Language education

Language education is the teaching and learning of a language. It can include improving a learner's mastery of her or his native language, but the term is more commonly used with regard to second language acquisition, which means the learning of a foreign or second language and which is the topic of this article. Language education is a branch of applied linguistics.

 

A language is a particular kind of system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In cognitive science the term is also sometimes extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols — each pairing a specific sign with an intended meaning, established through social conventions.

 

The most obvious manifestations are spoken languages such as English or Spoken Chinese. However, there are also written languages and other systems of visual symbols such as sign languages.

 

 

Human languages

Main article: Natural language

 

Some of the areas of the brain involved in language processing: Broca's area(Blue), Wernicke's area(Green), Supramarginal gyrus(Yellow), Angular gyrus(Orange), Primary Auditory Cortex(Pink)

 

Human languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science of studying them falls under the purview of linguistics. A common progression for natural languages is that they are considered to be first spoken, then written, and then an understanding and explanation of their grammar is attempted.

 

Languages live, die, move from place to place, and change with time. Any language that ceases to change or develop is categorized as a dead language. Conversely, any language that is in a continuous state of change is known as a living language or modern language.

 

Making a principled distinction between one language and another is usually impossible.[12] For instance, there are a few dialects of German similar to some dialects of Dutch. The transition between languages within the same language family is sometimes gradual (see dialect continuum).

 

Some like to make parallels with biology, where it is not possible to make a well-defined distinction between one species and the next. In either case, the ultimate difficulty may stem from the interactions between languages and populations. (See Dialect or August Schleicher for a longer discussion.)

 

The concepts of Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache and Dachsprache are used to make finer distinctions about the degrees of difference between languages or dialects.

 

 

 

English in India

 

 

There is little information on the extent of knowledge of English in India. Books and articles abound on the place of English in the Indian education system, job competition, and culture; and on its sociolinguistic aspects, pronunciation and grammar, its effect on Indian languages, and Indian literature in English. Little information is available, however, on the number of people who "know" English and the extent of their knowledge, or even how many people study English in school. In the 1981 census, 202,400 persons (0.3 percent of the population) gave English as their first language. Fewer than 1 percent gave English as their second language while 14 percent were reported as bilingual in two of India's many languages. However, the census did not allow for recording more than one second language and is suspected of having significantly underrepresented bilingualism and multilingualism.

 

The 1981 census reported 13.3 percent of the population as bilingual. The People of India project of the Anthropological Survey of India, which assembled statistics on communities rather than on individuals, found that only 34 percent of communities reported themselves as monolingual. An Assamese who also knew Bengali, or someone from a Marathi-speaking family living in Delhi who attended a Hindi-medium school, might give Bengali or Hindi as his or her second language but also know English from formal school instruction or picking it up on the street. It is suspected that many people identify language with literacy and hence will not describe themselves as knowing a language unless they can read it and, conversely, may say they know a language if they can make out its alphabet. Thus people who speak English but are unable to read or write it may say they do not know the language.

 

English-language daily newspapers have a circulation of 3.1 million copies per day, but each copy is probably read by several people. There are estimates of about 3 percent (some 27 million people) for the number of literates in English, but even if this percentage is valid, the number of people with a speaking knowledge is certainly higher than of those who read it. And, the figure of 3 percent for English literacy may be low. According to one set of figures, 17.6 million people were enrolled in English classes in 1977, which would be 3.2 percent of the population of India according to the 1971 census. Taking the most conservative evaluation of how much of the instruction would "stick," this still leaves a larger part of the population than 3 percent with some English literacy.

 

Some idea of the possibilities of studying English in India can be found in the 1992 Fifth All-India Education Survey. According to the survey, only 1.3 percent of primary schools, 3.4 percent of upper primary schools, 3.9 percent of middle schools, and 13.2 percent of high schools use English as a medium of instruction. Schools treating English as the first language (requiring ten years of study) are only 0.6 percent of rural primary schools, 2.8 percent of rural high schools, and 9.9 percent of urban high schools. English in India is offered as a second language (six years of study) in 51 percent of rural primary schools, 55 percent of urban primary schools, 57 percent of rural high schools, and 51 percent of urban high schools. As a third language (three years of study), English is offered in 5 percent of rural primary schools, 21 percent of urban primary schools, 44 percent of rural high schools, and 41 percent of urban high schools. These statistics show a considerable desire to study English among people receiving a mostly vernacular education, even in the countryside.

 

In higher education, English continues to be the premier prestige language. Careers in business and commerce, government positions of high rank (regardless of stated policy), and science and technology (attracting many of the brightest) continue to require fluency in English. It is also necessary for the many students who contemplate study overseas.

