English for Social Justice

English for Social Justice

T. Vinoda

At a recent seminar on “Empowerment of Dalits” UR Anantha Murthy has argued that the best way to beat the “English speaking community” is to learn to speak that language. However the Nativist intellectuals and proponents of Desi languages have always argued, under the guise of Orientalism, that English endangers local languages and perpetuates inequality. But this need not happen as indeed it did not happen. For, the Desi traditions have always strengthened as one moved up the English intellectual ladder. This is best seen in some of the well known Indian writers in English like Raja Rao or Salman Rushdie. Also, as the eminent linguist, David Crystal pointed out, widespread in India, there is an enviable anxiety to “balance between an outward-looking language of empowerment like English and an inward-looking language of identity.” He cites a number of examples and episodes to show that Indian identity is in no danger from the widespread use of English. He concludes that “India can teach the rest of the world some lessons not only about multidialectism but about multilingualism too” (The Guardian Weekly, 19 Nov 2004).

His conclusions give substance to the view that English has helped Indians with global reach even as it helped them decolonise themselves and march towards the preservation of local identities. In fact some Indian intellectuals like Gail Omvedt even think that, through English education, Dalits can even come back to break the elitist Brahminical stranglehold of Sanskrit over the regional languages. English skills, therefore, have the effect of empowerment, liberation and emancipation especially for the oppressed classes.

The Dalit intellectual and activist Chandrabhan Prasad recently celebrated Lord Macaulay’s 206^th birthday with merriment, joviality and jesting because he hailed him as the Father of Indian Modernity, for, as he puts it, it was after the introduction of his English system of education in 1854 that Dalits got the right to education. Prasad thinks that, had it not been for Macaulay, notwithstanding his insidious imperialist designs to make “intellectual slaves” of Indians for the British Empire, India would have remained primitive. English in a way made for egalitarianism and brought to India European kind of modern education, with focus on modern sciences. The point I wish to underline here is that, it is a fact of history that English education has been the agent of decolonisation in post-independence India and has also been responsible for breaking the gridlock of opportunities to enable us step onto the global stage with confidence and pride. Curiously enough the Indian experience has established that the very language which was originally introduced in India with imperialist intentions to enslave people has worked eventually to liberate us.

What is also unique to the Indian experience is the multiple linguistic continuities that it provides along with English; the Nativist fears about the endangerment to the regional languages are entirely unfounded. It is my firm belief that the strong Indian identity will remain unshaken by the temporary incursions that the Western culture might make through the English language. I believe that, at the end of the day, English will remain a language with which we do business with the rest of the world. The English juggernaut moves on helping growth and development in India what with economic reforms making way for a globalised environment.

It is interesting to note that Viniti Vaish of Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice at the National Instt. of Education in Singapore has recently (July 23, 2005) published an article in Language Policy setting forth and confirming most of the views presented here. She takes a “peripherist” view of English language use in India and defines “peripherism as the ideology or view of those groups that have historically been linguistically subalternized or disenfranchised but that have now, due to the market forces of globalization, gained access to linguistic capital [of English].” The peripherist view, she says, holds that English in India today is an agent of decolonization that enables the urban poor to access the global economy and that English is no longer a tool of linguicism which it was during British colonialism. According to Tove Skutnabb Kangas linguicism is a set of ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, regulate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources between greoups which are defined on the basis of language.

One of the important issues that the organizers of this Seminar wanted us to address is:

• Like Sankrit in old times, is English today used to keep the disadvantaged sections out of power;
• is English confined to elite groups like Sanskrit in old times.
• Is linguicism practiced deliberately to divide the society into the advantaged and disadvantaged, etc.

I wish to state that the conspiracy theory is valid for the pre-Independence times when it was first introduced in India at Macaulay’s insidious suggestion; but that no longer is the case. Questions critical of how power is subtly held or denied in the field of organized education have bothered many thinkers. In the post-Independence egalitarian India, through English, people can access power, but if they do not do so it is because of failed pedagogies and indifferent and unresponsive delivery systems. Not realizing this, we seek remedies elsewhere.

