swindled out of a billion rupees and in which the fraudster escaped into hiding under the very nose of the authorities, until apprehended recently with the help of some watchful public-spirited citizen; in spite of the wide publicity given to this event over the media we still hear about people getting defrauded in new scams; the general public is perplexed by the inefficient, awkward way measures to control the deadly dengue epidemic are being carried out; we may refer with national shame to the failed CFA with the terrorists which, although it was clearly forced on us through ‘international’ complicity with the separatist criminals, was negotiated with the involvement of some of our leaders, a few of whom were reputed intellectuals, later offering only to defend it before the public, instead of at least expressing some reservations; we may talk about how we are regularly sickened by news about fatal accidents involving children at play, or about undergraduates who resort to violent demonstrations, and get involved in fratricidal conflicts at the instigation of insignificant outsiders. All of these and countless other similar disastrous acts of commission and omission would have been easily avoided, had the victims or those responsible for them acted with some forethought.
Training in critical thinking should be considered as an educational priority in Sri Lanka today, like training in language and computer, particularly for students on the threshold of higher education. In this connection, we need to remember that training in critical thinking is not possible without training in language, in which I include both the mother tongue of the students and English. My feeling is that more attention should be paid to this aspect of education than ever before.
It may be good to introduce critical thinking as a major component of a compulsory language paper or even as a separate paper at the AL. To accommodate critical thinking in the curriculum without adding to the workload that the students must cope with at this level the amount of ground to be covered in the ‘speciality’ subjects may be appropriately curtailed. The reason is that what matters in education ultimately is not how much one knows but how well the educated person can think in a given field of knowledge and in general life. Albert Einstein, often described as the greatest scientist of the twentieth century, wrote in his book Ideas and Opinions (1954) thus:
It is not enough to teach a man a speciality. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he – with his specialized knowledge – more closely resembles a well trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to the individual fellow-men and to the community…Overemphasis on the competitive system and premature specialization on the ground of immediate usefulness kill the spirit on which all cultural life depends, specialized knowledge included. It is also vital to a valuable education that independent critical thinking be developed in the young human being, a development that is greatly jeopardized by overburdening him with too much and with too varied subjects. Overburdening necessarily leads to superficiality (pp. 66-67).
Dr Richard Paul, when asked to define ‘critical thinking’, said that definitions are at best “scaffolding for the mind”, and produced the following “bit of scaffolding” for the questioner to construct the meaning of the term: “critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking in order to make your thinking better” (Think Magazine 1992).
I found this scaffolding built into a fuller definition by Dr Richard Paul and his partner Dr Linda Elder:
Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It requires rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native ego-centrism and sociocentrism. (2007)
Out of a number of mutually compatible definitions, I picked this up as a valid and sufficiently comprehensive statement of what constitutes critical thinking. In terms of this definition, critical thinking is a dynamic process that improves itself by analysing, assessing, and reorganising; according to the same source the analysis of thinking involves identifying its purpose, the question at issue, the data available, inferences, assumptions, implications, main concepts, and the point of view. To assess one’s own thinking means to check it for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, logic, and fairness. Critical thinking is thinking under control, which calls for a high degree of self-discipline, together with effective communication and problem solving abilities. Our thinking often loses its objectivity by our ego-centrism (our natural human tendency to ignore the rights and needs of others in our selfish concern with our own interests) and sociocentrism (similar self-serving concern with the interests of the group that we identify ourselves with); critical thinking demands a commitment to overcome these shortcomings.
Dr Richard Paul and Dr Linda Elder, in their “Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking” (2007) set out eight elements of thought that should be applied with sensitivity to the universal intellectual standards of clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic and significance. The eight elements of thought are: purpose, question at issue, information, interpretation and inference, concepts, assumptions, implications and consequences, and finally point of view.
I’ll briefly explain what these terms mean. We analyse thinking in terms of the eight elements of thought, the first of which is purpose. We always think for a purpose; the critical thinker identifies this purpose clearly. It is equally important for the thinker to be clear about the question or the issue to be resolved. Information is the data, the facts that are collected for solving the problem that has been identified. Inferences are the conclusions that you draw about the issue using the information you have. Assumptions are what you consider to be true or valid, or what you take for granted as a basis for your conclusions. Implications and consequences are those that would follow if someone accepted your position. Concepts are the theories, definitions, laws, principles, models that implicit in your analysis. The point of view means the frames of reference and perspectives from which the problem is approached.
According to Drs Richard Paul and Linda Elder students new to critical thinking move from their Unreflective thinker status to the Challenged thinker position (where they realise the inadequacy of their thinking capacity and decide to improve it); from there they move on to the Beginning thinker stage in which they learn what critical thinking involves; the next step is for them to become Practical thinkers and engage in conscious practice; further practice leads them to the Advanced learner stage, from where they proceed to the Master thinker stage; in this final stage, critical thinking becomes second nature to the cultivated thinker.

The authors summarise the qualities of a well cultivated critical thinker as follows. Such a thinker
• identifies important issues, formulating them clearly and precisely,
• Collects and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively,
• Arrives at well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards,
• Thinks with an open mind within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as needs be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences, and
• communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

The need for the cultivation of critical thinking cannot be exaggerated, especially for the youth of the country who are its future. The unfortunate truth, however, is that for generations it has not been given the attention that is due to it. Training in critical thinking comes within the purview of education. Critical thinking must be included in the school curriculum as a part of the language syllabus, if not as a separate subject at Grade 12, for the young people most need it when they are in higher education. This is necessary for creating a future Sri Lankan society consisting of good citizens who are cultivated critical thinkers.
I wish to wind up this essay with another extract from William Graham Sumner who writes in his Folkways (1906):
The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.
(Mainly based on information drawn from the criticalthinking.org website)
Rohana R. Wasala
End

Looking forward to a Future of Prosperity

2010-09-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Looking forward to a Future of Prosperity
(Previously published in The Island/13th August 2010)

Beginning with the 1948 Independence we have had five watersheds that determined in turn the orientation of the Sri Lankan national polity over the past sixty-two years, the other four being 1956 (political empowerment of the common people), 1972 (the reinforcement of political independence through a republican constitution), 1978 (introduction of the executive presidency and open market economic strategies by a new constitution), and 2009 (achievement of a high level of political stability and national unity in the wake of the elimination of separatist terrorism, with enhanced prospects of accelerated economic development ).
The victory over terrorism to which we were held hostage for thirty long years allows us to look forward to a well earned future of peace and prosperity. It’s a grand vision. The Government has articulated this vision as that of transforming Sri Lanka into the commercial hub of Asia or Asia’s Economic Miracle in fact, which is by no means too far-fetched an ideal.
I personally believe that we have had only six national leaders of vision among the eleven ruling (from an executive position) at different times to date since Independence, six leaders able to imagine a better future based on their clear understanding of the existing state of affairs: Mr D.S. Senanayake, Mr S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and his widow Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike, Mr J.R. Jayawardane and his successor Mr R. Premadasa, and the incumbent Mr Mahinda Rajapakse. Only leaders of vision make a lasting, positive impact on the course of a country’s history. Successful politicians, like great scientists, are persons of imagination.
A situation has evolved that fosters hopes of a bright future for Sri Lanka. Seven important factors, in my view, characterise the status quo: a stable administration under an able leader, a well established democratic form of government with a vibrant, discriminating electorate, broad international support secured without compromising national autonomy, the possibility of an unprecedented national consensus, major development programmes underway across the island, positive key economic indicators (though subject to fluctuation), and realistic expectations of future oil revenues. Of course, not everyone will share my optimistic assessment of the situation; besides, I am not unaware of the unfortunate reality that each factor mentioned above is undermined by its own intrinsic imperfections. Yet, I believe that unlike the average politician, the vast majority of us ordinary citizens prefer to focus on the benefit that accrues from each of these factors to the nation rather than on its potential for affecting the petty electoral fortunes of those on either side of the government-opposition divide, and will not fail to appreciate good things done for promoting the national interest, whoever is their author.
Mr Mahinda Rajapakse has been voted in for a second term at the helm, which he will start next November, in three months’ time. His re-election and the landslide win by the UPFA which he leads at the subsequent parliamentary election furnish clear proof of the public endorsement of his way of ruling and the popular recognition of his successful performance at the top. Ridding the country of terrorism amidst so much overt and covert opposition, both internal and external, was entirely due to his resourceful leadership. But the nature of politics being what it is, no politician can be expected to be perfect; there’s a tendency for certain individuals near and dear to him (not his brothers), though their loyalty to him is apparently absolute, to embarrass him with their quirky excesses. This the public still seem to be ready to tolerate (in the belief that our pragmatic President will bring them under control somehow), because they are anxious to have him lead the country for some years more until the victory over terrorism that he achieved is further consolidated and the country rebuilt. The President himself shows genuine concern with building democratic consensus about the decisions that he must make.
No one can deny that democracy broadly prevails in Sri Lanka today. One might express reasonable reservations, though. Institutions of democracy are intact: there’s media freedom; elections are held in due course, but naturally an element of strategic manipulation is not absent in their timing. The rule of law generally holds, and the government’s writ operates through the length and breadth of the country including the north and east for the first time in nearly thirty years. For a country just emerging from almost four decades of armed insurgency (first in the south under the JVP, then in the north and east under the LTTE) this is a remarkable situation.
In my opinion, it’s a national achievement, and it’s mainly due to the mature, patient, and intelligent electorate that Sri Lanka is lucky to have, more than to the exertions of politicians of every colour who try to influence its will. The vast majority reject every form of extremism, though we are saddled with a few extremist politicos, who are appropriately left in the doldrums. The opposition’s belly-aching about the high cost of living is incredibly naïve as a strategy to create disaffection with the government among the voters in spite of many examples of its extensive development efforts in evidence throughout the country. Do these purblind politicians think that the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who have been converging on Hambantota over the past few days from all parts of the island just to have a glimpse of the bottom of the harbour basin before it permanently disappears under water will believe that the government is doing nothing by way of development?

Unlike some of his antagonists Mr Rajapakse has a great deal of empathy with these ordinary voters and likes to move among them, sit, talk, and eat with them whenever there’s an opportunity. He knows that they are literate people with a mature political sense; they are proud people who don’t like to be dictated to, and especially resent what they see as unnecessary foreign interference in their affairs. In Mr Rajapakse they believe they have a national leader who is strong enough not to be fazed by the impositions of the so-called international community, and who acts with great diplomatic aplomb as well as foresight in courting friendship with countries outside the circle of our traditional ‘allies’. Sri Lanka has been able to garner enough diplomatic support and protection from our foreign friends in the face of subtle attempts to condemn us in world forums at the instigation of the few well entrenched terrorist sympathizers among Tamil expatriates. We enjoy dynamic friendly relations with more countries in the world now than under previous administrations, and that too, without compromising our sovereignty and autonomy.
Prospects for developing national unity embracing all sections of the polity are brighter today than ever. Even some ex-Tiger members are now with the government, which sends a clear signal to those among expatriate Tamils who had supported the terrorists before their destruction, and who are the sheet anchor that some LTTE remnants might try to fall back on in order to pursue their separatist goal, although that would prove a doomed enterprise. The government has already successfully reached out to a section of the leadership of Tamils abroad with an invitation to take part in the development of the war affected areas, and there are signs that many of them are willing to return home to Sri Lanka. This trend is likely to go on, but the anti-Sri Lanka media blitzkrieg still sustained with some success by those who lived on the business of supporting separatist terror has yet to be effectively neutralized.
The Rajapakse administration started rebuilding the war ravaged north and east even before the war was well over. Its numerous development programmes launched in accordance with the ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ (The Vision of Mahinda) manifesto in such vital sectors as education, roads and railways, agriculture and fisheries, air and naval communications, trade, and energy now cover the whole country. A mega seaport is being built at Hambantota, and a big airport at Mattala in the same area. The first phase of the Hambantota port which commenced construction work just over two years ago has been completed and will be declared open by the President on 15th Sunday; on that day, the harbour basin will be filled with water. There are new power projects, express motorways, railroads, communication towers, bridges, tourist hotels, and other infra-structure facilities being added to the country’s resource base. The government also encourages private sector participation in development work.
Of course, when major projects are embarked on, allegations of corruption, mismanagement, misappropriation of funds etc are normal as is the likelihood of corruption. However, the problem with many charges of corruption raised by opposition politicians is their ritual nature: politicos out of power customarily sling mud at those in power, hoping to bring them down; there’s hardly any attempt to substantiate these allegations, and so, to the public it becomes clear that these politicians’ concern is not with the elimination of corruption if any, but with improving their own chances of making political capital out of such allegations. If there’s enough reason to believe that there is corruption, then it must be duly investigated and put an end to; that responsibility devolves not only on the government, but on the opposition as well. The development work that is going on should not be scuttled merely on account of unsubstantiated charges of corruption.
Most of Mr Rajapakse’s first term was taken up with resolving the problem posed by the terrorists. First he made a genuine attempt to resolve the crisis through negotiations, but finally, his hand being forced by their intransigence, he managed to finish them off militarily. Even during this unsettled period the country’s GDP grew at an average rate of 5%. Between 2007 and 2009 Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves rose significantly. Today the GDP growth rate has reached 5.5%, with the GDP at LKR 2582.95 billion.
There is encouraging information about the feasibility of tapping petroleum and gas reserves around the country. The oil industry will provide employment for our young people, and also save the large amount of foreign exchange that we now spend for importing petrol and gas. It is claimed that the oil reserves potentially available are in excess of our needs, which means, very likely, we’ll be exporting some of our oil in the near future.
So, the government has set the scene for a gamut of development activities; a new vista of progress has opened. But success will depend on the cooperation of every Sri Lankan citizen. The key activists in this national endeavour will be politicians, public and private sector workers, and civil society leaders. It should be completely free from all political, ethnic, religious, or class considerations.
The war against terrorism was won amidst cynical opposition from internal and external sources. The ramshackle alliance of forces ranged against the government during the most critical stages of the humanitarian operations closed ranks amongst themselves and tried to bring down a popular regime that was succeeding in its humanitarian campaign. It was made out that toppling the Rajapakse rule was more urgent than overcoming terrorism! Fortunately for the country, some patriotic opposition politicians joined the government, breaking ranks with their leadership. Ordinary Sri Lankans today hope that the development programmes now in progress will forge ahead under similar circumstances, perhaps with even more explicit across the board collaboration.
It is high time that all of us realized that Sri Lanka will economically stagnate so long as we are not truly united as one nation. Some communalist politicians seem to wrongly believe that the minorities they claim to represent cannot have their rights unless the majority community remains divided into several camps. A true patriotic politician is one who struggles for the rights of every Sri Lankan irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, language, gender, politics, or culture. For such a politician, “my people” means all the people of Sri Lanka; when politicians behave like that, others will more than readily fall in line, because that is the vision of ordinary Sri Lankans.
National unity and economic development go together; each sustains the other. I sometimes think that the chances for separatist demands would have been minimized or nipped in the bud if we were rich enough. Which community in the world would want to secede from an affluent state whose economic and political power results from national unity rather than from ethnic, religious or any other kind of fragmentation, on allegations of real or perceived discrimination, and condemn themselves to a life of poverty and privation?
The most critical issue to be resolved was the separatist terrorism that was a near insurmountable roadblock to the country’s forward march. Now, thanks mainly to Mr Mahinda Rajapakse’s stewardship, we have put it behind us. But, a shadow of a revival of separatist sentiments, however ineffectual these may be, will not fade away until we remove a major pretext for the interference of those countries that consider it their prerogative to have some influence over Sri Lanka in order to serve their own geopolitical interests, by ensuring that the benefits of the victory over terrorism are shared equitably by all the communities in a free, democratic Sri Lanka, and by maintaining heightened vigilance and appropriate defence readiness.
We have arrived at the most propitious moment ever since Independence for embarking on national development: the country is peaceful after the demise of the terrorist threat; we’ve are well on our way towards economic recovery; people are convinced that something is being done in earnest, which is essential for public acknowledgement of and participation in the nation-building process. There’s a clear vision, and a well thought out strategy to translate it into reality.

Where visions and strategies are matched, success is assured. Success in our case is the survival of Sri Lanka as a free prosperous nation, which will ultimately depend on our ability to feed and protect ourselves (i.e. economic independence and national security, respectively).

Where There's Oil - There's Turmoil

2010-08-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

Where there’s oil – There’s turmoil
(First published in The Island/30th July 2010)

We are almost certainly on the threshold of a new era of economic development and international diplomacy ushered in by the imminent discovery of oil. Drilling is due to start in the Mannar Basin next January. This opens before us exciting prospects of economic prosperity as well as daunting challenges posed by players in the arena of global political and diplomatic relations.

When prospecting for petroleum in Sri Lanka began nearly forty years ago at the initiative of the government, we were silently jubilant at the promise of a comfortable petrodollar-rich future for the country, which enhanced the general euphoria experienced in the wake of the adoption of the republican constitution in 1972. However, the Russian engineers who conducted the search at Pesalai in Mannar failed to find any oil. The grandiose project was abandoned, and the matter forgotten after a few laughs at jokes about certain fake samples of oil claimed to have been extracted from the area aimed at convincing an increasingly sceptical public. Ironically, though unconnected with the search for oil, separatist terrorism erupted from the north and east which we had originally hoped would be a source of unprecedented prosperity; terrorist violence devastated the country for thirty long years. We have just emerged from that dark phase of our history to be happily greeted by the news that Sri Lanka possesses substantial oil reserves. This naturally revives our hope of a bright future; a decisive reversal of our fortunes appears to be in the offing.

The initial attempts four decades ago at finding oil drew a blank probably because of the inadequacy of the prospecting technology adopted at that time. The situation today is different. We now enjoy the advantages of highly advanced modern technology in the matter. The many geological surveys and seismic tests carried out with the help of foreign organizations have revealed the existence of exploitable deposits of petroleum and gas in parts of the northern, eastern and southern regions of the island, both onshore and offshore. The major portion of the oil resources is reported to be concentrated in the area above an imaginary line joining Chilaw and Trincomalee, i.e. the north.

The coincidence of the elimination of separatist violence and the discovery of oil augurs well for the country. But the way ahead is not without risks. It is strewn with international landmines of political manipulation and interventionist pressure, which demands an extremely high level of political acumen and courage, and a selfless commitment to consensus building, on the part of our national leaders for Sri Lanka to remain whole. This is something that even a cursory glance at the oil-dominated twentieth-century global power (im)balance among nations will be sufficient to convince us of.

All countries depend on cheap oil for their economic development, and demand unrestricted access to it. This makes oil a “strategic asset” in the hands of powerful countries that are involved in the general scramble for a share of it.

The United States of America (USA), the European Union (EU) and China are the biggest consumers of oil (25.9%, 19.1%, and 6% of the world’s oil respectively). Their contributions to the global oil supply are as follows: USA – 10.7%, EU – 4.3%, and China – 4.4%. They may be identified as the main players in the global oil rush. Their partners in this “oil game” are the generally less industrialized oil producing nations.

From the very beginning Britain and America have been engaged in political and colonial manoeuvring for the sake of cheap oil. The quest for oil in the Middle East started when Iran struck oil in its Masjed Soleiman oil field in 1908. Iran was a part of the British Empire then. While Britain had no oil of its own Iran and the Middle East had an abundance of it. The British wasted no time in contriving strategies to help themselves to the vast oil resources found there. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) was founded in 1909 to exploit the oil resources of Iran. The British devised a clever arrangement called “concessions”. This was based on the complementary relationship between the two countries: Iran owned the oil, but had no technical know-how that would enable them to extract, refine, store, and sell it; neither did Iran have a market for the oil; on the other hand, Britain had no oil, but needed it very much; Britain also possessed the technological expertise necessary for extracting and refining the oil. Foreign companies vied with each other for concessions across the Middle East. Under the concessions arrangement the owner of the oil fields or the “host” country (eg. Iran) was paid a “concession” on the output. The bigger the output the bigger the concession. In other words the more oil the foreign companies extracted and sold, the more money the owner countries got.

Decades later (in 1951) Iran under democratically elected Prime Minister Dr Muhammad Mossadeq nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in order to retain the oil profits within the country. The US and Britain were strongly opposed to the move. They responded by causing the ouster of Dr Mossadeq through a coup, and installed in power Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1953. The nationalized British oil interests were returned to British control; similarly the American oil concessions were retained by eight private oil companies which were given 40% of the Iranian oil industry.