 

English as a prestige language and the tongue of first choice continues to serve as the medium of instruction in elite schools at every level without apology. All large cities and many smaller cities have private, English-language middle schools and high schools. Even government schools run for the benefit of senior civil service officers are conducted in English because only that language is an acceptable medium of communication throughout the nation.

 

Working-class parents, themselves rural-urban migrants and perhaps bilingual in their village dialect and the regional standard language, perceive English as the tool their children need in order to advance. Schools in which English is the medium of instruction are a "growth industry." Facility in English enhances a young woman's chances in the marriage market--no small advantage in the often protracted marriage negotiations between families. The English speaker also encounters more courteous responses in some situations than does a speaker of an indigenous language.

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The place of English in India has been a matter of controversy since Independence. There are two extreme views. There are those who advocate that English is indispensable and should be given supreme importance to keep the country abreast of the latest developments in science and technology. There are others who in their nationalistic zeal want a complete switch- over to Hindi and a Ban on the use of English in any field.

 

PLACE OF ENGLISH

 

The very Proposition of banning English in India smacks of bigotry, fanaticism and narrow nationalism. We ban a thing that is harmful for the health of a nation. But the English Language in itself can't be held guilty of any such thing. It has done nothing that goes against the interest of the nation. Rather it has enriched our store of knowledge and enabled us to communicate with the international community.

 

Today when the world has become like a global family and all businesses and industries are run internationally it is impossible to work without English. These are the days when students and other people also join special English language courses to make themselves able to stand anywhere and communicate with anybody in the world.

 

Before independence English was necessary to communicate with and to understand Britishers so that we can make them run away. Also it was necessary for the help from other countries in our fight for independence. After independence it becomes necessary to grow with the same pace the outer world is growing and developing.

 

English has remained with us so long that now it has become a part and parcel of our daily life. It is such an inexhaustible treasure of knowledge that we will only impoverish ourselves by banning it. It will just keep us banal, without any new idea for success and advancement. By banning English we will be stripped of our knowledge because we will not be able to use it widely because of the lack of official and business communication as well as informal sharing of views and ideas with the rest of the world, depriving ourselves from the exposer of different cultures and new developments. Banning English will also be forfeiting the right to freedom of speech and expression from those who want to or do speak or write in English and who don't know local languages.

 

WHO AND WHY OPPOSE ENGLISH

 

The slogans against English are coined by those who have constricted thinking and remained circumscribed by their national prejudices. These type of prejudices seldom works for the good and many times can create severe problems. People conceive concocts to oppose English. By this their diseased thinking they are doing more harm than good to the nation. Most of the people who averse to use English they try to sabotage English just to satisfy their egoistic or political needs.

 

HONOUR TO OUR LANGUAGE

 

However, all this is not to suggest that all pride of place in India should go to English language. Its true that use of plethora of English language can overlap with Hindi or our other regional languages. We must honour our national language and take all exhaustive steps for its development. All work as far as possible should be done in the national and regional languages. But we should have no prejudices against English language if we are not to deprive ourselves of the latest developments in the field of science and technology.

 

 

 

English has gone so deep into our roots that we can't do without it. Its successful penetration of the world's language world makes it very important for us. It is an international language and we shall make ourselves aliens in the international community if we think of banning it completely.

 

 

 

 

 

Difficulties for learners

Language teaching practice often assumes that most of the difficulties that learners face in the study of English are a consequence of the degree to which their native language differs from English (a contrastive analysis approach). A native speaker of Chinese, for example, may face many more difficulties than a native speaker of German, because German is closely related to English, whereas Chinese is not. This may be true for anyone of any mother tongue (also called first language, normally abbreviated L1) setting out to learn any other language (called a target language, second language or L2). See also second language acquisition (SLA) for mixed evidence from linguistic research.

 

Language learners often produce errors of syntax and pronunciation thought to result from the influence of their L1, such as mapping its grammatical patterns inappropriately onto the L2, pronouncing certain sounds incorrectly or with difficulty, and confusing items of vocabulary known as false friends. This is known as L1 transfer or "language interference". However, these transfer effects are typically stronger for beginners' language production, and SLA research has highlighted many errors which cannot be attributed to the L1, as they are attested in learners of many language backgrounds (for example, failure to apply 3rd person present singular -s to verbs, as in 'he make').

 

While English is no more complex than other languages, it has several features which may create difficulties for learners. Conversely, because such a large number of people are studying it, products have been developed to help them do so, such as the monolingual learner's dictionary, which is written with a restricted defining vocabulary.