In India the policies of reservations, quotas, subsidies, and special treatment of underprivileged classes have surely been of help, to a limited extent, in ensuring equal opportunities, but to be effective these measures should have been followed up with specific English language teaching strategies that suit their unequal social status. I feel, enough hasn’t been done for the subaltern sections of the society to provide them a level playing field. The continued levels of social backwardness of large sections of the society even after 60 years of independence speak volumes about defective and ineffective educational planning. The resignation of two of the 8 members [Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Andre Beteille] of the National Knowledge Commission initiated a fresh spurt of debate on reservations, especially because six of the eight members expressed themselves against reservations. While reservations and quotas are considered merely tokenism, it is possible to think about social justice in a new paradigm other than reservations. In the narrative of social justice creating equal access to opportunities, especially empowering the marginalized groups to gain such an access, is of utmost importance. One of the affirmative measures recommended by the National Knowledge Commission was that English language be taught from Class I in schools across the nation. In this context I wish to emphasize that no matter when we start teaching English to our students, and how many years we teach them English, it can never be learnt well if it is not taught well. The fundamental question we need to ask is: why can’t our graduates speak English well or write it well although they learn it from 5^th class until UG—i.e. for more than 10 years? For this the answers can be found only in the pedagogies that we practise.

In June 2003 Regional Institute of English (South India) held an All-India seminar on “Empowerment in language learning and teaching.” The themes that emerged dominantly were: knowledge of English is power, and we empower our learners by giving them English, that is by teaching it well. So, not surprisingly, most papers focused on the techniques for teaching the language effectively. If providing access to opportunities for the marginalized groups is a national priority and if one of the ways this can be achieved is through effective teaching of English—the word effective is operative here—evolving pedagogy suited to the socially disadvantaged classes should be a national priority too. In a limited way the 3-day Regional Instt. Seminar addressed some pedagogical perspectives. This is where the University Departments of English figure and they need to reinvent and redefine themselves for the task of imparting of English skills

Whether we know it or not, whether we recognize it or not, the University English Departments in India are at cross roads today and we need to decide wither we are headed. Do we know what the problems are? Let me be specific. You all know that recently the Council of Higher Education had new text books prepared for undergraduate English teaching by an outside agency and asked us to administer them. Similarly the IT behemoths like CMC had had a text book prepared for teaching what they call “Soft Skills” by someone other than the University English Departments. Likewise each of the IT majors employing our professionals has in-house facilities for training in communication skills and here too the University Departments of English are not involved. This trend should be a wake-up call for us. We urgently need to do soul searching as to why we were ignored and why the work was outsourced. It is not as if we do not have the expertise to prepare the textbooks. If teaching of English is our domain, if for decades it has been our job to define course content and prepare teaching material for English, why were we not entrusted with this job? This is a crucial question and we need to find answers. If we fail to find answers and follow it up with suitable strategies of effectiveness, we will, in course of time, simply cease to exist as English teachers. I think the bottom line for English teachers today is to identify the problem, adapt themselves to the changed situation, and evolve and mutate and morph. The alternative is the fate of dinosaurs and dodos.