Saudi Arabia ( created in 1935 and named after Ibn Saud its ruler) possesses 25% of the world’s oil reserves. It is the only “oil superpower” in the world. In 1945 President Roosevelt met Ibn Saud on US cruiser Quincy in the Suez canal to sign an agreement in terms of which the US pledged to support Saudi Arabia militarily in return for access to its oil through their Arab-American Oil Company (ARAMCO). The USA exploited this relationship to develop its economy and build its military strength over the next half a century. When the Americans waged war on Iraq at the beginning of the 1990’s they used Saudi Arabia as their base. That special relationship still remains intact.

Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world next to Saudi Arabia. The western involvement in the country’s affairs led to a devastating war against it on rather dubious grounds (as it is being revealed now), and UN embargoes, etc with genocidal consequences on the innocent Iraqi citizens, primarily because of the American thirst for cheap oil. Organizations such as the Global Policy Forum (GPF) maintain that Iraq’s oil is “the central feature of the political landscape”. According to the GPF, under US influence the 2005 constitution of Iraq has been made to “contain language that generates a major role for foreign companies”.

Venezuela is said to have 77.2 billion barrels of proven oil resources – the largest in the western hemisphere. It nationalized its oil industry in 1975-76. The incumbent president Hugo Chavez rejects the privatising policies of his predecessors. His attempts to renegotiate a sixty year old royalty payments agreement with Philips Petroleum and Exxonmobil (both large oil companies) did not endear him to the Americans. Under these agreements the corporations had to pay taxes as low as 01% of the tens of billions of dollars in revenues.

Of course, western hegemony in the oil world has not been unchallenged. Venezuela pioneered the idea of establishing the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1949, approaching Iran, Gabon, Libya, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But the OPEC was set up in 1960 when the US imposed import quotas on Venezuelan and Persian Gulf oil to support the Canadian and Mexican oil industries. Antagonized by American bias towards Israel the OPEC exercised its power by imposing an oil embargo against the US and Western Europe in 1973.

China, taken as an individual country, is the second largest consumer of oil. At present it imports 30% of its oil. This figure is forecast to double by 2020, which will see China in much more desperate need of oil.

The Chinese obtain 10% of their oil from Sudan. The economically poor Sudan is riven by civil conflict between the Christian and animist south and the Islamist north. The Sudanese government is accused of evicting the civilians of the southern Darfur region from land they have occupied for generations, and even of massacring them in its determination to clear the area for oil extraction. When the UN wants to condemn Sudan over these allegations, China provides it diplomatic protection. China makes massive investments in Sudan in addition to delivering oil revenues and supplying arms to be used in its more than twenty year old civil war. Washington has blacklisted Sudan as a state supporter of terrorism, and US companies are not permitted to do business there, which provides a wonderful opportunity for the Chinese.

With the economic and military strength gained from its oil dealings with China, Sudan has been able to stand up to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The SPLA are threatening to expel the Chinese from Sudan if they come to power for the support the latter are giving to the Sudanese government. Obviously, peace for the Sudanese is not in the best interests of the Chinese.

(Of course, this reference to China should not be misconstrued as implicitly critical of that country in relation to Sri Lanka. Oil or no oil, their proven friendship will last; it was certain other powers that wanted to fish in troubled waters.)

The above paragraphs outline just a few instances of the global turmoil due to intense competition among nations for the acquisition of oil. To date Sri Lanka has only been a relatively insignificant customer in the global oil market. Soon, however, we’ll be among the producing nations. The new position will be economically advantageous to us, no doubt. But it will also expose us to international political and diplomatic manoeuvring. Probably potential signs of such manipulation are already apparent. These are too plain for me to state explicitly.

It’s time we put all forms of internal conflicts behind us, and looked forward to this new promising future. There’s only one future for all of us; if we are divided among ourselves and try to pursue separate goals, there will be no future for any of us.

(I owe some of the ideas and information to Paul Middleton’s “A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE END OF OIL”, 2007)

Parents can help children to learn English

2010-08-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

Parents can help children to learn English
(First published in The Island/Friday 6th August 2010)
Living in a welfare state we enjoy, among other things, free healthcare and free education. However, there is much that we as citizens are obliged to do to complement or supplement these services. Unless we thus collaborate with the state the whole community will be negatively affected. The current dengue epidemic has created a situation that illustrates the importance of public awareness and the active cooperation of everyone concerned in minimizing the incidence of the disease. For the success of national education programmes too similar collaboration between the state and the citizenry is of vital importance. The domestic mentoring that parents can provide for their children in the matter of learning “English as a life skill” as outlined below may be regarded as one form of such collaboration between the state and the citizens.

Arguably, the most important as well as the most urgent national educational enterprise that has been launched in recent times is the English as a life skill programme. English as a second language is indispensable for us Sri Lankans to have a good modern education, and to be successfully competitive in the job market. This latest English teaching initiative rightly emphasises the need among our students to use the English language as a normal medium of communication in day-to-day interaction for those broad purposes (for enhancing education and employment prospects).

Now, someone’s knowledge of a language is usually represented as their ability to speak it. For example, we may ask a person, “Do you speak English?”, but not “Do you write/read English?” when we want to find out whether that person knows English. This is because ordinarily we assume that speech is the most basic form of language. Accordingly, the current programme highlights the spoken aspect of the English language training that is being provided.

But you can’t just speak English or any other language for that matter unless you have something to speak about; even when you have something that you could speak about you may not speak about it unless you feel an urge/ a desire/ a need to do so; again your urgent desire to speak about a particular subject may not make you speak about it in English if that language is not your mother tongue or first language. So speaking in English involves a strong enough motive to speak about a worthwhile matter in English, and in no other language. Providing such a motive is crucial for students to respond positively to any course of English language instruction. (Our failure to do this, due to a variety of causes/circumstances, goes a long way towards explaining why so many earlier initiatives didn’t succeed.)

Howatt (1984) identifies two “versions” of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): a strong version and a weak version. The “strong” version is explained as “using English to learn it, instead of learning English to use it”, whereas the “weak” version is interpreted as “learning English to use it”. The first involves activities that require the use of English for authentic communication among the learners, with no focus on explicit language teaching; the learners are thought to acquire their English solely through meaningful communication. When the weaker version is applied (and this has been normal practice in CLT classrooms over the last decade or so) such communicative activities are integrated into a broader programme of language instruction. In terms of CLT (strong or weak), a major responsibility that devolves on teachers is to generate opportunities for learners to use English for meaningful communication and interaction. Along with this, it is now generally accepted by second language acquisition theorists that reading and writing activities, along with listening, speaking, and thinking promote language learning, something we discovered independently through personal experience and put to good use, too, when we were young children.

Although parents (the majority of whom are not English teachers themselves) should be spared such befuddling theory, it suggests something that parents can conveniently do to help their children learn English: What they can do is to create an environment at home which encourages their children to engage in activities that involve communicating in English. This can be achieved in a number of ways, some of which I describe below. Parents could implement some or all of the following suggestions, and even add other similar activities that they themselves may devise in their individual circumstances. Amidst other demands on their time both parents and children will encounter some difficulty in initiating the kind of domestic interaction that is necessary for such a process to be successful; but it will have its compensations in terms of quality time for parents with their children, reduced tuition costs, and education for themselves. From a language learning point of view, parental involvement in helping their children in the privacy of the home can create a very good context for meaningful interaction through English; the home provides a better affective atmosphere than any classroom outside. (The word ‘affective’ means ‘arising from or influencing emotion’; in a classroom context, the students’ affective needs are those connected with positive feelings such as a sense of security, freedom from anxiety, fear, etc, a feeling of being accepted, loved, and so on; these affective needs should be met before successful learning can take place.)

Parents need not be always talking with their children in English, thereby denying themselves and the children the natural intimacy and informality which is only possible when they interact in the mother tongue. Instead, they can set aside some time everyday or as often as possible, say before supper, for an “English hour”. During this time, they must switch off the television, and devote all their time and attention for English. Everybody must talk in English about whatever topic they are required to in the situation; parents can help children revise their school lessons including those about other subjects (but only in English during the English hour) or get older siblings to help the younger ones with lessons. English should remain the focus of the activities.

The day’s news can provide a topic for discussion. Children may be asked to take turns in answering the questions that a journalist filing a report on any newsworthy event usually answers: who, what, when, where, why, and how. For example, in the case of a motor accident, Who was the driver? Who was injured? Who reported it to the police? Where did this happen? When?, etc. It is also a good idea to encourage learners to find vocabulary that is necessary to talk about special events such as the opening of parliament, an earthquake, floods, religious events, and so on.

Even parents without any English knowledge can get their children to interact among themselves through English with the help of older children who have at least some knowledge of the language.

Once a week, they can extend the duration of the “English Hour”, turning it into a kind of social get-together. Since the number of participants is an important factor for its potential for success, it would be a good idea to invite other children who are relatives or neighbours to take part. Let the children organize the event. They can have a variety of items such as short speeches, songs, dances, stories, playlets, etc all in English. Neighbours can take turns in hosting such an event. If for practical reasons, such camaraderie is not available, let it be in the privacy of one’s own family.

By getting the children to read a lot of English, parents can help them develop their vocabulary, and improve their speaking and writing skills. Parents should buy them story books, magazines, papers, etc that are appropriate for their age. Local newspapers, especially their Sunday editions, carry children’s supplements with a wealth of reading materials including English medium lesson materials. It is good to introduce children to these irrespective of the medium of instruction that they have chosen. As far as possible English learning activities should be integrated into the study of other subjects.

Before the proliferation of avenues of education and entertainment accompanying advances in communication technologies like telephony, television, and computer, reading was a major source of knowledge as well as a popular pastime. Today the easy availability of computer-based education and entertainment seems to have driven reading as we knew it to a secondary position, particularly among the young. Literacy itself is acquiring a new meaning. It has begun to mean a more composite, multimodal capacity than represented by its conventional definition. Text is being replaced by image, as it were.

Of course, the use of the computer and the Internet in the country, particularly in the rural areas, may not be as widespread as we’d wish. At least those who have the facility must be encouraged to make the best use of it. The Internet is an inexhaustible source of English language teaching/learning and general education materials. Many websites offer free downloadable materials for language practice, and testing; there are many free dictionaries. Using the Internet, students can engage in activities involving all the four basic language skills; they can expose themselves to different varieties of International English. In any family, parents with some knowledge of English, or children studying in higher forms can browse through the Net, and make these resources available for the younger children. They can use these with some guidance.

Parents should encourage children to use the Internet to research topics in other subjects even though they may be studying these in Sinhalese or Tamil. This will enable them not only to learn more English, but also to improve their general scholastic performance. One important advantage that students can enjoy by using the Internet is that they can look for the newest information in any field that they have chosen.

Why the Maligawa road should not be reopened

2010-07-30T01:50:00.000-07:00

Why the Maligawa Road Should Not Be Reopened
(First published in The Island/23rd July 2010 with some parts deleted to shorten the article)

The current proposal to reopen the road stretch adjacent to the Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy is being met with a show of approval as well as opposition, though on the whole the response on the part of the local Buddhist laity as well as the clergy has been rather lukewarm either way for some inexplicable reason (may be a case of the silence of the silent majority!). In any case, it appears that a final decision is yet to be taken in this regard. The delay affords the authorities an opportunity to reconsider the wisdom of restoring an anomaly on the sacred Maligawa premises that should have been permanently removed long ago.
Surprisingly, however, the Malwatte Prelate has no objection to the reopening, while the Central Province Governor is opposed to the move as reported in The Island newspaper on July 6 and 8 respectively. We hope that the wiser counsel of the Governor will prevail.
In the opinion of many people, an alternative route to and from downtown Kandy (i.e. an alternative to the one now traversing the Maligawa compound as it were) can be provided at little cost to the country by constructing a bridge across the Kandy lake at its narrowest point. An argument against such a project is that it will spoil the beauty of the place, but this can be easily countered by saying that a highway that is too close to the stately Maligawa edifice more seriously detracts from its beauty and majesty; besides, there is nothing to prevent the bridge from being designed appropriately incorporating compatible Kandyan architectural features that will enhance the beauty of the whole landscape.
A bridge across the lake is not a new idea. More than ten years ago, appalled by the thoroughly polluted state of the Kandy lake, I wrote an article entitled “The Kandy Lake and Its Future” to The Island. It was published on Friday 26th November 1999. The article included the following paragraph:

To reduce air pollution through motor traffic a bridge may be constructed across the Lake in an aesthetically pleasing manner where it is narrowest. (Such a bridge will not only lessen problems of pollution, it will also benefit all those who travel this way and the state by reducing fuel cost and vehicular wear and tear.) The motor-boat service now being operated on the Lake should be replaced with a non-fuel-consuming device such as a canoe, because the area that the Lake covers is quite small and even a small motor-boat can cause a relatively significant amount of pollution. Wooden boats will have the additional advantage of providing employment to a number of people and of adding some rural charm to the boat-riding experience that tourists, both local and foreign, love so much.

The idea about a bridge over the Kandy lake was something that had been already mooted at that time as I remember, though there was no sign of its being practically pursued. However, about six months later, The Island (Tuesday 13th June 2000) carried a news item to the effect that the then Ministry of Transport and Highways was considering a proposal to construct a bridge across the lake. The proposal was never implemented. (No reference is ever made, as far as I know, to the environmental pollution caused by the motor-boat service in the lake. This is perhaps because many people would think that the pollution caused by the boat is nothing compared to that caused by motor-car exhaust fumes around the lake.)

There is no question about the necessity of solving Kandy’s traffic congestion and air pollution problems. But the reopening of the Maligawa road will not significantly ease the situation caused by these problems. Even if it does (unlikely though that is), the reopening should not be allowed. Instead alternative ways of eliminating those hazards must be found. The stretch of road skirting the Maligawa too close to it must be permanently closed. This should have been done long before the terrorist attack on the Maligawa on January 25, 1998 which led to its closure by the authorities.

The preservation and protection of the Dalada Maligawa is a national obligation of the highest priority because of its unparalleled importance for us, which is twofold. First, it is the most venerated Buddhist shrine for the Buddhists within the country and for those in the wider world outside. Second, the Tooth Relic’s special connection with the temporal overlordship of the island, and the importance of the city of Kandy as the last royal capital invest the place with great historical significance for the nation; the general Kandy area which sits astride the focal point (at Katugastota) from where radiate the three ancient divisions of the state of Sri Lanka known as the ‘thrisinhalay’ (Ruhunu, Maya, and Pihiti) is sanctified by the blood of our patriotic forefathers who heroically fought against rapacious foreign intruders for safeguarding the independence of our beloved motherland.

A digression into history is necessary for me to make these points clear. Those timeservers who act as if they are ignorant of this must be reminded of what any ordinary Sri Lankan with some education knows about the Dalada Maligawa and Kandy the last capital of the kingdom of Sinhalay where it stands.

A Kalinga princess by the name of Hemamali travelled to Sri Lanka with her husband Prince Dantha disguised as ascetics about the year 310 BCE. She brought the Tooth Relic concealed in her hair. King Kirti Sri Meghavarna (301-328 CE) who was the ruler of Lanka at that time received them with great honour, and conducted them to Anuradhapura, the royal capital. He housed the relic within the precincts of the royal palace, and ordered an annual perahera to be held in its honour. Over the centuries it became a well established tradition to enshrine the Tooth Relic within the royal palace premises, and to hold an annual Dalada perahera. By the 12th century, a convention had developed whereby the custodianship of the Tooth Relic was accepted as conferring on the person the sovereignty over Sri Lanka. For this reason the protection of the Tooth Relic was of great religious and secular concern for the Sinhalese kings.

With the shifting of the capital city from Anuradhapura to Polonnaruwa, Vijayabahu I (1056-1111) built a Dalada Maligawa immediately to the north of the royal palace. Later, Parakramabahu I (1156-1183) and Nissanka Malla (1187-1196) also made imposing Maligawas to house the Tooth Relic. For the Sinhalese the link between the possession of the Tooth Relic and sovereignty over the island became indissoluble. Whenever the security situation deteriorated, the royal capital was shifted from one city to another: from Polonnaruwa to Dambadeniya under Vijayabahu III (1232-1236) who had saved the country from twenty-one years of cruel tyranny under the wicked invader Magha of Kalinga; again the capital was changed from Dambadeniya to Yapahuwa to Kurunegala, to Kotte, and finally to Kandy. The Tooth Relic was hidden in various locations, the Buddhist monks playing a major role in its protection. The connection between the custodianship of the Tooth Relic and royal power over the island was even internationally known, which attracted the hostile attention of certain foreign soldiers of fortune. Chandrabhanu was one of these. He made two unsuccessful attempts to seize the Relic and ascend the throne. He landed at Mahatittha with his Javaka army on his second attempt during the reign of King Vijayabahu IV (1271-1273). To the king he “sent forth messengers with the message: I shall take Tisihala; I shall not leave it to thee. Yield up to me therefore together with the Tooth Relic of the Sage, the Bowl Relic and the royal dominion. If thou wilt not, then fight.” Vijayabahu accepted the challenge, defeated the invader, and “united Lanka under the umbrella of his dominion” (Culavamsa , Part II, Geiger translation. Asian Educational Services, New Delhi and Chennai. 2003, p.187-88.) “Tisihala” refers, as Geiger explains on p.139, to the threefold division of the island into Patittharattha, Mayarattha, and Rohana, which correspond respectively to modern Pihitirata, Mayarata, and Ruhuna.

When Kotte was captured by the Portuguese, the monks fled the city surreptitiously carrying the Sacred Relic with them. They hid it in a safe place until it was again housed in the two-storeyed Dalada Maligawa built in Kandy by King Wimaladharmasuriya I (1592-1604) who ascended the throne there. (The present Dalada Maligawa is the same one built by King Wimaladharmasuriya, but it has undergone a number of periodic renovations since its inception.) The Kandyan Kingdom under Wimaladharmasuriya’s successors, for half of the nearly 450 years of predatory European aggression in various forms against our motherland between 1505 and 1948, had to bear the brunt of the relentless onslaughts of three European powers.

Writing about Vijayabahu III (mentioned above), who as a young warrior collected an army of combatants from the mountainous areas and attacked Magha to put an end to his depredations, the great D.C.Vijayawardane in his “The Revolt in the Temple” (1953) composed to “commemorate 2500 years of Buddhism, of civilization in Lanka, and of the Sinhalese nation…” praises the ‘mountaineers’ (as he calls them) as “always the last to be subdued and the first to revolt”.

The great rebellion of 1818 led by Keppetipola the Maha Dissawe of Uva , a heroic reaction to British perfidy, provides a piece of evidence for Vijayawardane’s assertion. In this connection, a reference to Professor Tennekoon Vimalananda’s “The Great Rebellion of 1818” (1970) is appropriate. Professor Vimalananda’s work of scholarship mainly draws on the 10,000 page report of the Select Committee of the British Parliament on Ceylon presided over by Mr Hume, which sat at Westminster from 1849-1850 to inquire into the grievances of people and the maladministration of the officials of the British Government in Ceylon. (The report contains records of official correspondence between Governor Robert Brownrigg and the Secretary of State, records of statements by British and native functionaries, etc who directly participated in the events connected with the rebellion, and numerous other records of evidence). The authoritative findings of the select committee categorically denounces the Governor’s deliberate attempt to evade commitments made under the Kandyan Convention. Professor Vimalananda gives an authentic account of the “heroic bravery and courage displayed by the Kandyan Peasantry against the might of the British Empire in a war in which the Sinhalese nearly inflicted defeat upon the invaders” which made the British Governor General Robert Brownrigg communicate his anxiety to the Home Government about the (British) Indian Government’s delay in sending British troops from India to Ceylon to deal with the situation.

The ferocity of the suppression of the uprising can be gauged from the following passage from M.A. Durand Appuhamy’s THE REBELS OUTLAWS AND ENEMIES TO THE BRITISH (M.D. Gunasena & Co. Ltd, 1990.):

The colour sergeant Calladine wrote in his diary, “at this time there was seldom a day passed but we had parties out scouring the country for a distance round, burning all they came across and shooting those they could not take prisoners”. He waxed lyrical in praise of the atrocities committed by him and his fellow British officers:

“But British courage still prevailing
Soon we made our foes to fly,
And their villages assailing,
Caused some hundreds for to die.
See their villages a-burning,
And their temples soon laid low.
This the wretches get for joining
With the jungle rebel foe.”

During the 1818 Kandyan rebellion Keppetipola temporarily secured the possession of the Dalada by having a monk remove it secretly from the Maligawa as mentioned in the above source; the rebel leader used the Relic to rally the peasants around him in support of his cause. But the leaders and their followers gave up the struggle when the Tooth Relic fell into the hands of the British because they thought that with the Relic in their possession the British were now the legitimate rulers of the country. That was the power the Tooth Relic had upon our people.

