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Abstract
Indian professionals are in great demand around the world. Every year polytechnic Colleges in India produce thousands of diploma holders in vocational areas, however, they have to strive in a competitive job market against graduates from other tertiary institutions. The State of Andhra Pradesh has always spearheaded in achieving excellence in education, technology, agricultural and industrial development at the national level. In today’s globalised scenario, these students require not only subject knowledge of the specific courses but also English language skills and soft skills to excel in academic and professional life. The majority of students enrolled in polytechnic courses in the States come from non-English speaking backgrounds and they need to improve their communicative competence. Here the role of English teachers becomes challenging. The paper aims at studying challenges faced by the English teachers in teaching English to Polytechnic students and also studies few strategies which may help the teachers to achieve the expected results in this direction.
Introduction
Communication is the transfer of information from one person to another. It is an important and essential skill required by the polytechnic students to make them marketable once they complete their studies. Acquiring subject knowledge, i.e. both theoretical and practical, is very important but to express that knowledge one has to be good at communication skills. Having good communication skills will help them in securing a job, build a good relationship with people in profession and also important for career development. Therefore, students need to be taught how to communicate effectively in a work environment, especially related to their areas.
It is essential to improve the communicative competence of these students in the current globalised environment. Communicative competence is one’s capacity to use language effectively and appropriately. The English language has become a major medium for communication across borders globally. Lack of English Language skills may become a barrier in personal and professional development of these diploma holders. It has been observed that polytechnic students face several problems at the time of recruitment, such as the lack of knowledge of interview techniques, insufficient written and oral communication skills, expression of knowledge gained etc. Despite gaining higher scores in their studies, students often encounter problems during job selection procedures. From this, it can be understood how much important is to enhance the language skills in these students. Communicative competence is one's capacity to use language effectively and appropriately. Keeping this fact in mind, improving English language skills becomes a necessity of the hour and here, the role of English teachers becomes crucial and challenging.
Students of the twenty-first century require far more than subject knowledge or technical skills to get good jobs or to raise steadily a work. This is mainly because of the complex life and work environments that they have to function in and that they have to learn to navigate. It is well understood that professional success in the present is closely linked to a general awareness of the world we live in, information skills, learning and innovation skills, and soft skills.
The primary objective of the State Board of Technical Education and Training, Telangana & Andhra Pradesh, is to produce best technicians in the state by correlating growing needs of the industries with the academic input. It is among the first few higher academic boards in the country that have undertaken the initiative to include communication skills and soft skills at the undergraduate level to prepare them for employability.
Course Structures and Curriculum
The duration of the diploma courses is three years, which comprises 2 ½ years of academic instruction and 6 months of industrial training. All the Diploma courses are run on Year wise pattern in the First year and the remaining two years are run in the semester pattern. The eligibility criteria require the candidates to appear for Common Entrance Examination (CEEP) after passing Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination. The admissions are made on the basis of merit obtained the CEEP and reservations rules of the Government of Telangana & Andhra Pradesh.
Globalisation requires the professional students of various countries to acquire English language skills. Keeping in view the demand for Indian professionals in global market, it is compulsory for them to enhance English language skills. English is included in the curriculum of three years of diploma course. The workbooks prescribed for study are designed keeping in view the LSRW skills. The task-based activities and exercises are meticulously planned to improve the language skills of the students and are more interactive in nature. English grammar like tenses, active & passive voice, sentence structures, propositions, Reported speech, framing questions, concord and error analysis apart from speaking, listening and reading exercises are included in the first year English workbook. More of speaking, writing exercise and employability skills are included in the II year syllabus. In the III year, soft skills like attitude, adaptability, Goal setting, Motivation, Time Management, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Stress Management, Problem solving, Teamwork and Leadership are prescribed to be taught to improve their soft skills, communication skills and English Language skills of Polytechnic students. The main aim of the syllabus is to help students to acquire the necessary skills for employment in the twenty first century.
Challenges Encountered by the English Teachers in Polytechnic Colleges
The medium of instruction in Polytechnic courses is English. The students as well as other teachers look at it not on par with other technical subjects. Equal weightage is not given to English subject. English language is the only means to express the knowledge of core subjects, but it is given least importance. First the attitudes of students and teachers have to change as far as English language is concerned.
The intake of students in each branch of polytechnic course is 60 students. As it is a big number to deal individually in a classroom, it becomes a challenge for an English teacher to take personal care of all the students. So individual concentration becomes difficult for a teacher and so improving language skills of the students in the classroom is a not easy task.