We need to recognize that English Studies in India has been concerned, far too long, for over 5 decades to be precise, with nothing but British literature. This was an entirely elitist preoccupation and a colonial hangover. We produced graduates in English Literature who in turn taught English literature. If someone assumed he would acquire communication skills in English through the Master’s in English, he was ridiculed and treated with contempt because communication skills were a prerequisite for study at Master’s level. Also, it is generally assumed that Master’s in English prepared you to teach English through an exposure to the classic English writers. But at the ground zero this objective did not work. We found that the graduates coming out of colleges and Universities haven’t fared well in English language skills in spite of our teaching. When they fared well or where they fared well, they did so in spite of us. But we refused to acknowledge our culpability in this general failure and blissfully continued with the old teaching materials, and old methods of teaching. At Master’s level where we are enjoined with the task of training English Language teachers, we continued teaching them literature—first British literature, and later the American literature, Commonwealth Literature, Indian Writing in English, Indian Classics in Translation, so on and so forth. In the late Eighties and early Nineties some winds of change swept across English Departments: as if in acknowledgement of the malaise, we yielded ground by introducing English Language Teaching as one of the specializations that the future English teachers could opt. English dons across the country have always looked down upon ELT. I still remember our most revered CDN asking me point blank at an interview: “I don’t have ELT training; does it make me a bad English Teacher?” I told him a born teacher like him needed no training, but commoners could be trained to become effective teachers, if not good teachers. The point here is, this in a sense gives us an idea about the mindset and attitudes that the English Departments have inherited. I think the consequences of this mindset could well be seen on the ground in the poor standards of proficiency levels in our graduates. People naturally blamed it upon the English teacher for the failure of our students in the marketplace. It is in this context of the general failure of the English Departments that we also have to recognize what it means for the University graduates to go out with their woeful lack of communication skills. It simply means forfeiting equality of opportunity. They fail in the competition of the marketplace where the socially advantaged have an edge over them what with their convent English education and good family background. English being a language of empowerment, a language that in the Indian context will help eliminate at least the inequality of opportunity, it is important that the English teachers address this issue with a sense of urgency.

We have arrived today at a situation where performance and performance alone is important. We now live in an age of internet, economic liberalization, of heavy foreign direct investments in India, of global outsourcing of businesses, and of a commercial competitive culture where all that matters is productivity and delivery to international standards and that too at the lowest cost. Indigenous businesses and services sector have been now forced to compete in the free market with the global giants. Gone are the days of Nehruvian protectionism for the Indian industry. We function in this radically changed scenario where government protectionism is disappearing. Concessions and reservations for the socially underprivileged may continue to be given for getting oneself educated, but they do not guarantee jobs in the privatized deregulated marketplace. You have to have skills necessary to perform and deliver. There are no reservations for the backward classes where performance is concerned. But to succeed in the new environment technical skills alone are not enough; you need to combine them with good communication skills. Most of these BPOs, Call Centres and IT employers today have found that our graduates are good as technicians, but woefully lack communication skills. As a result they have started giving them in-house crash courses in what they call “soft skills.” These soft skills consist mostly of interactive skills. Given good skills of interaction and communication, one can go very far in achieving advancement in the job. Without them you do not have a chance even to enter the fray; without them you are deprived of even the opportunity to compete. You may acquire professional skills of a specialist, a technician, a scientist, an engineer, or a doctor, but to gain entry into the well paying jobs in the private sector you will first be required to prove your English skills as a communicator. English forms a very large component of GRE, TOEFL, Group Discussions and in several competitive examinations. Why can’t the English Departments undertake to prepare our students, disadvantaged or otherwise, for the English component of these examinations? In this competitive environment, students without the privileges of a good family background are doomed to fail. I know for years we have set up Language Cells for the socially disadvantaged SC and ST students to impart free coaching English skills, but this was of a very limited help because our course material was not attuned to the imperatives of the changed situation today. It’s a matter of pride and satisfaction that the Department of English at Kakatiya has had the far sight to introduce compulsory courses in Phonetics, Spoken English, and Grammar at Master’s and these have been of invaluable help to our graduates who go out to become English teachers. When I introduced courses in Phonetics around 1983, I was a lone ranger as a proponent of ELT. Since then gradually a second rung of ELT teachers, most of whom were my students, has been built in the Department and today I take pride in the fact we have a faculty strong in ELT. With this expertise at our disposal a lot of work can be done to harness ELT for purposes of social engineering and empowerment. And we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. A lot of work has already been done in countries like Australia and America towards integrating the native aboriginal tribes in the mainstream through English language teaching. Their methodologies and teaching material could be adapted to our situation. Our CELT [Centre for English Language Teaching] can avail of the models developed by CIEFL former professors like M.L. Tickoo and Prabhu, for their work. This should mark the landmark beginning of a paradigm shift in the Department, changing the old mindset and bringing in a new pragmatism that will answer the imperatives of the changed environment.