Thus, the Dalada Maligawa is a sacred living monument to that august history; it stands on ground hallowed by the blood of our patriotic forefathers who breathed their last defending the proud independence of our land; it enshrines the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha the Enlightened One who taught his followers to extend loving kindness to every being irrespective of their colour, size, beliefs, qualities, age, importance, or whatever other attribute one could think of.

The rapacious Europeans did their damnedest to obliterate our Buddhist heritage. The Portuguese burnt down the historic Kelaniya Temple built, as the Sinhalese Buddhists have always believed, on a spot sanctified by the touch of the Buddha’s feet. The alien occupiers hemmed in the Dalada Maligawa with non-Buddhist structures to eclipse its majesty, and to reduce it into insignificance with a view to weakening the religious hold it had on our people. A statue erected in colonial times in memory of a British governor which had no religious significance was removed after Sri Lanka became a republic.

The Sri Dalada Maligawa is the holiest Buddhist shrine in the country and in the whole world. It enshrines the Tooth Relic of the Buddha which is venerated as if it were the living Buddha. For most of the period of its existence in Sri Lanka the Relic has been accorded the highest honour as a palladium, the possession of which was held to legitimize a ruler’s royal authority. A busy road in close proximity to it is not proper. That is why I believe that the Maligawa road should not be reopened, but that an appropriate alternative solution to the traffic and pollution problem must be found.

(Before mailing this write-up to the editor, I went and looked at the part of the Dalada Vidiya that still remains blockaded. I was encouraged by what I saw: the portion of the road parallel to the esplanade opposite the Maligawa was being paved with cement blocks, which I read as a sign that this road will not be reopened after all.)

What Is Happiness?

2010-07-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

What Is Happiness?
(First published in The Island on Friday 16th July 2010)
Happiness is commonly defined as a state of mind marked by such pleasant feelings as satisfaction, contentment, freedom from anxiety, mental tranquillity, and other similar positive moods. The Chambers Thesaurus (Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., 2004) lists twenty-four synonyms for the word “happiness” including joy, gladness, cheerfulness, contentment, pleasure, delight, gaiety, life, merriment, light-heartedness, exuberance, high spirits, elation, ecstasy, and euphoria. The list suggests the wide range and variety of feelings covered by the term happiness. No wonder the concept of happiness is sometimes described as a little too vague for precise definition.

Although we may not be able to say exactly what happiness is we know that “happy” is what we always want to be. Living and loving are two experiences we rarely ask questions about; we take them for granted. In the same way we don’t normally bother about what happiness is, or ask why we want to be happy. This may be because happiness is desired for its own sake, not as a means to an end.

In normal circumstances, there are other things that we set our minds on, such as knowledge, power, reputation, riches, and sound health. One might pursue these for their own sake, but they are still subject to the question “What for?”; and the ultimate answer may be something like “For self-fulfilment”, or “For a sense of well-being”, or “For the pleasure of gratifying sensual desires”, for which we may substitute one word “Happiness”. We follow many different goals in life; but all these are ancillary to the goal of personal happiness.

For thousands of years religions have recognized the general unsatisfactoriness of earthly existence, and have each advocated a specific course of religious conduct in order to escape from it and attain to a state of everlasting happiness after death. They also teach how people can achieve mundane as well as spiritual happiness here and now through prayer, practice of virtue, penance, pilgrimage, and fasting, etc. At any age for most people this kind of happiness is a distant ideal. For the average person, happiness consists in the pleasures of the body and mind.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE), the great Greek philosopher, explained what he considered the popular view of happiness thus: “What is the highest good achievable by action? … both the ordinary people and people of education and good judgement say it is happiness”. In all cultures in the world even today people share the same attitude towards happiness. A great tribute paid to happiness in modern times was its mention at the opening of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on behalf of the Thirteen United States of America on July 4, 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Buddhism, which inspires the majority of Sri Lankans, teaches its followers what is claimed to be the true nature of existence - its unsatisfactoriness, and the way of emancipation from that state of suffering. “Craving” is identified as the agent that perpetuates suffering by a process whereby a person comes into being again and again. The elimination of craving by the individual through the practice of the specific spiritual conduct suggested by the Master is shown to be the way to the realization of the supreme bliss of nibbana (freedom from the defilement of desire or craving). Buddhism also teaches how to live a happy life in this world in a way that is compatible with the practice of virtue. References to “sukha” (happiness) are as frequent as references to “dukkha” (suffering); on the whole, a follower of the teaching of the Buddha should always be happy, calm and confident amidst the vicissitudes of mundane existence. (The remarkable resilience that our people have demonstrated in the face of disastrous experiences such as the December 2004 tsunami and the recently concluded terrorist scourge may be attributed to the effect of this positive frame of mind inculcated in them by Buddhist teachings.) Contentment (santhutti) – a feeling of quiet happiness and satisfaction with one’s own lot acquired through wisdom – is praised as the supreme asset that one could possess. The Greek philosopher Socrates (469-399 BCE) echoes a similar view: “Good food and rich clothes, all possible luxuries, are what you call happiness, but I believe that a state of being where one wishes for nothing is the greatest of all bliss. To be able to approach the greatest happiness one must get used to being satisfied with little”. Religions which are based on other world-views too teach their adherents the way to liberate themselves from the imperfections of worldly existence, and attain to a state of everlasting happiness. All religious systems teach us how to achieve this ultimate liberation from the unsatisfactoriness of earthly life .

Generally, the ultimate happiness that each faith teaches as its summum bonum is achievable only after the extinction of an individual’s life on earth. However, the highest form of happiness that one can realize before death is that which results from a life of contemplation according to the traditions of religious and philosophical thinking both of the East and the West. Aristotle spoke about three kinds of happiness: the first is the happiness experienced by “ordinary” people (who, in contemporary terms, we may think of as those of the working class who are rightly or wrongly considered to equate happiness with immediate pleasures such as drinking, watching a play or a cricket match, etc); the second is the happiness of people of “superior refinement”, that is, the educated, sophisticated, and the materially better off who rely on achieving long-term goals such as career or business success to be happy; and the third, which Aristotle identified as the highest form of happiness, is the happiness produced by a contemplative life.

However valuable or exalted the happiness derived from a tranquil life of meditation may be, not everyone can pursue such happiness except perhaps occasionally; it will appeal to only a handful of individuals as we implied before. It is not suitable for ordinary people who want to raise a family, follow a profession, and fulfil obligations towards others, in short for people for whom “renunciation” is still not an option. Therefore let us focus on the temporal sort of happiness that is relevant to us all.

I mean the kind of less ethereal happiness that certain seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophers such as John Locke (1632-1704) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) defined. They argued that happiness correlates to the number of pleasures in one’s life. University of London psychology teacher Michael W. Eysenck, the author of HAPPINESS – Facts and Myths (1990), says that this attitude corresponds more closely to contemporary thought and that it manages to rid views of happiness from what he calls “moralistic overtones”: “… pleasure enhances happiness regardless of whether our pleasure derives from disreputable and reprehensible activities or from noble self-sacrifice”. As I understand it, the author means that according to contemporary thinking happiness is amoral (non-ethical, morally neutral like the gods in ancient Greek mythology). But perhaps, this is not what he actually means, for one of the philosophers Eysenck refers to approvingly, Bentham, holds that all actions are right that promote “the happiness of the greatest number”. Will “disreputable and reprehensible activities” promote the happiness of the greatest number?

Where there’s a society there must be common ethical standards of behaviour that ensure its survival and the freedom of the individuals within it to enjoy all the benefits of living in such a community; individuals cannot conduct themselves in ways that obstruct the others’ freedom to do the same. Can a person indulge in an activity that brings them pleasure, but simultaneously wrecks the happiness of others (like rape for instance), and still be described as happy? However, there may be societies, or societies within societies, that hold a different view.

I think that, except in a totally selfish materialistic society, a pre-requisite for happiness is relative freedom from the idea of self. Reaching out to others is essential for personal happiness. Long time Oxford University social psychology professor Michael Argyle (1925-2002) who was fondly called the “Professor of Happiness” on obituaries on his death at 77 in September 2002 after a swimming accident from which he never recovered believed that good relationships are one of the factors that account for an individual’s happiness. His book “The Psychology of Happiness” (1987, 2nd edition 2001) contains a discussion of his empirical findings. One of these findings is that happiness is certainly enhanced by relationships, sex, eating, exercise, music, success, etc, but probably not by wealth. He, together with his colleague at Oxford University Peter Hills, developed the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (containing twenty-nine items) with simple instructions for computing an individual’s Happiness Score. I am reproducing below some sample questions (with their serial numbers) from this questionnaire:

1) I don’t feel particularly pleased with the way I am.
2) I am interested in other people.
15) I am very happy.
28) I don’t feel particularly healthy.
29) I don’t have particularly happy memories of the past.

In a later comment, Professor Argyle said that an averagely happy person gets a score of 4 (in terms of the scoring method that is explained, which I have not given here).

Positive psychology researchers like Michael Argyle describe three kinds of happiness (not very different from the three types identified by Aristotle): pleasure, engagement, and meaning. According to him, happiness consists not only of positive emotions, but positive activities as well. Argyle believed that dancing is the happiest activity that one can participate in. Professor Argyle himself had a passionate love of Scottish country dancing.

We know when we are genuinely happy, because we feel happy when we are happy. But it is not so easy to say if someone else is truly happy or not unless we see evidence of the same in their verbal and non-verbal communication. This is because people try to hide negative feelings from others; they consider it improper or unseemly to betray such feelings to those around, something that psychologists call “social desirability bias”. British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) claimed that “the most universal and distinctive mark of the happy man” is zest. However, a person could still be pretending to be happy, unless their happiness is borne out by other signs as well.

Sources:
Eysenck, Michael W., Happiness – Facts and Myths, 1990. University of London.
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.

Concluded

Much Ado about Nothing

2010-07-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Much Ado about Nothing?
By
Rohana R. Wasala
(First published in The Island in two parts on 2nd & 3rd July 2010)

As an ordinary citizen and an English language teaching (ELT) professional with some experience, I have no quarrel with the notion of Sri Lankan English/es or the idea of a standard form of it being advocated for teaching in our country, provided that the two basic questions of what Sri Lankan English is, and why it should be promoted are answered to the satisfaction of all the stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, authorities, and the general public), and the move supported on a principled basis. Unless and until this is done the current debate will prove to be much ado about nothing.

It is not that these questions have already been dealt with by those competent to do so; what is identified by linguists as Sri Lankan English is even being codified it is claimed. However, apparently, it is only now that public discussion of the matter with a real sense of seriousness is taking shape. This is the time that the future course of the whole exercise (i.e. the implementation of the Standard Sri Lankan English proposal) is to be charted.

My sincere wish is not to tread on the toes of scholars who are known to have done much painstaking research in the field, or challenge their conclusions, but to explain, for what it’s worth, a commonsense opinion that I have had for a long time regarding the matter, something that may have been implicit in my earlier articles about ELT in Sri Lanka.

If the language of the writings of the scholars should be taken as exemplifying the Standard Sri Lankan English that they are advocating as a model – and I believe it should - , then those who fear that Sri Lankan English is “broken English” or a “substandard” variety will definitely come round to supporting their idea, and stop raising objections. The reason is that the English employed in the writings of the researchers represents a specimen of what used to be, and still is, popularly perceived as “Standard English”. This is also why I am tempted to believe that adherents of that variety (for which other names could be suggested such as international English, English English, global English, supranational English, etc) need not fear that the adoption of Sri Lankan English will be tantamount to an unwarranted adulteration of English for our children.

Although I cannot claim to have a complete understanding of what Sri Lankan English (SLE) specifically consists of in the experts’ view, my assumption is that it cannot be significantly different from what used to be taught in Sri Lankan schools in the past in terms of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. (The so-called “elocution English”, by the way, was rarely part of the language fare placed before our children in the past, except perhaps in a few urban schools .) As to the multiplicity of acceptable SLE dialects, one might say that it is impossible to accommodate all of them in any basic language teaching context where a single identifiable “standard” must perforce be the basis of instruction, and where the extremely unhelpful, chaotic “anything goes” linguistic permissiveness should be avoided. It is clear that there’s no reason to worry on this score.

An English language aficionado of an earlier generation than mine (a “master” of English, a so-called “compound” bilingual, but engaged in another discipline) in a casual discussion with me some time ago about what possibly might be termed Sri Lankan English, piqued by my sympathy for a “newfangled” idea that he strongly disapproved of, condemning the deviations from “the Standard” that he suspected SLE involved, asked me how I would describe the English I was taught as a kid at school in the 1960s (While my interlocutor was a product of English medium education, I learned my English as a second language at a later time); it was obvious to me that he expected me to say “Standard (British) English”. But I said “Sri Lankan English (!) although probably it was not identified as such at that time”. And I went on to explain to him what I meant by that answer.

What else could you expect us to learn from our teachers who were our compatriots except Sri Lankan English? True, they most probably believed that they were using British English; but they used it as Sri Lankans, infusing typically Sri Lankan elements such as a characteristic Sinhalese or Tamil accent in pronunciation, colloquial coinages reflecting the local social and linguistic backgrounds, or even slightly modified grammatical features into their English, thereby unconsciously turning the supposed “British English” into a form of “Sri Lankan English”, but experienced no difficulty in being well received both among their own people and outsiders who similarly used “Standard” English.

However, our teachers didn’t make an issue of this involuntary “Sri Lankanness” of their English; they helped us to speak English “our way” without saying so, and also to avoid what were condemned at that time as “Ceylonisms” – identified as errors which were due to sheer ignorance or negligence. But when we had an occasional opportunity to listen to native British or American speakers of English, we were able to understand them without difficulty; they understood what we said to them in “our” English. When we encountered other foreigners who had learnt English as a foreign or second language like us, again we were able to carry on a conversation with them in English quite easily. We understood without being taught that different people from around the world, and even within the country, spoke English differently, but that English was English whoever spoke it in whatever way they found it natural for themselves; but we never thought about English in terms of varieties (and this didn’t harm our learning English). We grasped instinctively that English is one language, though spoken in different ways.

Much later in life we realized that what we had been taught was actually a local version of British English, which could have been described as Sri Lankan English. And it was not considered inferior to the “real” thing, but identical with it in grammar and vocabulary with a negligibly few naturally inevitable deviations. As to formal written English, we expected to find no difference between “our” English and “their” English.

Of course, at that time, as we still do perhaps, we had an insignificant minority of locals – members of the “Kultur clique” as we heard them nicknamed - who put on a “posh” accent. This we knew to be fake, and we reserved the deepest contempt for the accent and the people who stupidly flaunted it as a mark of prestige which they arrogated to themselves. We even discovered, in a few cases at least, that they didn’t know enough “good” English to go with their “posh” accent! Once, in the first half of the 70s decade, we heard about how a high official of the country’s educational establishment, a left-leaning academic from the university, dealt with a female English teacher (a Sinhalese and one of the “posh” crowd) who had come to him to complain about being denied success at her final exam at the training college because, as she assumed, she had failed in the compulsory elementary Sinhala language paper. She angrily referred to her successful colleagues, the hoi polloi, who, in her opinion, didn’t know good English, but knew their Sinhala, and passed the exam: “Un Sinhala dannawa ne!” (They know their Sinhala!) she said. The Sinhalese pronoun “un” was in this context an insulting equivalent of the English pronoun “they”. The official quipped: “Un dekama dannawa!” (They know both!). This might be an apocryphal story, but it was an indication of the already diminished prestige of the so-called English speaking elite and their English about forty years ago. (I wonder why we should be talking so much about the alleged “hegemony” of this class over ELT in Sri Lanka today.)

We considered it a great achievement for us to be able to converse with an English speaking tourist, especially a native English speaker, if we got a chance for that kind of experience as we occasionally did! It represented for us encouraging proof of our proficiency in the language. (Many present-day youngsters learning English, particularly from rural areas, display the same attitude, which I have had the opportunity to observe; they like to talk in English with foreigners because, in such a situation, they feel compelled to use English as the only medium of communication available, and also least worried about making “mistakes” unlike in the presence of their own teachers. It is not that they want to speak like native speakers; but they seem to believe, like their parents probably, that what the British or Americans speak is “real” English, the origin of the English language they are actually trying to learn.)

I think today’s young Sri Lankans, including the English teachers among them, are almost totally impervious to the servile “colonial mentality” which some of their counterparts in the pre-1956 era were guilty of, in contexts involving English. I have a hunch that to talk about elitism, hegemony, etc is just flogging a dead horse! It is more a case of students, teachers, and parents (who are aware enough of the controversy) being concerned that what is going to be foisted on them (as they see it) is something that will sound a mere lingo to the outside world, though there’s no doubt that such an attitude is unwarranted.

Since a language is a thing that constantly changes in the hands of its users in response to numerous conditions such as the nature of the purposes for which it is used and the contexts in which it is used, both defining and clinging on to a standard are wellnigh impossible tasks. This is true of all human languages including global English/es and Sri Lankan English/es. A language is a tool that changes as we use it, which makes both teaching and learning it problematic, especially a foreign language like English (We shouldn’t forget that English is a foreign language to the vast majority of our people, although it is sometimes claimed to be an indigenous language based on the 10% (?) or so of the population who have any proficiency in the language). Since ELT matters touch the destiny of the whole population, concern should be shown when what is deemed to be commonly acceptable to this minority as a standard dialect is recommended for all to follow.

The reason for saying this is bound up with the basic question “Why should we teach/learn this particular brand of English?”. First, there’s the need to justify the teaching/learning of English. Justifying the English language cause is the easiest task in this context. In spite of the fact that English is still identified by the majority as something that came from outside in unfortunate circumstances that subjected a proud nation to political subjugation, national humiliation, economic exploitation, and cultural subversion, its utilitarian value for us has always been appreciated since Independence. We still court English despite the inglorious history of its association with Sri Lanka because of its utility. But in what way is English useful to us? Is English needed for general domestic communication? No, we have Sinhala and Tamil for that; there are minority communities with their own native tongues such as Malay, Bengali, Vedda language, etc. A minority use English as their mother tongue. The majority of those who learn English do so to use it as a second language in the academia, in work-related situations, in business, law, politics, and so on. Some may use English as their first language in such contexts (if the term “first language” is taken to mean the language that one functions in). Such situations do not exclude a choice between English and a local language, even though a sound enough education is unthinkable without English. In addition to this, there is a sphere that leaves us with no option other than English as an adequate linguistic medium: international communication that affects every aspect of our country’s existence. In the highly globalized world of today, we are obliged to possess an effective medium through which to interact with other nations in every conceivable area of activity, be it politics, trade, diplomacy, education, research, technology, justice, communications, entertainment, sport, or anything else.

Someone might say, not every Sri Lankan is going to or is required to communicate with the outside world. Well, I am sure that at least in one area every Sri Lankan will be compelled to take part in international communication. This area is the world of information, the dotcom world. And, through which language will it be most convenient for us Sri Lankans to access this world? English, of course. This needs no arguing.

If, in ELT, we are compelled to decide on the type of English we must teach our young in order that they will be best equipped to profitably access the treasure-house of world knowledge through the computer, should it be a variety of the language that naturally alienates them from that world, or one that will integrate them into the global community of English language users? Obviously, the latter.

Sri Lankan English would be more relevant in contexts of day-to-day informal communication within the country, and in the production of creative literature than in the academia, and other domains such as international diplomacy, media, trade etc where an educated, formal, scientific, regionally unmarked form of English is demanded. For most Sri Lankans, the latter forms the main motive for learning English. And much of the English they must learn lies beyond the borders of Sri Lanka, as it were.

It is a fact that the English that we must teach our children lies more outside the country than inside. There’s an ever expanding world of knowledge, science, technology, literature, and the rest beyond our tiny island which is accessible to our children, whether they be in urban or rural areas, through the Web, provided the necessary facilities are supplied. Literature both scientific and creative generated in other languages gets constantly translated into English. And nothing but English is the gateway to this world. The English we teach our children should enable them to access and utilize this great resource not only for gaining knowledge about various subjects, and sharing information with their counterparts beyond our borders, but also for enhancing their mastery of the language itself. The Internet offers the richest, most easily accessible, and the least expensive resource for help with English, once the basic facilities are provided; there are so many free English teaching/learning websites (along with commercial ones for those who can afford them); teachers must be trained to find these for their students.