All the students who take admission in Polytechnic colleges do not come from English medium alone but come even from vernacular mediums of instruction from schools. Teaching English to a heterogeneous class becomes biggest challenge for English teachers. Few may be intelligent and grasp subjects easily and lack communication skills. So improving language skills of the students of a class becomes difficult task. Not all students show interest to learn English language as they are negligent about the value of learning English language in the present scenario. Even cultural differences and gender differences pose a difficulty in teaching English to a heterogeneous class.
The completion of syllabus in the given limited time is another concern to be looked into.
Only 2 or 3 theory classes are allotted for English subjects per week. In this short stipulated time, the teachers have to complete syllabus keeping the examinations of the students in mind. So teachers will be concerned about the prescribed syllabus on par with other subject teachers during the theory classes. English Language Laboratory is not included in the Polytechnic courses. So there is no chance for teachers to take practical sessions by giving task based activities to improve communication skills of the students here.
Even if the three-year syllabus is so well planned and designed to enhance the required skills of the students to become employable by the time of their course completion, it becomes difficult to complete all the exercise or task based activities in the class room alone because of heterogeneous group of class and time constraint.
There is no other assessment carried out to test the communication skills of the students. The examination the students take is written one as per the Board’s rules and system. The students write these exams just by following some test papers or guides and clear their papers in the exams. But these are no evaluation system to check the language acquisition of the students in the three years of their course. As there is no Language lab for them, the teachers cannot test their language skills by conducting practical’s at the end of the academic year or semester.
Even if the soft skills are included in the curriculum of third year, the teachers can educate them about the soft skills but again it becomes difficult to conduct activities in the theory classes as the allotted classes are only 2 per a week. Teaching theory will not help the students but they have to participate in language activities to learn these soft skills.
The above mentioned few problems or constraints are experienced by the English teachers in Polytechnic colleges in general.
Suggestions to Overcome the Challenges
It can definitely help to improve the interest of students to learn English language if the teachers plan and prepare few strategies. First of all, in the beginning of the academic year of the course, the students should be made to realise the importance of English by giving real time experiences of others and tell them the factors ruling the present day global market.
Secondly, students should be motivated to attend the classes compulsorily and to take part in class room activities. It can be done if the activities and exercised are done in groups. Students from different levels of understanding can be grouped as a team and made to work on these language activities, so that a below average student can feel comfortable.
The vernacular medium students should be encouraged to actively participate and little extra care can be extended to such students, so that they will feel bad or shy before English medium students. Adding one or two periods to the existing periods allotted for English can help in completing the syllabus but also to complete the activities by students’ participation in the classroom itself. Evaluation and assessment of the students’ language learning ability should be done continuously. For this the practical sessions can be included in the curriculum. English Language laboratory can definitely be the solution. Last but not the least, the teachers should also work with little more patience when dealing with a heterogeneous classes and need to be guides, counsellors and facilitators to the students making them continuously realise the importance of English communication skills in their academic, professional and social life.
Conclusion
Globalisation has made English language the need of the hour. Therefore, it is important for technical students to learn for both professional and social life. The students and the teachers should contribute to this end. The students should not only try to acquire subject knowledge but also language skills and become proficient in both aspects. The language teachers should lay more emphasis on practical approach of teaching English with pre planned ways and completing this task with little more patience. Even the introduction of language laboratory in polytechnic courses can also be beneficial if the board concerned thinks about it.
The step-motherly treatment of English and other language teachers can be looked into by the institutes to sort out the problem to some extent. Even lack of teachers in some institutes is a major concern; it has to be solved by the Institute and the Board. To conclude, it is the onus of the students, the teachers, the institutes and the Board put together, who can help in overcoming the challenges faced by the teachers in teaching English and the students in enhancing the English Language skills in Polytechnic courses of the states.
References
Nagaraj, Geetha. 2008. English language teaching: Approaches, methods, techniques. Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, 2008.
Patil, A. S. 1997. Engineering and technical education in India – current issues and trends. Proc. 1st Asia-Pacific Forum on Engineering and Technology Educ., 1997, Melbourne, Australia, pp.172-174.
Pathak, B. V. 2000. Communication skill: Communication and grammar. Pune: Nirali Prakashan.
AICTE. Model Curriculum, http://www.aicte.ernet.in/aicte/ee3.htm
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