A word here on the pedagogical perspectives, is in place. The organizers of this conference have devoted an entire session, the technical session, for evolving strategies and techniques to produce need-specific teaching materials and appropriate context-specific teaching methodologies. It goes without saying that we would all agree on one particular point: the power distribution in the classroom be righted by making the pedagogy learner-centred. There is need for empowerment everywhere: empowerment of schools with equipment and aids to teaching—we cannot underestimate the role technology plays in education in the age of internet. There is need for empowerment of teachers with good pronunciation, proficiency and skills of teaching; of learners with self-confidence and faith in their cognitive resourcefulness, i.e. faith in their own native abilities and learning resources. Thus empowerment may come through English, but first the schools and the teachers need to be empowered.

Before I conclude I would like to draw the attention of the scholars to a point of view that prevails at the other end of the spectrum. That is, there are people who maintain that children learn best and quickest in their mother-tongues, and not having English as the primary mode of education has not prevented Koreans, Malays, and Chinese from getting ahead or the Russians from producing mathematical geniuses or the French and the Germans producing Nobel Prize winners in the sciences. These people argue it is a more a matter of allocation and deployment of resources for education than of language issue. Scholars can debate this point of view as well.

Lecture at the UGC-sponsored Seminar on "Emerging Trends in Communication Skills in English," organised by the Department of English, CKM Arts & Science College, Warangal on September 5-6, 2000.

Communicative Competence: Some Reflections

T. Vinoda

Nearly 170 years after English was introduced into India to further colonial ends, this language has entrenched itself in our midst to assume altogether different purpose to help us access global markets. The most obvious function of English today is to work as a transactional language helping several classes of people, be they exporters, businessmen, IT workers, Call Centre men and women and as the language of the public life. The language and its ways of thinking get adapted and seep into the lives of these people even though they may conduct the rest of their existence in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Panjabi, Marathi, Bengali, etc. Their English may be primitive or transactional and clumsy, but using it day in and day out prepares them for a cultural life in this language. As teachers of English our function is to conceive relevant courses, produce suitable teaching materials and practice apt methods of teaching that would facilitate smooth progress of our students to their appointed goals. Irrespective of the varying goals our students for themselves, there is one constant expectation from them as far as acquisition of English as second language is concerned; that is, as graduates they would like to have the basic linguistic equipment to use English at least as a transactional language.

Starting from the 1950s a real shift took place in the approach, methods and techniques in language pedagogy. The goal of English instruction originally was to enable the users to construct correct sentences with the help of grammatical rules. Thus the focus was mainly on usage. However later the goal of language instruction shifted to building up learners’ “communicative competence.” Their focus has shifted now to rules of use, i.e. the use of language to accomplish some kind of communication purpose. “Sound sociolinguistic principles” has become the key phrase in language teaching. Drawing on the work of the British functional linguists, Firth and Halliday, a group of applied linguists like Wilkins, Christopher Candlin, Henry Widdowson, Christopher Brumfit, Keith Johnson and others have advocated what is called “notional-functional syllabus.” This meant building a course around the uses or functions to which language is put. For example, one lesson could be planned on requesting information, another on apologizing, a third on expressing gratitude, greetings, and so on. The familiar structural patterns remained, but they were ordered differently and organized around functional headings. They insisted that the purpose of teaching a second language was not merely to enable the students to know about language but to enable them to use it in real life situations.

In fact there is an interesting problem here regarding the dialectical relationship between the system and its use: we cannot use a language unless we learn the rules (i.e. the system) and we can learn the rules only through using the language. Where does one begin in this situation where usage and use are interdependent?