Professor J. Donald Bowen of the US (FORUM, 1977) refers to four useful criteria that should be considered when determining the degree of importance of a variant of an international language like English that is offered as a model for language instruction. He considers the relative importance of a variety as a key factor that affects its choice as an appropriate standard. The four criteria are: the number of its speakers, the quality of the literary tradition established in the particular variant, the amount of non-literary creativity expressed in research and development, and the function of the variety. Only a very small percentage of the Sri Lankan population speak any English; there’s not much to talk about a highly developed literary tradition, to which context perhaps Sri Lankan English would be most relevant; research publications, if any, are required to be in a formal academic register usually addressed to an international audience, leaving little room for regional dialectal features to be prominent; in terms of function Sri Lankan English could be important in informal conversational situations, but the real value of English for Sri Lankans lies in its being a vehicle of knowledge and global communication, which domains demand as regionally unmarked a form of English as possible.

So, my opinion is that we should leave such fine distinctions as those between British English, American English, Indian English, and Sri Lankan English to be the concern of linguists, language experts, and course designers. It will be a futile exercise to ask the students or parents or even the average young English teachers that we have today to express their opinion about the choice of “Sri Lankan English” as our standard, because we can’t expect them to be generally well informed about the relative merits of various varieties of English. When I say that those two basic questions (what’s SLE and why?) should be explicitly answered, I may appear to be contradicting myself. What I am suggesting is that by doing so the course designers will be removing the misgivings that have arisen in the minds of those concerned about the usefulness of promoting what is described as “Sri Lankan English”, instead of just “English”.

The popular wish among the English language learners and their parents is for the former to be taught English, not what they tend to view suspiciously as a devalued form of English called Sri Lankan English, however mistaken they may be from the experts’ point of view.

Let’s ensure that our teachers master the kind of English that the advocates of SLE themselves write (their speech can only correspond to this); let’s give them a good pedagogical training, and compile appropriate textbooks and other materials, incorporating sections that encourage the learners to draw on the Internet for autonomous learning. Let experts talk about varieties among themselves, but let us teach our children just “English”. I am sure this will not involve any changes to what is already being done, but perhaps an appropriate shift of focus from linguistics to applied linguistics.

Concluded

Sri Lankan English and English Language Teaching

2010-06-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

Sri Lankan English and English Language Teaching
by
Rohana R.Wasala
(This present article appeared in the Midweek Review of The Island newspaper on 23rd June 2010)

A truncated version of this article first appeared in The Ceylon Daily News of Wednesday April 24, 2002 under the title “Sri Lankan English? The question of an acceptable model”. The same article in its complete original form, though now naturally dated, is being offered here to the Island readers because of the relevance of its subject to the current revitalized state English Language Teaching (ELT) enterprise. I have slightly edited it without altering its general content - RRW.

The reality that we encounter in the English language teaching domain today is that we no longer can claim that there is a single form of English which we could adopt as the universal standard; instead we have many standards, all equally correct and acceptable. We are obliged to talk about Englishes, not English.

The multiplicity of standard forms of English is a formidable problem for the practical teacher in the language classroom. In Sri Lanka where we teach English as a second language at all levels from the primary to the tertiary we obviously cannot tell our pupils, “Unlike in the past we now believe that there are many acceptable standard Englishes, not just one. You must learn the variety of English that is the most appropriate one for you”. Such advice may be enlightening to people who already know their English quite well. Where learners are concerned, it is teachers who must deal with the problem of “standard” in terms of which they may arbitrate on matters of linguistic acceptability/correctness.

This is where “the importance of advocating a standard for the language” comes. In fact, the question regarding a suitable standard for us to adopt in teaching English as a second language is in the process of being settled by local scholars in a context where the “many Englishes” idea is accommodated. This means that a standard Sri Lankan variety of English is being identified. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty, controversy and unfinished work surrounding the subject, which is naturally likely to put off those who, in any case, have not taken kindly to what appear to be deviations from the “standard English” of yesteryear.

The main aim of this present article is to suggest how “old” views about “correct” English could probably be reconciled with current perceptions and practices as far as “Sri Lankan English” is concerned. Let us have a closer look at the situation.

It is well known that the English language has never had anything like the academie francaise of France, i.e. a central authority invested with the power of regulating its use. Nevertheless, over the last two hundred years or so of its roughly 1500 year history to date the two predominant varieties – British English and American English – have provided models of accuracy or standards against which to judge the acceptability of the language in use. Although these two major English dialects have existed as two distinct standards, the divergences between them in terms of grammar and vocabulary are minimal; even the differences in spelling and pronunciation (which are more readily noted) are never so wide as to render them mutually incomprehensible in the least. In effect, they represent nearly identical models of correctness.

However, with the recent emergence of English as the global medium of science, technology, industry, trade, culture, computer, communications, etc the function of serving as a measure of authenticity is being rapidly decentralized away from the native British and American standards to peripheral non-native forms of English such as Canadian, Caribbean and Indian. In other words, there is a growing tendency among users of English as a foreign or second language in different regions around the globe to consider the varieties of English evolving in their own sociocultural contexts to be as “respectable” as, and, for their particular purposes, even more effective and efficient than, Standard American or British English.

Consequently, it is difficult today to talk about one single authoritative form of English. Rather it is the case that there are a number of Standard “Englishes” - a notion that could be reprehensible to some of us who were educated when the English we were taught was securely bound to the flagship of Standard British English (or whatever was locally supposed to constitute it) and characteristic deviations from “the norm” among the local users of the language, whether they resulted from an imperfect mastery of the standard or from natural sociolinguistic causes, were rightly or wrongly outlawed as erroneous forms, or as “Ceylonisms”.

While the persistent conservative standpoint is understandable, the global trend appears to be an accommodating attitude towards the phenomenon of a plurality of Standard Englishes. In terms of this tendency which may, in fact, be seen at one level as a manifestation in the field of language of a certain desire amongst previously colonized peoples for emancipation from lingering Western dominance, some of us in Sri Lanka too might feel justified in trying to adopt a Standard English of our own. If what could be identified as the local educated variety of English is to be accepted as our autonomous model, this must be done in such a way as not to depress even further the already low levels of competence in English among our students.

It is even possible to imagine a worse scenario than the mere decline of proficiency levels: the threatened extinction in Sri Lanka of English as we know it today, or its final degeneration into an autonomous tongue, a creole perhaps, alienated from the rest of the world! However, where English is concerned, such fears may be baseless because the centrifugal movement towards diversity is being countered by an opposite movement towards uniformity in the context of easy international communication and the virtual obliteration of national borders due to globalization.

David Graddol writes in his The Future of English? (London: British Council, 1997) “The widespread use of English as a language of wider communication will continue to exert pressure towards global uniformity as well as give rise to anxieties about ‘declining’ standards, language change and the loss of geolinguistic diversity. But as English shifts from foreign- language to second- language status for an increasing number of people, we can also expect to see English develop a larger number of local varieties” (Graddol, 1997, p.56).

In the same context Graddol attributes these opposite strains that English is presently undergoing to the fact that “… English has two main functions in the world: it provides a vehicular language for international communication and it forms the basis for constructing cultural identities…”. The former pushes towards uniformity, intelligibility and common standards, whereas the latter tends to lead towards fragmentation through the creation of local forms and hybrid varieties.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that English is in any danger of breaking up into an infinity of mutually unintelligible dialects. The diversity of varieties of English is nothing new after all. Different brands of English have always existed. What is new is that with the unprecedented expansion of its adoption in every part of the world this plurality of standard forms of English has become more evident than before.

The best future we may perhaps extrapolate for English from the current trends is that, notwithstanding the localizing movements leading to “polycentrism” (i.e. a number of standard forms), the momentum towards global uniformity will prevail and that, as a result, “a supranational” (Graddol’s phrase) will emerge, transcending all these competing “native” and regional varieties. Strevens (1992), quoted by Graddol, speculates that the ELT industry will play a significant role in maintaining such an international standard for both communication and teaching purposes. The prevailing tendency though is towards the recognition of non-native regional models.

The replacement of what once enjoyed a monolithic status as the correct form of English with a regional variety will obviously have important implications for ELT activity as well as international communication. While lack of uniformity could hinder easy exchange of information, it may also pose problems for ELT practitioners in the matter of designing curricula and compiling teaching materials. Nevertheless, the current advocacy of a standard Sri Lankan variety of English for teaching will not, I believe, lead to such a complete break with the native varieties of English,( especially British and American, however protean and elusive to boot these themselves may be) as to hamper our communication with the outside world. Curriculum designing, material preparation, and other pedagogical problems will not be insurmountable obstacles either.

Probably a major reason for championing a local brand of English in our country is the recognition of the changed image and function of English as opposed to its past. Under the British, it was the language of administration and business, associated with elitism and power, and the colonialists restricted its availability to a subservient minority for their own purposes. Even for most of the half century of independence since 1948 English has been almost exclusively the prerogative of the power-wielding national bourgeoisie. As a result of the spirit of resurgent nationalism which swept the country in the wake of Independence (and which culminated in the 1956 political changes), English was given a back seat in the national consciousness, but this was temporary. Even during this time, Sri Lanka’s educational policy makers were not oblivious of the importance of English for the development of the country through education. A programme was implemented to teach English as a second language to all school children irrespective of their social class.

Education through the medium of national languages began to be available to far larger numbers of students than education through the medium of English ever was under colonial rule. This immensely benefited many children of the dispossessed classes who were previously denied that opportunity. A rapid expansion of mother tongue education happened broadly between the 1960’s and 1980’s during which period English education was virtually downgraded. The reality today is that English is being restored to its position of prominence in all important spheres – education, economic development, communication, business, industry, etc. Most of all, there is a widespread reawakening to the immense significance of English in the field of education.

The vast majority of those who learn English intend to use it as a second language, especially in education and work. First language English is still confined to a small percentage of the population. Therefore English is mainly important for us as a second language.

Local academics in the field generally assume that we have a distinctly identifiable variety of English with its own characteristic pronunciation, vocabulary and idiom. However, as outlined in The Oxford Companion to the English Language (ed. Tom McArthur, 1992), Sri Lankan English “… is not itself a monolithic system; it consists of a range of subvarieties based on proficiency in it and the users’ language background. It is in fact a subvariety of South Asian English similar to Indian English with which it shares many features…”

Out of this range of subvarieties the form of English that is normally used by educated Sri Lankans is the one that can be described as Standard Sri Lankan English, which is the variety generally accepted as correct. I believe that the educated variety of Sri Lankan English derives from what used to be regarded as Standard British English. The reason is that the British have dominated general education in Sri Lanka including the teaching of English during most of our two hundred year association with them. Particularly in educated English medium discourse we used to believe that we were following the British standard. Even our conscious accommodation of the other major national standard – the American variety – began relatively recently. Out of all major forms of English, it is “British” English that is most readily intelligible to us in its spoken and written forms. The other varieties are comprehensible to us to the extent that they resemble the (assumed) standard British model.

The “British” habit is so ingrained in us, at least in some of us, that we should be excused if we appear to cling on to a so-called British Standard that is being debunked, and exorcised by modern linguists. Yet, I believe that this British connection is an essential link between the Sri Lankan variety that is being advocated, and the global English that is probably emerging in the world at large.

In this context, the usual confusion between standard and accent must be resolved. The standard form of a language is the form that enjoys the greatest prestige in educational and official contexts, in the media, and in writing systems; accent usually refers to features of pronunciation that reveal a speaker’s regional or social background. There was a time when Standard British English was identified with RP (Received Pronunciation) among native British speakers. Today this is no longer the case. Standard English is now spoken with a variety of accents. The “Standard” is maintained more in grammar and vocabulary (not without occasional lapses) than in pronunciation. Even in Britain, only about 3% of the population are said to speak RP.

RP could never be a model for our ELT purposes. Perhaps it never was. Naturally, as speakers of our own native languages whose sound systems are significantly different from each other as well as from English, we cannot pronounce English the way either the native or other non-native speakers of the language do unless we undergo special training to do so. We must adopt our own Sri Lankan accent, which itself is heterogeneous on account of the diversity of the mother tongue backgrounds within Sri Lanka. I think that since the time that Sri Lankans started learning English in a local context they have always been using their characteristic accents, because they cannot acquire any other accent in their specific circumstances: their teachers usually share the same mother tongues; they start learning English as a second language only after they have mastered the sound system of their native language, and so on.

Of course, there are a few who try to put on a “posh” accent, which is nothing but a ludicrous attempt to improvise what they imagine to be a “native-speaker-like” pronunciation.

Many foreigners would say that our mastery of English grammar and vocabulary is excellent, but that our pronunciation is not quite so good. This is perhaps not a fair assessment. Non-native speakers of a language can rarely achieve native-speaker pronunciation unless specially trained. Most English speech sounds are new to us; some of our own sounds are not even remotely identical with them. Where a competent teacher’s guidance is not available for the correct production of authentic English sounds, second language learners tend to substitute approximate native (i.e. mother tongue) equivalents for them.

English pronunciation can be problematic for our students for two basic reasons among others: the first is the novelty of certain English phonemes; the second, the far more difficult but also more significant problem concerns their lack of familiarity with the syllable stress and intonation patterns of English. In English it is important to stress the correct syllables to convey meaning. We do not have this feature in Sinhala, and when we speak English, our delivery is a flat even flow of speech without the correct pattern of stresses that a native speaker of English would generally produce.

Foreigners will find it difficult to understand our English speech if we fail to produce reasonably authentic English sounds and stress patterns. Since we learn English for international/global communication as a major aim of our effort, our commitment to a totally “Sri Lankan” model of English should not be at the expense of mutual intelligibility with other varieties of English, not only at the level of grammar and vocabulary, but also at the level of accent (“accent” here is intentionally simplified to mean characteristic features of pronunciation that signal the second language speakers’ mother tongue background).

Our target need not be a British or American accent, but a natural Sri Lankan pronunciation approximating the normal or neutral English pronunciation we hear around the world. The two major “native” varieties of English (British and American) which are really merging into each other, are closer to this nascent form of “global English” than any other manifestation of English. We need not bother about being able to copy a supposed native-speaker pronunciation; but we should aim at the mastery of basic phonemic distinctions and stress patterns, which are likely to cause us trouble as non-native speakers of English, but which are essential for universal comprehensibility.

The pronunciation of educated Sri Lankan speakers of English is yet to be described, and pronouncing dictionaries compiled by researchers; adequate linguistic corpora must be put together to define and describe the “educated Sri Lankan variety of English”; reference books must be written to guide teachers and students and language teaching materials have to be produced, too.

Until such time as these are ready we should turn to source materials and other relevant literature produced by native British and American authors and non-native experts who are close to the two major national standards. Going after the Indian or Caribbean varieties just to spite the alleged “English power base” will not take us anywhere.

The reason for making such an assertion is my belief that anything that is identified as Standard Sri Lankan English cannot be very different from the English found in international circulation, whose remarkable common core uniformity is due to its general similarity to the two predominant “native” standards (i.e. British and American) in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation within manageable limits. Our local standard should not alienate itself from the English of global communication.

Thus, staying close to British and American English will be to our advantage. A too exclusively Sri Lankan variety of English, which may entail the tolerance of obvious but typical Sri Lankan solecisms (that deviate from what could be considered as the emergent neutral international standard) can lead to problems relating to global intelligibility. As Professor J.D. Bowen of USA once pointed out, second language Englishes tend to deviate from each other more and in more directions than native Englishes in which the dialects are mutually supportive.

The ground realities in the local ELT scene should not be forgotten. When we talk about the “abysmal failure” of the local English language teaching programme, we still think of our failure to teach the traditional variety of English we have always been concerned with, that is, the local version of British English; we gauge the proficiency of teachers in terms of their mastery of that variety. If the adoption of the “local standard” includes the acceptance of usages previously condemned as “non-standard” and, more importantly, as interfering with efficient communication on that account, then such an innovation will not lead to any amelioration of the current ELT situation.

Concluded

Buddhism is introduced to the little island kingdom

2010-06-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

Buddhism is introduced to the little island kingdom
(First published in the Sunday Times/ 15th June 2003)
The colonization of the island by a North Indian tribe and the subsequent introduction of Buddhism can be described as the two most significant events in the early history of Sri Lanka. The Buddhist monks who committed them to recorded history, about seven hundred years later, richly embellished the stories relating to these events with legendary details. However, their historical authenticity is well borne out by a profusion of evidence. While the account of the landing of Prince Vijaya and his retinue in the island lends itself to controversy among scholars as regards its actual date and the contemporary historical context, the introduction of Buddhism took place in historically more verifiable circumstances. It was in 247 BC during the reign of the Indian monarch Asoka (269-232 BC).
Emperor Asoka was the grandson of Chandragupta of the Mauryan clan, who reigned over the whole of North India in the last quarter of the fourth century BC. Fascinated by the calm and composed demeanour of a young Buddhist samanera (a novice monk) named Nigrodha, he invited him to the palace and inquired into the teaching of the sage whose disciple he was. The monk's explanation of the Buddha Dhamma appealed to the king, who had been traumatized by the horrendous scale of suffering that he himself had caused to hundreds of thousands of people during his military conquest of Kalinga. He became an ardent Buddhist and with single-minded devotion adopted Buddhist principles in the administration of his far-flung empire, assuming the role of 'father' to his subjects whom he called his 'children'. His edicts inscribed on rock and metal (which can still be seen all over India) communicated royal messages and admonitions; their express purpose was the moral edification and physical well being of his people.
"This astonishing ruler," writes Jawaharlal Nehru in his 'Discovery of India' (1946), "beloved still in India and many other parts of Asia, devoted himself to the spread of Buddha's teaching, to righteousness and goodwill and to public works for the good of the people..."
After embracing Buddhism, Asoka turned his mind from military conquest to righteousness. He sent missionaries to all countries with which India had political and trade links like Sri Lanka, Syria, Egypt and Macedonia. To Sinhaladweepa he sent the Thera Mahinda (Asoka's own son according to popular tradition) and later his daughter Sangamitta, who brought with her a sapling from the Bodhi Tree at Buddha Gaya, under which Prince Siddhartha Gautama attained Enlightenment. This act of sending his own children as missionaries to Sri Lanka indicated that he had special concern for the little island kingdom to the south of his empire.
When the missionaries arrived here their work was facilitated by a number of favourable circumstances. The first was the royal patronage extended to them. There is reason to believe that there had been friendly relations between Emperor Asoka and King Devanampiya Tissa (250-210 BC) of Lanka even before the introduction of Buddhism. The second factor was that the missionaries spoke in a language not very different from the local one, i.e. Sinhala, which was most probably a fusion of the indigenous tongue with the Aryan tongue of the settlers. A third congenial circumstance was the absence of a well-organized religion in the relatively recently established colony, which meant that the new creed met no serious challenge or opposition. Probably the people of Lanka at that time were animists who worshipped local deities and demons. The Buddhist religion did not come into conflict with the indigenous cults because its preachers aimed to instill Buddhist virtues in the people, not to make them abandon their accustomed gods. Finally, the settled lifestyle made possible by the agricultural economy left the Sinhalese enough time for religious activities.
Within two centuries Buddhism spread to every inhabited part of the island. The religious uniformity gave the islanders of diverse tribes and classes a strong sense of unity. It was the common Buddhist values and cultural ideals that the monks instilled in the people that united them into a harmonious society.
The values taught by the monks appealed at least to the more intelligent members of the society. The law of karma was accepted as a more rational explanation of the vicissitudes of life than the mere caprice of gods and devils, and it made them understand that happiness and suffering were the result of their own actions in their present or past births.
The ethical teachings of Buddhism led them away from original barbarous practices and savage ways to a more civilized mode of life. Religious observances such as the Five Precepts gave them a sense of discipline, mental purity and orderliness. This obviously contributed to peace and harmony amongst the people, which eventually led to their material progress as well.
Cultural advancement was a natural concomitant of the conversion of the whole country to Buddhism. There is no evidence to suggest that there was any literary tradition in pre-Buddhist Lanka. The Buddhist scriptures constituted the first literary works that came to our country. The Aryan dialect in which these works were composed was Pali. The Sinhalese Buddhist monks used it for writing books. Borrowings from Pali especially in the areas of religion, ethics and philosophy immensely enriched the Sinhalese language. Buddhist themes and stories provided the subjects for religious and creative works that came to be composed in Sinhalese.
Another important development that came with Buddhism was the art of writing. The earliest inscriptions of Sri Lanka were made in the Brahmin script. The modern Sinhalese alphabet evolved from this system of writing.
The development of an impressive form of architecture was also due to the cultural changes that accompanied the arrival of Buddhism. Stupas and monasteries were prominent among the earliest architectural creations in the island. With the image-house becoming an essential feature of every vihara, the art of sculpture too started to flourish. The Buddhists had not made statues of the Master, in order not to identify Him with the gods of Hinduism; they had instead represented the Buddha by symbols such as the Footprint (Sri Pada), the Wheel of the Law (Dharmachakra) or the Umbrella (Chatra). The distinctive Buddhist art that the Sinhalese developed was inspired by the Indo-Bactrian art that flourished in India after the advent of the Greeks in that country under Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) in the fourth century BC.
The introduction of Buddhism, in which Emperor Asoka, Arahat Mahinda and King Devanampiya Tissa were the key figures, had a seminal influence over the growth of our culture. We believe that this event happened about two thousand three hundred years ago on a full moon day. The Poson Poya day, which this year fell on Saturday June 14, was observed in remembrance of this great event

Korean Jobs for Our English Teachers

2010-06-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

Korean Jobs for Our English Teachers: A Way to Eat the Cake and Have It Too
(This first appeared in the Midweek Review of the Island on Wednesday 9th June, 2010)
“Is the new Minister of Education getting off on the wrong foot?” I wondered when I first heard the news a few days ago that he had agreed to send some 2000 English teachers to work in South Korea. Reading the news item in the papers I felt that this was being touted as a significant achievement on his part, and even as a promise of similar achievements in the future. Although I wanted to express my worse than negative opinion about the matter in an article like this as a concerned citizen reasonably well informed regarding the local ELT scene, I desisted from actually doing so in the hopeful belief that persons with the necessary political influence closer to the decision-making circles would intervene before the proposal was implemented.

It is well known that the country is in critical need of teachers of English, especially for its rural districts, teachers with a high level of language proficiency, and professional acumen; it’s a problem of quality as well as quantity. We don’t have enough English teachers for our own needs; and the majority of the teachers we already have must be put through further education and training before they may be expected to do their job with a degree of success. In this context, offering to help another country in an area where we ourselves, willingly or unwillingly, depend on foreign assistance, is nothing short of a joke, something comparable to “a man too poor to clothe himself making dresses for his dogs”, to translate a local idiom.

To my knowledge, there has been no sign of the proposed move being challenged as it should among responsible people. The only protesting voice I heard was that of the All Ceylon Union of English Teachers (ACUET) as reported in The Island of Thursday 4th June 2010. The Union has appealed to the President on the basis of obvious reasons to put an end to the idea. Anyone with an iota of concern for the promotion of English language proficiency among our students, and a degree of appreciation of the presidential drive towards that goal would wholeheartedly agree with the ACUET’s position in this regard.

I had reached this point in my essay when I read the Sunday Island editorial today (6th June) on “Exporting English Teachers”. The Island editor hits the nail on the head as he always does regarding any matter of national importance. I share his utter disapproval of the scheme, and join him in asking “… in a situation where we could not guarantee the provision of quality English teachers to meet our own needs, to what degree could we satisfactorily meet South Korea’s needs of this kind?”

Yet, in my opinion, a totally negative reaction to a plan that many teachers and their families would consider as offering a golden opportunity to improve their economic status – could not be very popular among these key players in the field; they might feel aggrieved that they are being robbed of such an opportunity, and get demoralized. But, on the other hand, there probably is a way to turn the scheme into something positive for the country, both economically and educationally.

Suppose, in spite of everything, the authorities find themselves committed to carrying through some prior agreement with South Korea, or irresistibly attracted to the scheme because of some potential advantage for the country, and are thus unable to allow wiser counsel to prevail in this instance. Then probably, they could think of something like what I have just hinted at, a way to transform a potentially negative thing into a positive one. Let me elaborate.

If those responsible handle the scheme in a thoroughly professional way, free from all political interference, nepotism, patronage, etc. as a means to reward dedicated teachers who have performed well, with special recognition for having served in difficult areas, it will cancel out the likely deleterious fallout of such a scheme. Teachers who are to be sent presumably on a government-delegated basis should be signed for a stipulated, non-extendable period of contract; fresh batches of teachers may be similarly delegated for foreign employment in the future when those who have completed their periods of contract return.

The process of selecting teachers for such foreign employment will be naturally a complicated affair, but not prohibitively so. Not any and every teacher should be allowed to apply. Prospective applicants must produce an eligibility certificate issued by relevant local ELT authorities who are satisfied with their qualifications, competence, and proven performance (in terms of exam results achieved, supervisors’ testimonials, awards won, etc) with bonus points for difficult area service. The candidates must successfully take a written test that gauges their knowledge of English, followed by an oral examination with Korean and Sri Lankan ELT experts. The selection of teachers to be sent abroad should be done on this stringent basis.

Recruitment for service abroad after such an exacting selection process will be then considered as conferring on the selected teachers high professional recognition, which will be a milestone in their career, and will stand them in good stead when they apply for professional advancement in the future.

Such a scheme will be a godsend for the many conscientious teachers who already serve the nation in an exemplary manner in spite of the fact that, at present, there is little proper supervision of teachers, and even less recognition, and rewarding of good performance where it exists. This will generally encourage others to work well, too.

Selecting teachers indiscriminately on other than strictly professional grounds will run the risk of sending persons who are neither knowledgeable nor competent, which will only earn a bad name for the country; that kind of anomaly will spread disaffection among the more deserving teachers who get overlooked in the process. Besides, the Koreans will not be remiss in regularly supervising the foreign teachers they bring into their country at great expense, and in demanding value for their money. If they find that they are being cheated by a set of ill qualified, incompetent Sri Lankan teachers they will not hesitate to terminate their contract with us, and look elsewhere for recruiting the personnel they need. They are rich enough to choose the best for their children, be it teachers of English or anything else.

If Sri Lanka must send teachers of English to Korea, this should be accomplished in such a way that the crisis situation that exists in our own country’s English teaching arena is not aggravated. In fact, through proper management, the scheme could be exploited not only to attract qualified young people to the profession to fill in the vacancies left by teachers selected to serve abroad, but also to enhance their performance by offering a term of foreign employment as an incentive.

The Vesak Festival

2010-05-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

THE VESAK FESTIVAL

(The following is an updated version of an article of mine first published in The Island newspaper on 17^th May (the Vesak day) 2000)

The Vesak Full Moon Poya Day falls on the 27^th of this month. Buddhists traditionally believe that Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born, attained Enlightenment (after which he came to be known as the Buddha) and finally passed away on a Vesak Full Moon Poya Day. The Vesak festival celebrates these three important events in the life of the Buddha. The Sinhala Buddhists attribute an additional significance to this day: they believe that the Parinibbana (Passing Away) of the Buddha and the arrival of Prince Vijaya, the legendary founder of the Sinhalese race, in the island of Sri Lanka, both took place on a Vesak Full Moon Poya Day.

The manner of celebrating this religious festival among the Sinhalese Buddhists, as befits its fivefold significance, is such that it provides an occasion for a host of religious and cultural activities. This makes Vesak a deeply felt experience for Sri Lankan Buddhists.

Whereas the Sinhala Aluth Avurudda is a secular festival celebrated with much feasting, fun and frolic, the Vesak is an occasion to be observed with religious devotion and sensual restraint. Devotional practices form the core of the Vesak ceremonies. The colourful cultural events constitute a kind of background to these.

In Sri Lanka, where every full moon day is a public holiday (being of importance to the Buddhists, the majority religious community in the island, on account of some historical event connected with the Buddhist faith in each case) the Vesak Full Moon Poya day is accorded the highest recognition amongst all full moon days. Like the Aluth Avurudda (April New Year) the Vesak Poya Day is marked with two public holidays.

The first of these is the Vesak Full Moon day which is devoted to religious observances like observing ‘sil’ (taking a personal vow to follow certain precepts in order to develop self discipline), meditation, listening to the Dhamma sermons, and giving alms, etc. These activities are usually conducted at Buddhist viharas. Since in the Buddhist faith there is little religious regimentation in terms of obligatory daily observances (the practice of religion being regarded as an individual responsibility dependent on understanding and volition), the elaborate, formal devotional programmes that are organized on the Vesak Full Moon day are in sharp contrast to the rather low key daily religious practices of the ordinary Buddhists. These programmes usually attract a large number of devotees and thus ensure massive popular participation.

Public worship in Buddhism plays only a secondary role. It is important insofar as it leads the followers of the teaching of the Buddha to autonomous pursuit of virtue, which is the essence of religious devotion for a Buddhist. There is no belief in a ‘saviour’ and hence no necessity to ‘pray’ to a higher power; they only pay their homage to the Triple Gem (Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha), affirm their faith in them and commit themselves to the practice of the teaching.

An invariable part of the devotional performances is the offering of flowers, incense, and light to the Buddha. This is a symbolic act full of meaning to a Buddhist. The formulaic Pali stanza that the devotees utter as they offer flowers means: “I offer these flowers to the Buddha. By the merit earned thus, may I attain Emancipation from suffering! Just as these flowers will fade and die, so will my body decay, too”. Thus the act of offering flowers is accompanied by reflection on the condition of mutability, an inescapable characteristic of all existence, which is a central truth in the Buddhist teaching. The sweet scent of incense signifies the incomparable virtues of the Buddha, and light represents enlightenment that dispels the darkness of ignorance. In Buddhism wisdom takes precedence over faith.

“With Enlightenement Light arose! Wisdom arose!” so, what better way is there to worship the Buddha than to light lamps in His name on the Vesak night? The whole island is illuminated with Vesak lamps, which range from the humblest ‘meti pahan’ (clay lamps) to the most intricate electrically illuminated ‘Vesak lanterns’. The commonest form of Vesak lantern is the ‘bucket’, which is a bucket-shaped paper lamp with a candle stuck at its bottom.

Buckets are of different colours. These colours usually correspond to the colours of ‘Buddha rays’ – rays believed to emanate from the Buddha’s sacred person and form a halo. These are six in number: blue, yellow, red, white, crimson, and a mixture of all these colours. They form the circle of wisdom shown round the paintings and images of the Buddha in places of worship. They are also the colours of the Buddhist flag. Children take special delight in making Vesak lanterns following traditional as well as innovative new models. Myriads of these colourful lights can be seen on the Vesak nights. No Buddhist house is without some form of illumination to mark the Vesak. Even some non-Buddhists light lamps to express solidarity with their Buddhist neighbours and in appreciation of the message of peace and loving-kindness that the founder of Buddhism taught.

Among the thousands of Vesak illuminations that we can see are the ‘thoranas’ (arches, or ‘pandals’ as Sri Lankans call them in English), which are structures erected at such public places as markets and road junctions. They have facades on which are painted scenes from the Buddha’s life or pictures illustrating stories of religious significance. Often professional commentators describe in verse the scenes or stories depicted. On the Vesak nights thousands of sightseers move about the cities watching these ‘thoranas’. There used to be special ‘thorana service’ buses during the Vesak nights ferrying these sightseers around Colombo and the suburbs in the past before incidents of political violence disturbed the peace. (Let’s hope that those peaceful times are back for good!)

The Vesak ‘dansalas’ are another usual feature. These are temporary ‘alms centres’ which serve free food and drink as a charitable act to all those who wish to refresh themselves. The practice of giving is a cardinal virtue in Buddhism. It is connected with the idea of ‘renunciation’ – giving up worldly possessions in order to gradually eliminate ‘craving’, the root cause of being and suffering according to the Buddhist teaching.

Vesak greeting cards and carols are traditions borrowed from Christians. The exchange of Vesak cards is one way of sharing the joy of the season. The Vesak carol singers (due to another borrowed practice from Christians) are usually school children dressed in immaculate white; they go from place to place and sing the carols to the delight of the pious.

Thus the Vesak festival provides the opportunity for the Sri Lankan Buddhists to give creative expression to their religious and cultural ideals though a gamut of traditional activities. It is an important national event that reinvigorates their faith in their religion, and reaffirms their commitment to the principles of loving-kindness, peace and tolerance.

Aluth Avurudda - A Celebration of Life

2010-03-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

The Aluth Avurudda – A Celebration of Life

(This article was first published in The Island of 13th April 2001; it has later appeared in a number of international online publications at various times over the last decade. I notice that the published version of the article has acquired certain errors and omissions not found in my original. Here is the same article as I wrote it before offering it for publication, unaltered except for a few emendations. But I don’t claim that my article is now perfect; the shortcomings that still remain are mine. I have added some pictures to this version, by courtesy of Google Images.)

The Sinhala Hindu New Year – the Aluth Avurudda in Sinhalese – is celebrated in the month of Bak according to the Sinhalese calendar. The name ‘Bak’ derives from the Sanskrit word ‘bhagya’ meaning ‘fortunate’. The month of ‘Bak’ corresponds to April in the Gregorian calendar, which is commonly used in Sri Lanka today as it is in other parts of the world. Although there is usually little conspicuous seasonal change experienced in the course of the year in tropical Sri Lanka except for a relatively hot August and a relatively cool December, the month of Bak is associated with a delightful vernal atmosphere, and an unusual freshness in nature enhanced by spring blossoms and azure
skies despite occasional showers. This is also the time that the ripened paddy is gathered in, which gives rise to a pervasive sense of plenty, especially to rural Sri Lanka.

The Bak festive seaon centres around a national cultural event which is unique in a number of ways. The Sinhala Hindu New Year is probably the only major traditional festival that is commonly observed by the largest number of Sinhalese and Tamils in the country. Its non-ethnic non-religious character is another distinctive feature. This festival cannot be described as ethnic because it is celebrated by both the Sinhalese and the Tamils, yet not by all of them either: only the Sinhalese Buddhists and the Hindu Tamils participate in it, the Christians in both communities having nothing to do with it. On the other hand, it is a non-religious celebration in that not all Buddhists nor all Hindus in the world take part in it; only the Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus do. {I owe this description of the non-ethnic, non-religious nature of the Aluth Avurudda to Professor J.B.Dissanayake’s explanation of the subject in his booklet The April New Year Festival (Pioneer Lanka Publications. London.1993)}.

In terms of traditional astrological beliefs, the sun is said to complete one circular movement across the twelve segments of the zodiac in the course of the year, taking a month to traverse each constellation. The arbitrary beginning of this circular solar progress is taken to be Aries (Mesha), which is conventionally represented by the zodiacal sign of ‘the ram’. Having travelled from Aries to Pisces (Meena usually represented by the drawing of ‘two fish’), the sun must pass from Pisces to Aries to begin a new year. The solar new year (known as the Shaka calendar) is reckoned from this transit (sankranthi), which comes a week or two after the beginning of the new year according to the Sinhalese calendar. The Vesak Festival, which marks the dawn of the Buddhist new year, comes at least another month later. The Aluth Avurudda centres on the ‘transit’ of the sun from Pisces to Aries. It is remarkable for Sinhalese Buddhists to thus celebrate the beginning of the solar new year, rather than their own Buddhist new year. So the Aluth Avurudda appears to be in homage of the sun god, which is significant for an agrarian community.

Because of the increasing popular attention that it receives in Sri Lanka nowadays, the first of January seems to eclipse the New Year in April in terms of the popular recognition it enjoys. Those of us who enjoyed the Sinhala Aluth Avurudda as the main secular festival of the year may wonder with some justification whether it is now beginning to be shelved as yet another “cultural anachronism”.

This is indeed a regrettable state of affairs. Institutions such as the Aluth Avurudda and the various Esala Peraheras are vitally important cultural legacies we have inherited from the past, and they help sustain and define our identity as a people. In the face of the inexorable advance of modernism and globalization, the threat of cultural obliteration and loss of national identity is very real.

The Aluth Avurudda is a part of our rich cultural heritage, which includes among other similar treasures the historic dagabas, tanks, sculptures, paintings, and specimens of ancient literature. Who among us the inheritors of such an age old culture can be indifferent to the loss of this incomparable legacy? True, we must modernize, and participate in the emerging world order so as to keep pace with the rest of the international community in science and technology, and in the advancement of the general quality of living that it makes possible; yet, it would be most unfortunate if we were so foolhardy as to throw overboard the cherished possessions from the past in the name of progress.

These things have come down to us through the ages because they are ingrained in our history and culture. For thousands of years our ancestors – the inhabitants of this island - built up a highly organized agrarian civilization based on the principles of harmonious co-existence with nature, non-violence, tolerance and peace. The Aluth Avurudda wonderfully demonstrates our national ethos with its characteristic emphasis of the renewal and reaffirmation of goodwill within families and among neighbours, and in the series of ritualistic practices and observances that are meant to revitalize an essential link between human beings and nature.

I have vivid memories of how the Aluth Avurudda festivities were held in the remote villages of the Nuwara Eliya District in the late fifties and early sixties when we were young children. The Avurudda was an event we looked forward to for a whole year through interminable months of school, and ups and downs of childish fortunes (such as exam success or failure, friendship or fighting among playmates). At this time of the year we were invariably aware of a general awakening in nature. It was the time when the paddy was harvested and the fields were left fallow for a few weeks, allowing us children to romp about and play ‘rounders’; it was the time when exotic birds with bright plumage like the golden oriole sang from the flower-laden trees; it was the time when the humble dwellings of the peasants were cleaned and whitewashed, adding to the sunny brilliance of the surroundings. Unlike children today, we had more time to play, because tuition and cramming was almost unknown then and nature had not yet been replaced by TV and computer in engaging the aesthetic sense of the young. The impression we got from observing the multitude of ‘beauteous forms’ in the environment was that even nature joined us in our joy – a very positive sort of ‘pathetic fallacy’!

The sighting of the new moon was the first of the Avurudda rites. Then came ‘bathing for the old year’ as it was called, followed by the ‘nonagathe’ period (literally, a period without auspicious times); being considered inappropriate for any form of work, this idle period was entirely devoted to religious observances and play. Cooking and partaking of milkrice, starting work for the new year, anointing oil on the head, and leaving for work were the other practices. All these rites were performed at astrologically determined auspicious moments. Although belief in astrology and other occult practices is contrary to the spirit of Buddhism, in the villages it was the Buddhist monks themselves who prepared the medicinal oils in the temples and applied these on the heads of the celebrants, young and old, while chanting ‘pirith’ so as to ensure their good health for the whole year. In this way, the Aluth Avurudda traditions touched every important aspect of life: physical wellbeing, economy, religion, and recreation.

Children and adults walked in gay abandon about the village dressed in their new clothes visiting friends and relatives amidst the cacophony of ‘raban’ playing and the sound of firecrackers set off everywhere. The aroma of savoury dishes and smell of sweetmeats arose from every household. Visitors were plied with all sorts of sweetmeats. Amidst all this visiting, playing and merrymaking everybody was careful to be at home for the observance of the rites at appointed times.

It never occurred to us (or to our parents, I am sure) to question the necessity, or disbelieve the efficacy, of these rites. The sun was a god; the shining thing in the sky was not him, though; it was only his chariot! We really sympathized with him over the uncertainty and anxiety he was supposed to undergo during the interregnum between the demise of the old year and the dawn of the new, i.e. the period of ‘transit’ (sankranthi). The ‘Avurudu Kumaraya’ – the New Year Prince – was as real in our imagination as the Sun God. That we didn’t see him in flesh and blood was in the nature of things, too.

Today the Aluth Avurudda means much less to us than it did in the past. Our response to the theme of the festival has lost much of its emotional content. Those rites, auspicious times, and astrological beliefs are nothing more than irrelevant superstitions to many. Most of those who still follow the customs associated with the Aluth Avurudda do so as a concession to tradition, out of a sense of nostalgia. Our failure to participate in the joyous experience which the Aluth Avurudda was in our childhood is a very significant loss. The mystique charm and the sense of the
numinous (holy, divine) which informed the event have evaporated. This, in large measure, is due to our ineluctable sophistication.

Not all is lost, though. The Sinhala Hindu New Year still remains a powerful symbol of the renewal of hope for the future and a reaffirmation of our bond with nature and our commitment to the time-honoured values of our forefathers. It is truly a celebration of life.

Rohana R.Wasala

Literacy or Transliteracy?

2010-03-03T21:23:00.000-08:00

Literacy or Transliteracy?
(This first appeared in The Island on Wednesday 3rd March 2010)
Literacy in the new media age involves much more than what its conventional definition says. Traditionally it is defined as the ability to read and write. A person is said to be literate if they can read and write in their first language at a basic level. Here reading is taken to mean decoding a piece of writing by analysing graphic symbols, and writing to mean encoding meaning in the form of a text by the opposite process. Reading and writing are not limited to this today since technology has opened up new and exciting possibilities for both. Any modern description of literacy should comprehend this technological and conceptual sophistication.