Language can either be acquired or learned. Acquisition means “picking up” the language in a natural way. Krashen calls this method the “Natural Method.” And “learning” on the contrary refers to “conscious” grammar learning, which is knowing about a language rather than learning to perform. However in a second language situation it is through the interaction between the two that the learning of English takes place.

It must be remembered that communication takes place not merely through language but through a variety of non-linguistic ways as well. That is, sometimes we communicate by raising brows of knitting them, by shrugging, by clearing throat, by emoting feelings on the face, by certain body gestures, by the way we dress or in innumerable other ways. However the sole function of language is communication. But all vocal behaviour need not necessarily be language. Cries, grunting, screaming, etc. are not part of language. Perhaps even the predictable ‘good-byes,’ ‘hellos,’ and ‘how do you dos’ are only language-like behaviour. Language per se or verbal behaviour is a special sort of communicative behaviour.

When we talk about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour or appropriate and inappropriate language, we are taking a view of language as a social institution, a body of socially conditioned or culturally determined ways of behaving. The traditional language teaching with its insistence on correctness, the rules of grammar, and its limited objectives lacked this social dimension. Little thought seems to have been given to the notion of appropriateness, to the way the language behaviour is responsive to differing social situations. However modern pedagogy adopts a more social approach to language and addresses problems of communication function in different social situations. We see this in the modern insistence on presenting language in situations, in dialogue form rather than isolated exemplificatory sentences, in the use of audio-visual materials and in the emphasis on ‘natural’ linguistic examples.

There are at least three dimensions of variability in the language use. The first is concerned with the relative social status of the speaker and hearer. Thus we would expect to find the language used by a teacher speaking to a student to be different from that used by a student speaking to his classmate; or a judge speaking to a prisoner or to a lawyer. This status-related dimension of variability is called style. A well-known illustration of this was given by Martin Joos (1962) where he arbitrarily divided up the continuum of variability into five stages of formality:

1. Frozen: Visitors should make their way at once to the upper floor by way

of staircase.

2. Formal: Visitors should go up the stairs at once.

3. Consultative: Would you mind going upstairs right away, please?

4. Casual: Time you all went upstairs now.

5. Intimate: Up you go chaps!

It could be seen that features of languageregularly mark social relationships between participants in a language event. People are generally aware of their own status in relation to one another and will choose the appropriate language forms quite unconsciously. Status may be marked at any level of language—syntax, lexis, and phonetics. If I write to my employer asking for an increase in my salary, it would be most unwise on my part to use either the imperative or the interrogative form of the verb:

Give me a pay-rise. (Imperative)

Or

Will you increase my pay next month? (Interrogative)

These forms would certainly be counter-productive. On the other hand a circumlocutory approach would suggest an appropriate recognition of our relative status:

I should therefore be grateful if you could give serious consideration to the possibility of increasing my salary.

Thus the more formal sentence here is not only different structurally but also shows a change in vocabulary. For “pay” we now have “salary.” For that matter there is a very large vocabulary of items used for “salary” received for work done:

Wages, money, remuneration, income, emoluments, earnings, fee, commission,

Honorarium, retainer, etc.

And no doubt many more. The degree of formality of an utterance is undoubtedly a factor in our choice from these alternatives for “pay.” However slang words do not fit in here because they are appropriate only to a casual or intimate style. “Dough,” “bloke,” “cuppa,” “loo,” “booze,” are of a category that go with the casual, informal or intimate style. Thus in lexis too there are degrees of formality. For example,

“offspring” is very formal (used in legalese)

“children” is neutral

“kids” is very informal.

If the parents of two school going children meet, the enquiry, “How is your offspring [in place of child] doing” will be very awkward.

If I am making an application for leave of absence to my superior officer, I cannot use this casual language:

“Hi! Chum!

I’ve a lousy headache. I’m chucking this bloody work and going to hit the hay. Cheerio."

This is absolutely unacceptable. I have to be using officialese as shown below:

“Sir,

As I have a persistent headache, I request you for a day’s leave of absence

Thanking you,”

So is the case when I apply for a job: I can not use the informal or slang variety of language. Similarly in a speech situation phonology may also be an indicator of relative status. Deference due to a superior or indifference to an inferior can be shown easily enough through intonation. For example “thank you” said with a falling intonation marks gratitude while the one with a rise signifies just a formality—perfunctory response.

The second use-related language variation we find is what is called register. Area or context-specific language is register. Subject-specific language use is also known as field of discourse. We have ‘scientific, religious, legal, literary, sports’ registers and also such varieties as the language of newspaper headlines, of cables and telegrams, of cookery and embroidery, of advertising, and so on.

One of the marked features of a register is the predominance of a particular type of technical terms. Certain marked lexical features help us delimit and classify registers. Consider this passage:

Soak the breadcrumbs in boiling water, then strain. Add the beaten eggs, herbs and finely chopped fried onions. Shape into fritters. Fry in deep hot fat until brown.

You immediately recognize it as the register of cookery. You will find here predominant use of imperative structures and register-specific vocabulary. Effective acquisition of communication skills in English in a chosen field of discourse ought to lead the learners to that specific register. Cricket commentators, public speakers, announcers at airports and railway stations, sales representatives could be given special tailor-made courses with focus on the register-specific vocabulary, syntax and special phonological features these occupations demand.

In point of fact, leaning a second language is a process of making a number of choices and putting them together. Teachers of English in a second language situation must help the student make an appropriate register choice out of the total register range. Register-shift, i.e. the ability to shift registers according to shifts in the situation is one of the crucial conditions for success in handling second language effectively. The dictum is: “If you don’t know your lines, you are no use in the play.” In fact man in his day-to-day life finds himself in a network of institutionalized roles and has to select role-worthy varieties of the language appropriate to the topic and the situation. Teaching of communicative English should be geared to meet such typical language needs.

The third area where a second language learner of English needs help at undergraduate level is the use of spoken language as opposed to written language. Unfortunately the existing scheme of things as far as English teaching is concerned is very weak in this respect. Since our teaching is geared to the annual written examination at the end of the year, students as well as teachers tend to lay stress on written skills rather than the spoken competency. As a consequence the students tend to bring in the style of writing model to operate on spoken English, leading sometimes to very embarrassing situations. When they speak they use outrageously perfect sentences, too complete, too grammatical, too lengthy and too cogent. Incomplete sentences, breaks, digressions in conversation that we expect to find in spoken medium are not to be found.

It is probably because of this piquant situation that both at the UG and PG level a majority of students fail to use good communicative English, although they are otherwise good at grammar. This, of course, does not mean that students who are bad at grammar are necessarily good at communication skills. Often, these students find it difficult relating to people because their learning stopped with grammatical competence and has not progressed toward communicative competence.

It must be remembered that language learning is not complete when one is proficient in producing grammatical forms and has assimilated the relations that they express. For what we describe as the grammatical function of a sentence is not necessarily the same as its utterance function. For example, in teaching imperative form of a verb it is not enough to explain them that it is used for giving orders or for making requests. We ignore the fact that an imperative, typically, is used for several other purposes as well. For example, in the following speech acts, the imperative form is used to convey suggestion, threat, instruction, direction, warning, invitation, etc.

Grammatical function Utterance function

1. Find a seat and I’ll get drinks. Suggestion

2. Do that and I’ll knock your teeth in. Threat

3. Connect the hose to the water supply. Instruction

4. Turn left at the traffic lights and take the third Direction

turning on the left..

5. Watch your glass. Warning

6. Have a drink. Invitation

These six imperative sentences express six different utterance functions. That is to say, in indirect speech acts the imperative can signify functions other than order and request. Conversely, it is equally possible to produce utterances that do not contain imperative forms, but still have the effect of imposing the will of the speaker on the hearer. Consider the following examples.