(As the reader may remember, there are ‘dynamic’ definitions of literacy today to replace the conventional ‘static’ definition suggested above. However, these are outside the scope of this essay.)

The criticism of a perceived ‘decline of the reading habit among the youth of today’ could probably be substantiated in terms of the traditional view of reading, i.e. reading a printed text off the page of a book. But we know that people, particularly young students, still do a lot of reading sitting before their computer screens. True, a few of them may be merely playing games; but the majority use the computer to do more serious work either studying or doing a job. And students who are serious readers and writers do occasionally transfer a substantial part of their work from the computer screen to the book page to continue their academic, literary, or professional pursuits at a more leisurely pace.

This occasional shuttling between electronic and paper texts reminds us that the historical shift from the page to the screen is by no means complete, and , probably, will never be for the foreseeable future. However, the innovations that have accompanied this ongoing change (from the paper text to the electronic) are the most significant in their implications for the relative richness of the experience of reading and writing that has been achieved through the application of technology. On the face of it, reading still remains nothing more than running one’s eyes through a script, and writing nothing more than making certain marks on a blank surface either by pushing a pen across a piece of paper or tapping some keys on a keyboard (which view is, of course, not correct: reading and writing are highly demanding, complex intellectual feats). Yet the recent advent of technology in the sphere of written discourse has brought about many refinements in comparison with which the various improvements achieved over millennia in this area seem mere ripples in an otherwise placid sea of slow progress.

The first decade of the new millennium that we are just passing saw these changes accelerating. As early as 2002, Colombi and Schleppegrel were tempted to write: “In today’s complex world, literacy means far more than learning to read and write in order to accomplish particular discrete tasks. Continued changes in technology and society mean that literacy tasks are themselves always changing.” as quoted in ‘Tips for Teaching with CALL’ by Carol A. Chapelle and Joan Jamieson (Pearson Longman, 2008). The obvious direction of change was noted in the following words of Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media in the Faculty of Humanities at De Montfort University, reporting on the ‘Tranliteracies’ Conference held at the University of California at Santa Barbara on June 7-8, 2005: “Unfortunately for some, however, this new literacy is not about reading fixed type, but about reading on fluid and varied platforms – blogs, email, hypertext and, soon, digital paper and all kinds of mobile media in buildings, vehicles, and supermarket aisles. Although text still dominates at the moment, it is possible that it might come to be superseded by image, audio, or even ideogram as the medium of choice. Hence ‘transliteracy’ – literacy across media.”

The shift from reading from a paper text to reading from an electronic text represents a significant change in our experience of reading. This is due to a number of reasons. The most obvious of these is the rich blending of different modes of communicating – audio, video, graphic, pictorial, etc - that an electronic text usually represents. A writer can achieve, and a reader can respond to, amazing results in the written exchange of ideas. Its multimodality invests an electronic text with a power to energize, shock, and galvanize the readers!

Another powerful concept that is being practically realized is the device known as hypertext. This is a way of patterning information in a database (a collection of data or facts stored in a computer to be accessed, used, and if necessary augmented by users) in such a way that certain key words in a text can be elaborated by individual readers by following the links given, depending on their needs and choices; these links lead the investigating readers to other texts on the Web which enable them to further define the meaning/significance/content/relevance of the original words for them. This means that readers can avail themselves of valuable information without having to read whole texts for the purpose. How useful hypertext could be in reading, especially in academia, goes without saying.

Of course, there’s the criticism that hypertext links sometimes lead the readers from text to text in a labyrinthine trail, and thus constitute a danger to them, and that students can be thereby inveigled into a wasteful academic wild goose chase. However, in reply one could say that reading in any context means reading intelligently, and critically for a specific purpose; serious readers know how to construct their meaning out of a text that is the most authentic, plausible, and credible, and relevant to them by following only the reliable leads, and by circumventing pitfalls.

Just as readers can thus engage in very constructive and fruitful interaction with an electronic text, so can writers work with the computer in numerous creative ways for producing an effective piece of writing. For example, consider how a computer allows you to check your spelling and grammar, to use different fonts, and font sizes, to enliven your text with pictures and graphics, with animation, and what not.

Not long ago, doing reference reading was a laborious process. Apart from the hassle involved in physically accessing the sources of information, one had to endlessly pore over tomes of literature about various subjects following (sometimes outdated by decades) references given by tutors. Today, a few clicks with your mouse on a computer screen bring you face to face with a wealth of information that is up to date, and authoritative. Of course, it is up to the discerning reader to sort the wheat from the chaff, sifting through the abundance of materials on offer.

The plethora of information available online is open to anyone. This tends to close the traditional gap between teachers and students, scholars and informed laypersons, and professionals and amateurs. Teachers and scholars need to be always extra rigorous in safeguarding their authority. They are obliged to cultivate a sense of modesty in the face of what looks like an inevitable depreciation of scholarship. However, true scholars need not worry, because mere learning – being well informed- is not knowledge. Teachers and scholars will never go out of business simply because modern technology makes the dissemination of information so easy.

The new digital culture is obliterating the boundaries between the academia and the general public, for no longer is academic research the exclusive preserve of ‘academics’. Interested non-specialists among the wider public can engage with academic research. This is a boon to people, who, though intellectually gifted, have been denied an opportunity to realize their potential due to unpropitious circumstances. The new kinds of reading and writing can help such people realize their academic ambitions with greater ease and probably less expense than in a print environment.

Literacy in the digital age, or preferably ‘transliteracy’, is thus a gateway to knowledge and education. For us in Sri Lanka English is the key to this kind of literacy. As in the case of many other countries, English as a second language is both a means and an end here. On the one hand, English is the medium through which to access global knowledge and technology, and also to achieve academic success in other subjects; on the other hand, a knowledge of English is being pursued for its own sake. English is a tool that is indispensable in the digital age.

Language is unique as a tool. It is unique in that the more you use it seriously, creatively, and intelligently, the sharper, and the more reliable it gets, whereas other tools get wasted and worn out with use. Literacy in the digital age has a special connection with English for us because of this reason.

As far as English language learners are concerned, interacting with digital texts provides a context for the active use of all the four basic language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), something recognized as a basic principle involved in creating an effective second language learning environment. Much modern research suggests that reading and writing assignments, along with listening, thinking, and speaking activities are essential for the development of second language proficiency in learners. This is a condition that developing ‘transliteracy’ eminently fulfils.

Ref:
Words attributed to Prof. Sue Thomas (2005) retrieved from http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk (01.03.2010)

Rohana R. Wasala

Learner Autonomy in Perspective

2010-01-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

Learner Autonomy in Perspective

(First published in The Island on Wednesday 30th December 2009)

Although the statement that effective learning occurs only when the learner assumes responsibility for his/her own learning may seem a truism today, it is worth a serious re-appraisal as it has crucial implications for the success of the national English language teaching drive now underway. It may be argued that those who are involved in this huge undertaking could short-circuit certain potential difficulties such as personnel and other resource deficits, and restrictions on the availability of time in the implementation of the programme by promoting learner autonomy not only among the students, but also among the teachers. (To develop themselves professionally teachers must perforce be engaged in learning, too.)

The term learner autonomy was coined in 1981 by Henri Holec. He is known as the “father” of the concept. Holec defined learner autonomy as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning”.

Learner autonomy – roughly, a situation in which a student chooses his/her own learning objectives, targets, content, assessment, strategies etc. independently – is usually treated as a Western cultural concept, and, in fact, it is sometimes criticized as unsuitable for non-Western cultures on that account. However, my own view is that the notion that learning ultimately belongs to the learner, and that learning is an activity that the student himself/herself must perform internally without teacher intervention is not actually alien to us; it is very much a part of our traditional education culture; ours is a culture that rates the gathering of knowledge highly. The traditional assumption ingrained in our culture that the student must do the real learning, while the teacher’s duty is to enable the student to do so is implicit in the Sinhalese verb uganwanawa (which is usually imperfectly translated into English as teach ). In reality, uganwanawa has a causative meaning: make (someone) learn/cause (someone) to learn . So, what could be more compatible with the idea of learner autonomy than this conception of teaching?

In the second/foreign language teaching/learning field in the West, the notion of learner independence came to the fore in association with new methodological innovations which were introduced following a shift of focus from the mastery of structure to the development of communicative ability as the central preoccupation of language teaching about forty years ago (in the 1970s and 80s). Under the Audio-lingual method that had prevailed before, structure was considered crucial, but meaning less decisive in language teaching, and it was assumed that habit formation was the way that languages were learnt. As a consequence, language practice consisted in drilling structural patterns, and in memorizing grammar-based dialogues. The linguists and language teaching practitioners who challenged both the audio-lingual theories and practices maintained that language learning involved complex cognitive processes rather than mere mechanical habit formation, and proposed various cognitive techniques as alternatives. The communicative approaches that emerged later in reaction to Audiolingualism subscribed to the ideological premise that learning a language means learning to communicate through it in meaningful contexts.

The discovery learning principles first adumbrated by Jerome Bruner (1967) favoured the recognition of the learner as the central player in a communicative language teaching/learning situation. The learner-centred concept of instruction gave the language learner, at least in theory, a fair degree of control over the learning process, something earlier enjoyed exclusively by the teacher. The teacher was now assigned different, but equally crucial roles such as guide, facilitator, counselor, etc.

What came to be known as ‘humanistic techniques’ (e.g. Community Language Learning –CLL- developed by Chales A. Curran, Professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago, and later written about at greater length by his pupil La Forge in the early 1980s) were concerned with the development of the whole person including not only linguistic knowledge and behvioural skills, but also the affective aspect (i.e. emotions and feelings), which, until then, had received little or no attention from researchers in the field.

Thus the principle of learner independence as a viable educational premise found itself ensconced in a conducive environment that would foster in the learner such qualities as a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection and deep understanding, and a resourceful and cooperative mindset in social interaction. David Little (2003), a long time researcher of the subject, comments on his view of learner autonomy in these words: “… there is a consensus that the practice of learner autonomy requires insight, a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection, and a readiness to be proactive in self-management and in interaction with others...... a holistic view of the learner that requires us to engage with the cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social dimensions of language learning and to worry about how they interact with one another. ....”.

The same researcher, in another document (than the one that I have just quoted from), mentions three pedagogical principles as forming the basis of the development of autonomy in the second/foreign language classroom:
• learner involvement
• learner reflection, and
• appropriate target language use
(I think I need not elaborate these as the readers, especially the initiate teachers, will find them self-explanatory.). From the above David Little extrapolates what the teachers should do to encourage learner autonomy among their pupils: to paraphrase him,
• use the target language as the preferred medium of classroom communication
• engage the learners in continuous search for good learning activities
• enable them to set their own learning targets
• require them to identify individual goals, but reach these through collaboration in small groups
• ensure that they keep written records of their learning (e.g. specific objectives, texts, tasks, lists of new words, etc.)
• get the students to regularly evaluate their progress as individual learners and as a class
(All these principles and practices, in my opinion, are particularly relevant to the context that is the focus of this article.)

Like discovery learning, learner autonomy cannot possibly be practiced to the exclusion of all other more traditional modes of instruction in a formal education setting like our school system. Schooling is a social pursuit, rather than an individual enterprise, and hence it precludes absolute learner autonomy. The individual learner needs to accommodate to the common goals and strategies of the social grouping of which s/he is a member. Students must share in a common pool of resources, accept specific educational aims and objectives determined for the whole country by a central authority, employ strategies universally prescribed, subject to periodic assessment and certification parameters, and so on, and thereby engage with a formidable national educational ‘monolith’. Such an institution makes a great demand on the administrators including the teachers for accountability in terms of regular monitoring of student progress, assessment and certification, etc.

English language students in a formal education setting like that, in order to become autonomous learners within the system, must learn to negotiate with inevitable restrictions on their ‘freedom’ (as seekers after knowledge). Each class represents a highly heterogeneous community of learners. They are from diverse social backgrounds; there are individual differences between them in terms of ability, motivation, and attainment levels. These differences are compounded by divergent personality traits. Such an environment makes the practice of learner autonomy both necessary and challenging.

Obviously, we cannot and should not leave everything to learner autonomy. But its integration into the general instruction system as a relevant and workable proposition is to be desired in view of the many advantages that can accrue from it. Like many other sound principles of education, learner autonomy can be made to work in combination with other methods, techniques and strategies.

To promote learner autonomy among the students, teachers need not give lectures about it. Instead they must devise activities, in association with the syllabuses and general guidelines officially provided, that encourage them to proceed on their own, independently consulting sources including the teacher if necessary. Both the teachers and the students must realize that learner independence does not mean the ‘Teach yourself’ mode of learning, although the autonomous learners could resort to it as a strategy occasioned by need.

An autonomous learner is responsible for his/her own learning, a situation that normally upsets the conventional relationship between the teacher and the pupil. In a traditional classroom setting, the teacher presides over the proceedings, reserving exclusive rights for making all the choices – about the objectives, the subject matter, the strategies employed. But the learner autonomy criterion allocates to the learner a controlling role in the learning situation, which allows him or her to use the teacher as a resource like any other resource.

This is because learner autonomy shifts the focus from teaching to learning; learning becomes central, and teaching ancillary to it.. Learner independence gives maximum controlling power to the learner. But it does not isolate one learner from the other learners; peer support and cooperation are essential factors in a class where learner autonomy operates.

Mutual support and cooperation are paramount in a second/foreign language learning situation. The prevalent communication-based language development approach demands that the students use the target language for communication in a meaningful context in order to acquire proficiency in it. A class of learners who are more or less at the same level of competence in the language will find free communal synergy an excellent resource for collective advancement. David Little has this to say in this connection: “...... and if language learning depends crucially on language use, learners who enjoy a high degree of social autonomy in their learning environment should find it easier than otherwise to master the full range of discourse roles on which effective spontaneous communication depends”.

In today’s highly competitive examination-oriented tuition culture, such social collaboration will take a lot of convincing to materialize. We know that some students in schools and private institutions, and even in seats of higher learning, preparing for exams show a marked reluctance to share their knowledge or sources of information with their colleagues for fear that such sharing would spoil their own chances of success. They must be taught that such egotistic concerns are not only baseless, but counterproductive.

In a language learning context collaborative interaction amounts to social autonomy. It is doubly profitable. If language use is the way to learn it, here the end and the means become identical. The more collaboration there is (i.e. in terms of communicative use of English), the more language learning will result.

Once a teacher demonstrated to his class how useful sharing of language knowledge could prove for everybody. “Let’s imagine”, he said, “that we have decided to pool all the money that we have between us, and share it again so that each of us will have the same amount of money at the end. When we share the money like this, those of us who had more money at the beginning will end up having less, and those of us who had less to begin with, will end up having more than before. So, in that kind of transaction, some of us are bound to lose, and some to gain. If we decided to share our linguistic competence in English instead, everybody will gain, and no one will lose, because those who knew more at the beginning will have enhanced their competence even further at the end, and those who had less knowledge at the beginning will end up with an improved competency level. The reason is that the sharing in the form of interaction will invariably benefit both categories of learners”.

The new English language competency raising endeavour of the government is an ambitious initiative launched in the general interest of the youth of the country. For its success the active involvement of the learners themselves is crucial. In ensuring this both the teachers and the parents have a vital role to play.

Mere classroom teaching alone will not be adequate. Teachers must convince the students and their parents that, if the students take on responsibility to learn the language without depending on the schools or tuition centres to do that for them, they can do it easily in a relatively short time. Fortunately for them, English is common currency in Sri Lanka today. There is plenty of it in circulation. Those who are interested can have it for the asking. Students must interact with the English that is around them. They can watch English movies with a conscious desire to learn some English; they can learn English while listening to sports commentaries or exchanging sms messages with their friends or browsing through the Internet or reading billboards on the roadsides, and so on.

That kind of active engagement with English can be expected of our students if they acquire the special attribute of learner autonomy, something they can exploit both in private and in a social setting.. The new technology can free them from the restrictions imposed on them by classroom conditions while in school. For example, they can watch a complete film in which they have developed an interest by watching an episode in it shown in the class by the English teacher as a part of a lesson. Both teachers and parents should help create the environment that is necessary for the autonomous students to engage in proactive language learning at all times.

References:
Little, D (2003) “Autonomy and second/foreign language learning” retrieved 27th December 2009 from http://www.Ilas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/1409
Holec, H (1981) as referred to in /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learner autonomy/

Rohana R. Wasala

A New Vista of Excellence in English Language Teaching

2009-12-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

(This is an expanded version of my article under the title “A New Direction to English Language Teaching” published in The Island on Wednesday 14th October 2009)

The ‘English as a life skill’ initiative had its genesis in the mind of the President, who loves children. No other head of state of independent Sri Lanka before devoted so much attention to children’s welfare, or demonstrated so much concern for their wellbeing, in word and deed, as Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse does. His concern is with all the children of the country, most of whom live in the rural areas. Just as the economic strategy adopted under the Mahinda Chinthana vision has a rural bias, so does the President’s knowledge society concept focus special attention on the rural child.

Over six decades of free education and political independence have failed to eliminate the urban rural dichotomy in the economic and educational fields despite the best efforts of the successive regimes. This could broadly be attributed to our general failure as a nation to achieve a proper balance between the urban-industrial and rural-agrarian sectors in terms of economic policy paralleled by a similar failure to bring about an equalization of educational opportunity between the city and the village. President Mahinda Rajapakse is trying with a fair degree of success to build an egalitarian society where all citizens enjoy the fruits of development without discrimination.

It has been recognized that a high level of English and IT knowledge is a sine qua non of the educational as well as the economic modernization of our country. ‘English as a life skill’ initiative along with the promotion of IT will form the essential bedrock for nation building.

Mr. Sunimal Fernando, Advisor to the President, and Coordinator (English) and Convenor of the Presidential Task Force in English and IT, is behind the conceptualizing, designing, and planning of the presidential initiative. The passion with which Mr. Fernando speaks about, and commits himself to, the government’s new Spoken/Communicative English Language Teaching initiative will be apparent to any person who listens to him on the subject. As an educator long associated with the profession of teaching English both here and abroad, and as a concerned parent, I have taken upon myself to express some views about it. I have realized through personal conversation and correspondence with him that he welcomes, and even solicits, constructive criticism of the project that he has been asked by the President to spearhead, but wisely chooses to ignore mere ‘out of context’ caviling at minor details. Mine is a labour of love performed in the interests of the nation’s young.

The rationale for the ‘English as a life skill’ enterprise that Mr. Fernando supplies is of special appeal to me because it implicitly embodies (entirely independent of me) two basic notions to which I myself have been trying to draw the attention of the educational powers that be over the past decade in my small way as a freelance journalist. The first concerns the determination of the place that English should be given in our education system: the need to identify English as an essential second language, subject to the primacy of Sinhala and Tamil (i.e. it should not be made to replace either of them for the majority of our students); the other is that, whatever language planning is done, it should not disadvantage the ordinary masses, or violate the principle of equality of opportunity for all.

“Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)” and “Cultural Refugees” were the terms that Mr. Fernando once used when he broached the subject with me, to characterize the westernized, English speaking urban upper class elite of this country, to the preservation of whose status, power, and privileges the English language has been traditionally made subservient. English language use is an essential qualification for the membership of the westernized upper class. In Mr. Fernando’s opinion, the members of this anglophile elite are persons who are “culturally, psychologically, and emotionally displaced from the mainstream Sri Lankan society”, and who have put themselves at the mercy of anti-national agencies such as some belonging to the NGO sector, and other foreign interests inimical to the country.

English is etched in the Sri Lankan national psyche as a potent symbol of upper class status and influence. It is rated more for its social worth than for its utilitarian value, though the latter is the real raison d’etre of the country’s involvement with English. According to Mr. Fernando, the related servile , colonial-subject mentality is something that our state-run English language enterprise under the control of “old guard gurus” help sustain through their excessive insistence on perfect grammar, faultless pronunciation, and precise diction, and a corresponding failure to sufficiently focus on the actual communicative use of the language in teaching it.

This long established imbalance or anomaly in the mode of English language delivery in our education system has been seriously detrimental to school children from the suburban and village areas which contain the largest proportion of the country’s population. These children come from Sinhalese and Tamil speaking homes. The only chance they could secure to learn to use English is when they are at school. However, they are frustrated here because the English lessons they are offered, modeled on outdated, structure-based methodologies with little provision for interactive oral communication leave them uninvolved and uninterested. It accounts, in large measure, for the miserable failure of English teaching that we often talk about. This is no problem for the children of the upper class who, in any case, speak English at home, and are given a chance to pick up the necessary knowledge of formal grammar at school.