1. If you don't shut the window, you'll get a good hiding.

2. I insist that you do it.

3. You are not going out in that dress.

4. My driver will carry your bag for you (indirectly order to the driver)

These sentences are declaratives but are used to signify theutterance function of 'ordering.' It is clear that non-imperative sentences also can signal 'order', a function that is usually performed by imperative forms. Similarly we can go further and show that interrogatives are not necessarily questions or conditionals are not always conditions. It is not only that the same utterance function like 'order' can be expressed through different sentence types, but that the use of one form in place of another makes for a subtle difference. Observe the following sentences: they show how the hierarchies of formality, indirection and politeness interact:

Shut the door. (order)

Shut the door, will you? (familiar)

Please shut the door. (polite)

Would you please shut the door? (more polite)

Would you mind shutting the door? (still more polite)

Generally the indirect speech acts are considered to be more polite than the direct speech acts. Lack of awareness of such implications involved in the use of direct and indirect speech acts often leads to breakdown in communication. To illustrate it further, all the students here know that there are mainly two types of interrogative sentences--'yes/no' type and 'wh-' type. A 'yes/no' interrogative like:

"Do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?"

Under normal circumstances elicits either 'yes' or 'no' as an answer from the interlocutor in direct speech act. Nevertheless it is possible to have numorous effects as a result of one person failing to recognize another person's indirect speech act. Consider the following scene. A visitor to Warangal, carrying luggage, looking lost, stope a passer-by:

Visitor: Excuse me, do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?

Passer-by: Oh sure, I know where it is. (and walks away)

Instead of responding to the request the passer-by replies to the question, treating an indirect speech act as if were direct. That is, he has failed to interpret the speaker's intention. Indirect commands and requests are simply considered more gentle and more polite in our society than the direct commands. The knowledge of pragmatics and the awareness of conversational principles, also play a significant role in communication.

All this is to conclude that at the UG level the existing formal approach by teaching the context and purpose of utterance and by showing how these might be expressed. They may be taught to master the means of expressing notions. We will be better preparing our students to meet life situations if our course design includes such components as:

1. expressing emoitons like surprise, pleasure, sorrow, anger, anxiety, hope enthusiasm, etc.

2. our emotional reactions to others: such as expressing sympathy, condolence, affection, admireation, thrust, dislike, ridicule, etc.

3. attitudes and obligations: expressing praise, blame, apologies, regret, promises, prohibition, tolerance, permission, etc.

4. modalities and deictics like: degree of possibility, probability, necessity, likelihood, doubt, certainty, ability agreement,

disagreement, persuasion, suggestion, demands, orders, insistence, warnings, acceptance, caution, refusal, assertion,

opposition, qualification, admission, emphasis, contrast, understatement, exaggeration, frankness, tact, etc.

Much of our language use is personally motivated to express many of these communication functions and the conventional courses at the UG do not focus on them at all. I do not think that the learner will develop this ability on the basis of the formal knowledge sought to be imparted to him in the3 existing set up. A notion-oriented teaching with a need-based register-specific courses should render English teaching more purposeful than it is now.

However in the context of a more general course the conventional systematic grammar-based approach might do but if we intend planning an advanced language learning course at UG/PG level to achieve communicative competence the situational and notional approach to language teaching becomes inevitable. The idea here is to enable the student master the grammar rules first, and then teach him to exploit his grammatical competence for effective communication. In actual practice no guiding principles inform our advanced learning courses now. Perhaps these communication universals provide a means for the students to practise the application of their linguistic knowledge. Very often we are haunted by a nagging feeling that perhaps pedagogy serves very limited purpose especially with the kind of unmotivated and unfocused students that we get and with the kind of teaching materials and testing methods that obtain in the existing scheme of things. Bernard Shaw put this in his typically humorous vein: He said that his education had been continuous from childhood except for a brief interruption in school. We may have to work for thirty or so years and retire with the galling awareness of the pitfalls of English teaching especially since we work in a larger system where it is impossible to change things in a way that enables us to deliver. At best we may hope that this awareness of pitfalls and this discontentment in itself will so the seeds of change for the better.