Even a casual survey of the status of English language teaching in our country will be sufficient to convince us of the validity of Mr. Fernando’s strictures on the subject. The few who manage to gain a knowledge of English, mainly from the privileged urban upper classes, and to a much lesser degree, from among those highly motivated poor rural students, find themselves in socially and economically privileged company, while the overwhelming majority, failing to secure such advantage either through frustrated attempts to learn the language or through sheer antipathy towards it, remain socially and economically as debilitated and disadvantaged as ever. This would sound a gross oversimplification, but no one could deny that it accords well with the easily observable existential reality that while on the one hand, English plays a most vital role in the education and employment spheres of national activity in the country, on the other hand, it is still potent enough to contribute towards perpetuating social disparity and injustice, which in effect denies English to those who most need it.

The tradition of failure is something that has not been lost sight of by all successive regimes since Independence, especially since 1956. This is evident in the various commissions appointed to look into the teaching of English in schools, and seats of higher education, and in the intermittent changes introduced concurrently with other educational reforms.

The latest proposed changes in this connection subsumed under the ‘English as a life skill’ concept are different from all those previous ones in a number of important ways. Mr. Fernando, a trained sociologist, has seen through the insidious ideological agenda that plagues our institutional English language teaching system; it’s a hidden scheme that promotes colonial subservience among the hoi polloi in order to keep them at bay so that social dominance and related advantages and privileges guaranteed by English for the upper class are not undermined. Central to the presidential initiative is the attempt to infuse the school English language teaching programme with a more moral, a more humane, a more humanitarian, a more people-friendly ideology that looks, as a priority, to the needs of the rural masses, i.e. the ordinary people of the country. Needless to say this harks back to 1956 and before when well thought out language planning decisions were made and implemented, based on the sound ideology of a set of pioneering intellectuals of that era including those of the SLFP . To put it differently, what Mr. Fernando is trying to do, at the instance of the president, is to introduce English to the rural masses both as an indispensable technology of communication, and as an egalitarian ideology for the purpose of forging a modern knowledge society that will enable us to reach a high level of prosperity and wellbeing.

The often criticized failure of the English language enterprise is largely attributable, among other things, to the general incapacity of the next generation of SLFP policy makers to properly understand and revitalize the ideological vision that drove the architects of the 1956 and subsequent language policy changes as Mr. Fernando points out in an interview published in the 2009 March issue of Business Today; these leaders ‘while mechanically following their stated policies, lost sight of the depth and nuances of the intellectual reasoning of those great thinkers. Progressively, conformity to form began replacing the comprehension of the substance of their thinking in a big way’. Mr. Fernando charges that ‘… in the period between 1994 and 2005 a strange ideological aberration started creeping into the political discourse of SLFP led governments which seemed to be suggesting at times that modernization and development required a repudiation of the language liberation of 1956’. In reality though this ‘aberration’ was due to a failure to appreciate the fact that what was dethroned or ‘destroyed’ was not English as a tool of educational and economic growth, but English as a tool of oppression. In a basic sense then, the ‘paradigm shift’ that Mr. Fernando is talking about represents a return to those ‘historical and ideological moorings’ which the SLFP seemed to deviate from in that period. The party under Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse ‘rediscovered its roots…They started analysing and creatively interpreting its distinct ideology and applying it to the realities and needs of a modernising, developing nation’. The President’s English as a life skill initiative is a corollary of his determination to build a village-based ‘national knowledge economy’ in terms of his Mahinda Chinthana manifesto.

In the same interview Mr. Fernando draws attention to a third factor that he sees as a cause of the survival of English to date as an instrument of social repression rather than an object of practical utility: those responsible for implementing the SLFP-led governments’ policies on English failed to understand ‘the relationship between ideology and technology’. The old techniques or methodologies were designed to retain English as the exclusive preserve of the elite, and in effect they ensured that it remained a tool of social oppression. An inordinate emphasis on ‘perfect pronunciation, unblemished diction and perfect grammar’, and a failure to provide for teaching spoken English (neither of which was a problem for children coming from mainly English speaking homes) forced their less privileged counterparts to shy away from English.

(Note: Criticism of an inordinate emphasis on ‘perfect’ grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary does not mean that these basic elements of language should be neglected in teaching English. Again, having added this caution I feel obliged to explain myself a little more. I do not mean to overemphasize structure at the expense of communication. Methodologies with an essential core of interactive communicative principles seem to have stood the test of time. A.P.R.Howatt (1984) identifies ‘a strong version’ and ‘a weak version’ of the communicative approach. The former he describes as ‘using English to learn it’ and the latter as ‘learning to use’ the language. Though a strictly communicative methodology –‘using English to learn it’- would favour a complete abolition of explicit grammar instruction, practical considerations have shown that leaving the structural aspect of language teaching to induction alone is not possible.

In my opinion, developments such as the re-introduction of the English medium in government schools, the haphazard establishment of so-called international schools, and increased avenues for overseas education introduced during a previous SLFP-led administration (none of which would have come within the scope of the Mahinda Chinthana vision that informs the present ‘English as a life skill’ initiative), are apparently stampeding us to enhance the quality of English language instruction within the country in order (among other things) to avert a dangerous stratification of the society in the not too distant future based on English language competence possessed by a minority, but denied to a vast majority. It is up to us to detect the possible traps laid for us by foreign vested interests which are economically exploitative and politically subversive, under the pretext of teaching us English, when we make an innocent effort to acquire English as an indispensable tool of modernization and development. The successful implementation of the ‘English as a life skill’ initiative will insure us against such dangers.

The presidential enterprise has the three essential elements that will ensure its practical viability: a sound ideology, clear objectives, and a plan of work. While its ultimate goal is a paradigm shift in English teaching, the existing institutional structures will be co-opted into its implementation. ‘The 18 month Road Map to Promote Spoken/Communicative English Skills in Sri Lanka – a background note’ prepared by Mr. Fernando sets out clearly what has been already accomplished at this initial stage, and what is in progress. The activities scheduled are on target.

The fact that six of out of the sixteen key activities outlined in the note are direct cabinet decisions is testimony to the seriousness with which the task of overhauling the English teaching paradigm is being addressed.

(What I have put within parentheses in the following paragraph are my comments-RRW)

Mr. Fernando refers to what he calls five critical factors on which the success of the initiative will eventually depend. Of these the first is: A national level attitudinal change in respect of English pronunciation, diction and grammar, and a national commitment to speak English the Sri Lankan way. (This, I think, is not something difficult to achieve; in fact, one could say, we are already there. More important, perhaps, is what we are going to teach our rural children to speak in English about. That too is probably being handled by the teachers from the villages who have been entrusted with the task of writing teacher guides.) The second is: Readiness on the part of a new cadre of predominantly rural and small town English teachers from Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes to come forward and take over the leadership of the country’s English teaching enterprise. (Once the modalities are in place, this won’t be a problem.) Factor three is: The efficiency and the speed with which we are able to train the 21,984 teachers, and 3027 private tutories in the teaching of spoken English and provide them with new teaching materials. (I think this is in progress.) Factor four(This, in my view, is the most crucial): Self confidence, determination and a belief in oneself on the part of all those who are pioneering the paradigm shift of English ideology and teaching method. (To my mind, this is the arena where the whole initiative interfaces with the stakeholders, as it were. These pioneers should include not only the teachers, principals of schools, education officers, and the rest of the educational cadre, but also the parents, and the general public whose awareness of and support for the national venture will be vital.) The fifth and final factor that Mr. Fernando mentions is: The continued support of His Excellency the President and the Presidential Secretariat for the ideological, institutional and methodological paradigm shift that is currently being made in the English teaching enterprise of our country. (About the fulfillment of this condition there can’t be any doubt, given the determination of the President to do everything possible for the betterment of the future of our young people.)

Probably we could add to this list: A most vital element that should be given the highest priority is the motivation of the target student population to speak/communicate in English. They must be thoroughly convinced of the reasons why they must learn it. The indispensability of English for access to global knowledge through IT is a major one of these. And the incentive offered by the attraction of the very practical benefits that are achievable through the integration of IT knowledge into day-to-day activities connected with various enterprises – be they educational or economic – will be an equally strong motivating factor, for such knowledge could only be secured through English.

In respect of the above, the proposed conduct of a Public examination for the Certification of English Learners at Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Levels with a strong emphasis on spoken/communicative English is a commendable innovation. Examination in oral English has never been a part of any public examination before as far as I know.

By way of suggesting an improvement (I am not sure, though, if there is provision for this included in the details of the programme already), I wish to draw Mr. Fernando’s attention to the institution of an impact monitoring mechanism, comprehending a variety of dimensions, and also to the formulation of indicators of performance by teachers as well as learners.

The ‘English as a life skill’ presidential enterprise is entirely different from any exercise of its kind that went before. It is unique and unprecedented in its conception, scale, scope, and in its potential for further evolution; it is realistically ambitious. It is a homegrown solution to a national problem. The initial assistance we are getting from India mainly in the form of technical expertise is an incidental matter; provision exists for tapping other sources of help. What is of essence is the commitment to a programme of instruction that is uncompromisingly Sri Lankan, guided by independent ideological, socio-cultural principles relating to our predominantly rural society.

The new initiative is an organic rather than a linear process. All earlier reforms were linear in the sense that they were sudden piecemeal changes introduced and implemented in distinct stages designed to lead to a specific outcome as the end product. On the contrary, the ‘English as a life skill’ undertaking is an organic process in which the English teaching/learning activity proceeds as an interactive engagement with the language and the society, thereby causing gradual and natural development of language proficiency among the learners. It is a national drive that involves not only the young learners and teachers, but also parents, education authorities, community leaders, and the media agencies – all of these having a specific role to play-, and equally important, the supportive ambient social environment, which is but the general matrix of this organic growth of English language knowledge.

When the English teaching programme is thus completely remodeled on the proposed lines, in due course (which undoubtedly will mean a number of years), it will mark a quantum leap in the quality of English language instruction that our young people will be able to enjoy.

Rohana R. Wasala

English through ICT: Chances and Challenges

2009-12-21T04:40:00.000-08:00

English through ICT: Chances and Challenges
by Rohana R. Wasala

Information technology (IT) refers to the theory and practice relating to the use of computers to store and analyse information. IT asserts its powerful and vital presence in all the significant spheres of human activity today. Since communication has become an essential part of this technology it is now usually called information and communication technology (ICT). Its advent in the field of education is not unique because it is hard to imagine any field of action that doesn’t use the computer in one way or another. ICT as applied to education may be informally defined as the body of assumptions or theories, and practical principles about using the computer to store, and analyse data for the purpose of teaching/learning; or more simply, it can be taken to mean the ways in which teachers and learners utilize the computer programmes (software) already available in their teaching and learning activities.

ICT education is advancing apace in Sri Lanka with the government making a concerted effort in this connection. President Mahinda Rajapakse launched the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) programme of the Ministry of Education on December 10th at Temple Trees by giving out laptop computers to over 400 primary school children selected from all provinces of the country. This programme is partly funded by the World Bank. ICT has already been introduced as a technical subject for the GCE O/L. It has been estimated that computer literacy in the country is growing at a rate of 15% annually at present.

For the majority of the world’s nations English is the lingua franca of ICT, and it is especially so for us Sri Lankans. ICT comes to us packaged in English. On account of this we see a strong correlation between ICT and English language teaching and learning. This has been recognized by the government, which declared this year (2009) as the Year of English and IT last February. A knowledge of English is a boon to students of ICT. In this respect, we are in most propitious circumstances. For one thing, our two hundred year association with English, in the past as the language of colonial administration, but now mainly as a utilitarian tool, has left a pervasive legacy of persistent English influence in the vital sectors of national life such as education, business, administration, the judiciary, etc.. Then there is the re-emerging popular awareness of its enhanced role in the country’s overall development. These are among the main factors that provide a stimulating environment for learning English. Just as a knowledge of English will facilitate the acquisition of ICT skills a knowledge of ICT can prove an invaluable source of help to students of English, because ICT can be easily applied to the teaching and learning of the language.

ICT and English are kindred subjects in another sense: English is as much a technology of communication as ICT. A technology represents a set of skills. While ICT has its unique manoeuvres and mechanisms, English as a language has its skills and subskills. This similarity between the two subjects would imply a similar approach to their learning: to learn these subjects, one must practice using them, rather than learn about them, for the simple reason that you master skills only by practising them, not by merely reading or speaking about them.

Many teachers view the prospect of using ICT in their teaching with some trepidation. Such fear is understandable in view of a number of factors. Unlike young children adults are anxious about running the risk of looking foolish; and again unlike the former they are usually slow on the uptake when it comes to learning how to handle new concepts and technologies such as computer. Then, some teachers may feel hampered by a lack of English. Without English free access to ICT would not be as easy as it naturally is to someone who knows the language. At the same time, the idea of ICT may leave some teachers cold because they just don’t feel inspired enough to change accustomed ways of doing things. It may even be that some teachers tell themselves: "Why bother to force on these rural kids something that is too sophisticated, and too modern for them! Doesn’t the country need farmers and soldiers as well as doctors and engineers?" (But the truth is that, in the increasingly knowledge-based society of today, to succeed in their jobs farmers and soldiers need ICT as much as doctors and engineers do.)

I need not dwell on this theme too long, because the harmfulness of such negative attitudes both for the individual and the society should be clear to anyone who’s interested in education. Various regimes after Independence brought about epochal changes in the national interest, some of these in the field of education. Yet, the country as a whole has never enjoyed the full benefits of such changes because their authors’ genuine attempts somehow failed to inspire the those at the grassroots level to fulfil their part in earnest. Plans which are formulated at the top may be perfect, but their efficacy depends on how well they are implemented in the field.

ICT use in teaching, after all, is not such a forbidding proposition, and its introduction into the mainstream of instruction in an institution is not too impractical an innovation either. This is because, for one thing, today’s computers are so fine-tuned as to be extremely efficient and user-friendly; for another, at the initial stages of any programme of incorporating ICT into the school curriculum only some limited use of the new technology will be necessary; and it will not incur much expenditure in terms of resources to retrofit a section of any school for this purpose. Further, given the fact that already over 80% of the country’s households have electricity, English teaching and other educational programmes via TV and Internet can be utilized even by students of those remote rural districts, who have up until now received perfunctory attention from the authorities. Equality of opportunity should not be a mere slogan any longer.

Experienced teachers know that the most effective way to learn a language is for the learners to secure the three contributory conditions of massive exposure to that language, extensive participation in communicating through it in meaningful contexts, and development of language awareness. (Language awareness means the ability to think rationally and analytically about the particular language as it is used by those competent in it, and to discover independently facts about how it works. Teachers can set exercises to enable students to enhance their language awareness.)

The incorporation of ICT into English teaching is a good way to provide for these three crucial factors. Numerous activities such as browsing through the Internet, online chatting, playing games, corresponding via email, word processing, creating own web sites, etc. will open up opportunities for active participation in interactive communication as well as exposure, plus a stimulus for sorting things out through unaided exploration. The application of technology will also promote language skill integration (i.e. combining the four basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing when teaching a language to reflect the way it is actually used in the world outside the classroom).

ICT use will be a motivation and morale booster among the students, giving them a sense of belonging with the rest of the outside society where the computer is an indispensable tool, and information technology a common medium like telephony. Young people embrace new trends with enthusiasm. What a boon it should be for them if learning came in the form of indulging in fun and fashion!

Learning with ICT is essentially learner-centred. It also encourages collaboration and cooperation among students. They can enjoy a chance to communicate and interact not only with their immediate colleagues, but also with their counterparts in other regions of the country, and even in other countries of the world. Further, students can research topics of their choice consulting the best authorities on the relevant subjects. This will be an opportunity for students to integrate English learning with the study of other subjects, a process which will be doubly beneficial for them. As Professor Peter D. John (Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol) (2004) says, ICT supports four key components of learning, viz., active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts.

Peter D. John further points out that the use of computers enhances knowledge building and thinking skills, as well as collaboration and communication levels, and that by using technology well in the classroom teachers can help their students to become more effective citizens. He also refers to Gregoire et al (1996) who provide the following theoretical perspectives apropos the use of technologies in teaching:

1. New technologies can stimulate the development of intellectual skills,

2. New technologies contribute to the ways of gaining knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and

3. New technologies spur spontaneous interest more than traditional approaches.

4. Students using new technologies concentrate more than students in traditional settings.

(Ref. Professor P.D. John: www.interactiveeducation.ac.uk)

Teachers also derive important benefits from ICT use. One of these is that ICT enables them to produce and store for later easy retrieval such routinely required sheets and templates as mark-sheets, progress assessments, forms for certificates, and so on. In Sri Lanka many schools, especially those in urban areas, have large numbers of students in each class, and naturally impose a heavy demand on the teachers’ time when handling the ‘paper work’ involving filling in numerous forms, totalizing marks, calculating averages, percentages, standard deviations, and other statistical data, writing comments, certifying, signing, and attending to endless administrative routines. So the use of technology can save much of the English teachers’ time, and proportionately increase the time available for interaction with their pupils, and with other teachers. ICT helps them to easily update and enhance their knowledge. The need to keep abreast of new developments in order to avoid being found wanting in the classroom if challenged by pupils who enjoy access to the same sources of information is a fine stimulant for teachers.

English language teaching with ICT has these advantages and more. Apart from the need to save young children from falling prey to cyberspace crime such as pornography in different forms, opportunities to cheat offered at a price as a service, various forms of misinformation, subversive literature, and the rest, it confronts us with as many challenges as opportunities. These relate to, among other things, ICT’s implications for cultural norms of our society governing the relationship between teachers and pupils, for the survival of traditional pedagogical assumptions and attitudes, for social conventions associated with computer communication, and the resulting need to instruct the students on how to use relevant avenues of communication.

With the birth of computer communication the concept of literacy has begun to mean something significantly more complex than what its traditional definition as the ability to encode and decode meaning using graphic symbols (i.e., writing and reading respectively) would imply. Today literacy includes not only the ability to read and write multimodal texts, but also the ability to understand the technical aspect of the operation, reception, and production of such texts.

At the beginning we may expect ICT to play a limited role in the English language teaching system, but this should appropriately expand in time. Some snags are inevitable, though. Changes in education, like those in any other sphere, will naturally come up against some resistance from established institutional structures, rigid bureaucratic requirements , and entrenched attitudes, predispositions, and preoccupations on the part of the professional hierarchy, though none of them will deny the importance of accepting the new technology.

As the concept of the centrality of learner initiative in instructional systems finds more accommodation, the role of the computer in education will be increasingly appreciated. This does not mean that there will or should be a corresponding diminution of the importance of the teacher. A machine, however efficient, cannot replace the human being in an essentially human activity like teaching a language. The teacher will always remain nonexpendable.

The principle of learner-centred instruction should be interpreted to recognize the major role that the teacher has in it. Neither complete dependence on the teacher as in traditional educational setups nor absolute independence is thought to benefit the learner. A middle course in which the teacher is careful not to obstruct learner initiative seems the best. In such a scenario the new technology will prove an extremely collaborative partner for both the learner and the teacher.

English for International Communication

2009-12-14T06:26:00.000-08:00

English for International Communication
(First published in Sat Mag The Island , 20th June 2009)

by
Rohana R. Wasala

The question of the relation between Standard English (‘English English’ as some people who scoff at the idea of recognizing a local variety of English for Sri Lanka call it in lighter vein) and Sri Lankan English could be looked at from two different perspectives, which have to do with the two major functions that English performs in the world: English serves as the lingua franca of international communication on the one hand, and on the other, as a foundation for constructing cultural identities as David Graddol in his 1998 book ‘The Future of English?’ points out. While the first of these puts a premium on mutual comprehensibility and common standards, the latter feeds a tendency to promote local varieties, and linguistic hybridity.

It is a truism that no language possesses any monolithic uniformity in terms of its sound system, vocabulary, spelling, and grammar across the geographical and conceptual ranges of its prevalence; instead there is extreme variety. Prof. Randolph Quirk (co-author of ‘A University Grammar of English’ , 1973) presents one way of analyzing this variety. He states that a language develops different forms according to the geographical regions where it is used, and also according to such factors as the education and the social background of its speakers, the subject matter, the medium (speech or writing), attitude (to do with style), and interference (i.e. ‘transfer’ of mother tongue elements to a second language by a learner, to use a term preferred in more recent times to refer to the influence of a learner’s mastery of his/her mother tongue on second language learning).

The larger the number of users of a language, the wider the geographical area they are spread over, and the greater the barriers to communication that emerge among groups of such users due to physical distance or other forms of alienation, the more prone is that language to develop different ‘dialects’. It goes without saying that English, being arguably the most widely used world language today, is particularly vulnerable to such differentiation. In fact , the concept of ‘New Englishes’ or polycentrism (a number of standard forms instead of one) is already more than half a century old. .

This is how Professor David Crystal defines ‘New Englishes’ in The Penguin Dictionary of Language’ (Second edition, 1998): The name often given to the national varieties of English which have emerged around the globe, especially since the 1960s in those countries which opted to make English an official language upon independence. Regionally distinctive use of vocabulary, pronunciation, and (to a much lesser extent) grammar is found in all such countries, but often only on a very limited scale. The term is really applicable only when there has been considerable linguistic development away from the traditional standards of British and American English, with some degree of local standardization (e.g. in the press), as has happened in India, Ghana, and Singapore, and perhaps a dozen other countries where English is used as a second language..... .

Given the modern ease of communication, and the enhanced mobility of populations made possible through unprecedented technological advances, the process of ‘decentralizing’ Standard English may be expected to lose its momentum.

Standard English is the variety that is used in newspapers, books, and other forms of print; it is the English that is taught as a second language to those whose mother tongue is other than English; it is the language of education. Standard English is usually described more in terms of the written (i.e. grammar, vocabulary, spelling) than the spoken language.

Up until half a century ago the two major national varieties of English (British and American) used to dominate the English speaking world, with Sri Lanka like the rest of the British Commonwealth subscribing to the former. The rapid development of English as a global medium since then has led to a growing tendency among linguists to recognize other widely used national varieties (e.g. Australian, Canadian, Caribbean, Indian, South African, South Asian, etc). as acceptable standard forms as well.

‘The Oxford Companion to the English Language’ (ed. Tom McArthur, 1992) says that Sri Lankan English ‘… is not itself a monolithic system; it consists of a range of subvarieties based on proficiency in it and the users’ language background. It is in fact a subvariety of South Asian English similar to Indian English with which it shares many features...’.

As Professor David Crystal points out in The Penguin Dictionary Of Language referred to above, there is a ‘tension between the demand for mutual intelligibility among these nations and the demand for linguistic distinctiveness as a marker of national identity’
So one could say that the notion of Sri Lankan English is, among other things, about linguistic distinctiveness as a marker of Sri Lankan national identity. The meaning of this rather glib statement depends on how the extremely volatile key terms ‘Sri Lankan English’ and ‘Sri Lankan national identity’ are defined. I find both dauntingly elusive concepts. However, for the purpose of this essay I will briefly state my tentative layman’s understanding of these two terms.

To take Sri Lankan national identity first, no one can deny that there is something in our national status and character that distinguishes us from other nations; it transcends the ethnic, cultural, and social differences that are found in our society; despite these differences, a feeling of oneness holds us together. In my opinion, there are some key factors that contribute to this sense of identity among us Sri Lankans of diverse ethnicities, languages, religious and social backgrounds. One is that we are citizens of one country; another is that we identify ourselves as members of a multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual society implicitly committed to peaceful coexistence; and a third is that as a nation we share a common history of foreign domination; a fourth would be that broadly we subscribe to mutually compatible world views that permit us to look at the rest of the world with a certain sense of humility, tolerance, and compassion (obviously, the influence of four of the world’s most renowned religions whose adherents form almost the whole of the population of the country). However, being human, we cannot help feeling vulnerable to certain subterranean tensions among us, which are natural and inevitable. Fortunately, though, these are never so pronounced as to cause significant communal disharmony. Absolute freedom from vestigial tribal instincts is not humanly possible for most, but an ability to suppress them for the common good is expected of all, and this basic criterion of communal amity is rarely violated in our country (something that is contrary to what the frequently asserted jaundiced views of certain commentators who are essentially ignorant of the moral maturity of the common people would have us believe). .

Our giant neighbour India is a myriad times more divided than Sri Lanka in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, caste, etc. Yet, they do recognize a certain Indian national identity. Just as Indians are Indians, Sri Lankans are Sri Lankans, whether they are Sinhalese, Tamils, Malays, Buddhists, Christians, or Muslims.

This is the Sri Lankanness that ‘Sri Lankan English’ is expected to express. (Whether many of those Sri Lankans who write in English are actually familiar enough with the grassroots cultural ethos of their own native land to authentically represent it in their writing is a different matter. Some of the extremely prejudiced among the ‘English educated’ might even consider those without their kind of education to be cultureless!) It may be safely asserted that like Sri Lankan national identity, Sri Lankan English is a diversity. One cogent reason for this is that our native language background itself is not homogeneous. The two main national languages Sinhala and Tamil are significantly different from each other in their sound systems, grammar, and vocabulary. This fact is bound to influence the way Sri Lankans from different native language backgrounds speak English and adopt its idiom for their purposes.

In spite of its being a favourite topic of frequent and popular discussion, English is still a minority language in our country, even at an elementary level of proficiency. But this will not detract from its importance, because it is also the case that this English using minority includes the most significant players in the vital spheres of national activity such as politics, civil administration, justice, education, trade, science and technology, and diplomacy.

The importance of English in these contexts need hardly be reiterated. In the modern world there is an inevitable global dimension to everything. We need to connect to the rest of the world. As far as we Sri Lankans are concerned, the most convenient and effective link for effecting this connection is the English language. How indispensable English is for communication within the country is a debatable subject, though its complementary role within the domestic context cannot be questioned. As for the international and educational dimensions of English, these are beyond all dispute.

The true relevance of English to us is as a window on the world. In the all important global information culture of today, it would be suicidal, especially for a small country like ours, to be without the umbilical cord of a world language like English, at least as long as English retains its predominant position on the world stage, which, however, is being threatened today. It is in fact a fortunate circumstance that the international link happens to be English in our case, for among all world languages it currently commands the widest reach among nations, comprehends the furthest limits of the ever expanding horizons of the sum total of human knowledge, and enjoys the greatest prestige.

The question of mutual comprehensibility between Sri Lankan English and the English out there is of paramount importance. For me, as I think it is for many others who try to identify a model of ‘correct’ English, the English out there which seems to cut across all regional variations is represented by the kind of English that we hear on the international radio and television channels such as the BBC, the Voice America, and the CNN, or the English that we read in international print media and literature including the Internet, originating from sources all over the world. However, I cannot be so categorical about this. In the past , print media and printed literature in general encouraged the development of standard forms of languages. With broadcasting and computer-generated communication becoming more important than print in the recent decades, the establishment of centralized standards is less likely. Yet, there are at the present time no indications of a completely babelized fragmentation of English into different tongues. In fact, there appears to be a movement towards a kind of uniformity in the form of a ‘core’ English used across the world in print as well as in broadcasting.

This global variety of English is basically a result of the convergence of American and British English, a process that was acknowledged by scholars at least forty-five years ago. It was claimed in the course of a radio series jointly produced by the BBC and the Voice of America in 1964 on the British and American variants of the language, in which Britain was represented by Professor Randolph Quirk of University College London, and the US by Professor Albert H. Marckwardt Of Princeton University, that the two varieties of English had never been so different as people had imagined, and that the dominant tendency, for several decades by then, had clearly been that of convergence and even greater similarity. Today it looks as if the two forms of English provide a composite standard of correctness by reference to which other regional varieties of English can counter the centrifugal forces that threaten a break up of the language into mutually unintelligible independent tongues.

Among all standard Englishes this one is the least marked by particular regionalisms; or we might say that it consists of a relatively stable core English overlaid with a balanced mix of regional characteristics; it by no means represents an unvarying single accent, it is probably in its grammar and vocabulary that it remains generally consistent throughout the world; the absolute dominance of RP or BBC English is a thing of the past. News readers on all dominant radio and TV channels are from a variety of English speaking nations including native British and Americans with their distinctive native accents. International English language publications of whatever provenance offer no significant challenge where intelligibility is concerned. The differences between the global variety and any other regional variety of English are far fewer than those between any two of the other national standards. Therefore this ‘supranational’ model enjoys the highest degree of mutual intelligibility with all the other standard dialects.

In diachronic terms (i.e. from the point of view of the historical development of a language) the global variety is the most authentic and direct descendant or close relative of the original or the so-called ‘pure’ English, and is the surest pointer to the rare treasure-house of past knowledge and culture recorded in its literature. It will also remain the mighty centripetal force which will confer on all standard regional forms of English a common identity as English.

A natural conclusion from this would be that, to maintain its identity as English, Sri Lankan English (or any other form of English for that matter) cannot deviate too much from what is (implicitly at least) accepted as global English. When people talk about ‘pure’ English today they seem actually to mean this rather formal supranational variety of English. British and American English do not any longer exist as separate entities in a global sense, though one may refer to the English that is spoken in the British Isles as British, and the English spoken by Americans as American, dialects; but that is an insular matter; the distinctive features that still characterize the two major national forms of English in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary especially in domestic use are never so great as to even minimally affect their mutual comprehensibility and supportiveness. It is a mix of these with features from other local forms of English that we encounter globally.

The importance of any given standard form of English out of the many standard Englishes recognized today depends primarily on the demographic size of its users (that is, the number of users of that variety of English), the magnitude of its contribution to general communication, and the intensity of its usefulness as a linguistic medium of the world’s collective scientific, technological, cultural, business, and information fields . In this respect, perhaps ‘Sri Lankan English’ cannot boast of too much.

In my opinion, if Sri Lankans have something to offer to the world through their brand of English, it must be identical with the global variety of English delineated above as nearly as possible. It must do so in order to fulfill its function as the second language that connects Sri Lankans to the outside world. Any insistence on too insular a variety of English will defeat this purpose.

The section of the community of users of English that do make a contribution to the two-way traffic of knowledge and culture between Sri Lanka and the outside world, and in other vital spheres such as diplomacy, trade, and science and technology, naturally do so through the medium of an educated variety of English (in other words, a standard form of the language that is internationally accepted). I can’t imagine that this variety could be one too heavily marked by what would be regarded as distinctively Sri Lankan features such as grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary peculiarities that are intelligible only to other Sri Lankans. What I have observed in actual practice is that for effective communication to be achieved the communicators are obliged to use an English as regionally unmarked as possible; and this is none other than the ‘supranational’ model of English referred to above.

The recent UN emergency session on Sri Lanka at Geneva provided an international context of utmost importance for the country where the communicative powers of the representatives of Sri Lanka, especially Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, and Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka, played a vital role in achieving a resounding diplomatic victory. They most probably ‘sounded’ like Sri Lankan only in their accent, and in little else language-wise when they expressed themselves in English. Dr Jayatilleka’s ‘30-minute harangue against Western “colonizers”’, (as unwatch.org referred to it, according to its news item reproduced on page 4 of The Island of 26th May 2009) delivered just before the crucial vote, no doubt, ensured the eventual pro-Sri Lanka outcome. Ms. Berset, the Swiss representative, though belonging to the hostile Western bloc on this occasion, thanked the Sri Lankan ambassador for his “eloquence” (though it could have been a backhanded compliment in view of the substance of the “harangue”). This is evidence that our man in Geneva was able to communicate his ideas and feelings clearly. Had he used a heavily marked Sri Lankan English his ‘reach’ would have been circumscribed. Who won’t appreciate his terse and telling response in ‘pure’ English to Navanetha Pillay when she ‘welcomed’ the UN special session (which, fortunately for Sri Lanka, failed to lead to the fulfillment of her expectations) without referring to its final outcome? Or consider the transcript of the BBC HARDtalk interview with Mr Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, broadcast on March 3 and 4, 2009 published on pages 20 to 23 of the May 2009 issue of the Sri Lankan business magazine ‘BUSINESS TODAY’. But for the subject dealt with, and perhaps his accent, and a few idiomatically ‘Sri Lankan’ turns of phrase, the English of Minister Samarasinghe’s eloquent responses to the interviewer’s queries would have hardly revealed his Sri Lankan nationality.

The status of Sri Lankan English as a medium of literary creation among local writers is a different matter altogether, where other parameters apply, and where perhaps a certain level of ‘linguistic hybridity’ is to be expected.

Sources consulted in addition to those mentioned in the body of the text of this essay:

Baugh, Albert C. A History of the English Language. London: Routledge, 1993
& Cable, Thomas.

Barber, Charles. The English Language – A Historical Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 1999

Lyons, John. Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 2003

Rohana R. Wasala

Dress Sense or Discrimination?

2009-11-26T00:47:00.001-08:00

(Previously published in The Island on Wednesday 28th October 2009)

I remember, a few months ago, there was an exchange of correspondence in the Opinion Column of The Island between a couple of readers about what is decent or not decent in the way some Sri Lankan women dress themselves, and the controversy eventually petered out; it appeared all over and done with. However, in the recent weeks there seems to have been a revival of interest in the subject.

Probably it betrays a lingering fascination with the topic of women’s attire. The nature of this apparent enchantment has both positive and negative aspects. Personally I don’t have anything original or interesting or useful to say about the matter. Nonetheless my attention was caught by what I would suspect to be a trace of possible bias against women in the collective treatment of the subject, though it is cunningly couched as light-hearted banter (though not all those who have commented on the subject can be said to be guilty of such an attitude).

There is a popular a piece of wisdom, especially among men themselves, that some men condemn in public any deliberate or inadvertent display of nudity or supposed wantonness or erotic insouciance in women which they would indulgently connive at in private. I don’t at all want to suggest that any of those who wrote critically about the question under discussion are guilty of such hypocrisy. Yet the risk of being suspected of some degree of hypocrisy is a realistic possibility that people who venture to express their opinions about a hush-hush topic like this including me cannot avoid. Not that it matters.

Some women, like some men, exhibit a poor dress sense, and upset others for that reason. Whatever it is, there is reason to believe that our society prefers to observe a critical point beyond which women are not expected to dress down, if they are allowed to dress down at all by their family or community, which restriction does not seem to apply to men at all. Apparently, dressing up has no such limit for either gender.

What I am writing here should not be taken as an attack on someone, or a challenge of some point of view. It is just a reflection on a state of affairs that has prevailed, properly disguised of course, in human society at least for centuries, if not for millennia.

The exchange of views about women’s attire led my mind to an instance where the subject is treated in classical English literature. I decided to share with my readers two delightful short lyrics from 17^th century English poetry: Ben Jonson’s (1573-1637) ‘Still to be neat…’, and Robert Herrick’s (1591-1674) ‘Delight in Disorder’. (Texts of the poems reproduced below are from A Book of English Poetry Collected by G.B.Harrison (Penguin Books. First published 1937). But first, let me provide a little bit of background information to facilitate understanding of the poems, for the social context in England in which these poets wrote, and the existential realities they took for granted, no longer exist even for English people today. It is also useful to be aware that certain key words which may seem familiar to a modern reader could mean something different from their modern denotations.

Both these poets were junior contemporaries of the famous William Shakespeare (1564-1616), who was a dramatist and a poet. However, Shakespeare is identified with the Elizabethan period, and Jonson and Herrick with the Jacobean and the Cavalier periods (the 17^th century) when it comes to talking about the history of English literature.

Though Herrick was eighteen years junior to Jonson they were closely associated with each other in their literary pursuits. Jonson was a poet and a dramatist of repute; Herrick became his fan and pupil. This teacher pupil duo enjoyed many a “lyrick feast” in taverns. (It was normal at that time for artists and men of letters to meet in pubs to have learned discussions.) Their “lyrick feasts” were (needless to add, both literally and metaphorically) spirited conversations about art and literature. A common theme among 17^th century poets is the hedonistic view that the most important thing in life is to enjoy to the fullest the present moment without worrying too much about the future, as expressed in Herrick’s well known line “Gather ye rose-buds while ye may”.

This is called the carpe diem theme: “carpe diem quam minimum credula postero” is a line from the ancient Latin poet Horace (65-8 BCE) which in English means “Enjoy the present day, trust the least possible to the future” (Chambers Dictionary). Such ideas were probably due to the uncertainties and apprehensions about what was yet to come for most people in that time of political instability at home (mainly characterized by the tussle between the King and the Parliament), and to the inevitable undermining of the sense of security guaranteed by traditional religious faith as a result of expanding horizons of scientific knowledge and rational thought.

Nevertheless the contemporary society was a highly ordered one. And it was a men’s world. Women were treated as naturally inferior in intelligence and strength of character to men. Another related point is that the time had not yet come when ordinary men and women began to be considered as proper subjects for treatment in literature. Poets wrote about the lives of lords and ladies. Women (of high class) generally figured as objects of beauty, love and romance. They were immaculately dressed; women covered themselves in flowing robes, and much finery. But since people were, unlike today, usually unaware of the causes of diseases, and the importance of personal cleanliness for good health, they were satisfied with very little washing! Poor hygiene led to outbreaks of illness among the population. Allusions to venereal disease abound, especially in Elizabethan poetry.

Let us now look at Ben Jonson’s “Still to be neat…” whose original title was “Simplex Munditiis” (another phrase from Horace which means “elegant in simplicity”). It was first published in 1609.

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfum’d;
Lady, it is to be presum’d,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

The poet is apparently saying to the elaborately dressed woman here that she might be trying to hide some unpalatable truth about herself (like sexual promiscuity) by dressing up like that; as far as he is concerned, an plainly attired woman in “Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:” with a touch of “sweet neglect” would be more alluring; such simplicity will take his heart more readily than all “the adulteries of art”.

The four times repeated “still” in the first stanza means “always” in modern English. The repetition registers the poet’s censure of the woman’s apparent preoccupation with dressing up. Is it to be assumed that there is some not so sweet, not so sound secret that she is trying to conceal under an attractive exterior? She might be an immoral woman who is even carrying venereal disease. The impersonality of “…it is to be presum’d…” suggests that such a negative judgment is unavoidable in these circumstances; it is not a matter of personal preferences; the poet is taking a hard objective look at this deceptive show! He will not be taken in by such a sham. He is not impressed by “all the adulteries of art” which, though appealing to his eye, will not move his heart. The simplicity he asks for is found in “such sweet neglect” as seen in “Robes loosely flowing, hair as free”. The word “art” is used in both stanzas. In “Though art’s hid causes are not found” art may mean either creation of beauty or crafty conduct; the same ambiguity is repeated in the recurrence of the word in the second stanza; but the phrase “adulteries of art” is a direct reference to the features of her make-up which are designed to invite an adulterous response from men.

Women’s vulnerability to accusations of impropriety or even immorality in the matter of dress in a male dominant society, especially when traditional social mores are deemed threatened, is not a new thing.

Below is Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” published in 1648.

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Robert Herrick’s lines above differ somewhat from Jonson’s in tone as well as in theme. The latter’s rather dispassionate dismissal of “the adulteries of art” in favour of a woman being “elegant in simplicity” forms a fine contrast to Herrick’s presumably fatal attraction to a “sweet disorder in the dress” (of a beautiful woman). Though the tendency to represent women as a source of potential danger is common to both poets, the menacing manifestation of that potential is differently viewed. Whereas Jonson perceives possible/almost real treachery where

“Though art’s hid causes are not found

All is not sweet, and all is not sound”,

Herrick detects it in the apparent nonchalance of the way the woman is dressed: “A sweet disorder in the dress – Kindles in clothes a wantonness”; the scarf is thrown into a fine distraction (something that distracts you or makes you crazy); the erring lace …enthrals (enslaves) the crimsonstomacher (a separate piece of cloth for the centre front of a bodice); A cuff neglectful …Ribbands to flow confusedly ; a winning wave… in thetempestuous (stormy, violent) petticoat; a careless shoestring in whose tie the poet sees a wild civility… All the words that I have underscored above help conjure the image of a woman who is far from being a submissive, demure character before males, contrary to what traditional norms of propriety would demand. Instead, the “sweet disorder” that Herrick delights in seems to imply a promise of sexual abandon of the same kind (obviously not looked kindly upon in the strictly conservative, puritanical, male chauvinist 17^th century English society).

This interpretation of the two short lyrics and their appropriation in this context are entirely mine, though my reading of the poems has been naturally influenced by what other commentators have written about them. However, it represents only one of the many different ways in which they could be creatively experienced by discerning readers.

I feel that these two specimens of lyrical poetry, despite their obvious literary worth, embody a warped view of women in society and that this idea is likely to be an essential strand in the fabric of any critical text produced on them. On a more positive note, I may add that the poems also represent two delightfully elegant responses to a display of female beauty through dress in a world where “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”.

Rohana R.Wasala