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Abstract
As it is well-known, one of the purposes of language teaching is to help the learner gain proficiency in the language, i.e., proficiency in the four skills—listening, speaking, reading and writing.The question is: should the learning of a second language like English in India focus only on gaining linguistic proficiency or should it aim at culturally empowering the learner? If the answer is positive, then it is imperative on the part of the researcher to examine how far the textbooks available in India succeed in effecting both kinds of empowerment. If they do not help learners attain cultural empowerment, then how can textbooks be modified to enable the learner to deal with issues pertaining to his culture in particular and the culture of the typical Indian society in general. The present study aims to address the above issues with special reference to the English textbooks prescribed in Maharashtra for the Higher Secondary Classes. The Present paper also focus on Communication difficulties which raise when Eastern and Western Cultures meet in the Context of Language Teaching and Learning.
Keywords: Communicative Approach, Communicative Competence, Cultural Empowerment, Cross-cultural Communication, Intercultural Communication, Authentic material use, Textbook Culture, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL)
Introduction:
English is a Global language. It is also called world language or common language or international language. English language is a legacy of British Empire. According to Prof. P. Vijaya Kumar, “the British Empire planted the seeds of Global English. It is in the countries of the commonwealth that these seeds sprouted, took roots, grew and blossomed, what about the rest of the world? The story is fascinating. English which was already making inroads into previously inhospitable, territory began to spread like a virus after the 1980s.” (94)
In 21st century English has occupied a prominent place in various fields like, business, science and information technology, political relation , media ,film industry, travelling, official language, industrial, economical, educational, sports and use of internet. English language helps to expose various culture and various aspects of culture all over the world. It provides a stage to understand various religions, languages and human living styles all over the world. English language helps its users to think beyond the boundaries of nationality. English is an important ‘linguistic tool’. It helps to make effective communication all over the world
In the present paper, the researcher has focused on Communicative Competence and Cultural Empowerment when East Meet West in the Context of Language Teaching and Learning. The central argument is that communicative approach to be suitable to learners for develop language skills and empower them culturally. As Frantz Fanon rightly argues, “A man who has a language consequently process the world expressed and implied by that language … to speak a language is to take on a world, cultural.” (2001: 1) This is true of one’s mother tongue or First language. The question is: should the learning of a second language like English in India focus only on gaining linguistic proficiency or should it aim at culturally empowering the learner? If the answer is positive, then it is imperative on the part of the researcher to examine how far the textbooks available in India succeed in effecting both kinds of empowerment. If they do not help learners attain cultural empowerment, then how can textbooks and teaching methods be modified to enable the learner to deal with issues pertaining to his culture in particular and the culture of the typical Indian society in general.
Statement of Problem:
English is a second or third language in Maharashtra at the secondary level. A learner mostly uses English language for reading and writing purposes. So, Higher Secondary students mostly face problems to do effective communication, present ideas, lack of confidence to know English language and literature in learning process. In English language and literature, learners have troubleshooting problems to understand difficult vocabulary, figurative language, unfamiliar foreign cultures images and ideas. Keeping this in mind, the researcher decided to work on introducing use of communicative approach in non-native classroom. It will also help educators and learners to enhance basic skills, develop communicative competence and empower them culturally for use language in social context.
The Communicative Approach and Communicative Competence:
Communicative approach is developed by British applied linguists. This is a student- centered learning approach. Communicative approach provides a lot of scope for interactions and discussion. Why is communicative approach important? Because, even after obtaining the graduate/post-graduate degree, most of our students are unable to use English accurately and appropriately in real-life contexts. Even after studying literature for a number of years, students do not feel confident to handle a new literary text independently. There seems to be a lot of teaching ‘about language’ and ‘about literature’ rather than language and literature. This approach has been widely used for teaching foreign languages like French, German and Spanish. The primary goal of this approach is to provide fluency and develop language in acceptable manners. There are two version of Communicative competence, first The Weak Version- Learn English in order to use it and second The Strong Version- Use English in order to learn it.
Communicative competence refers to a learner’s ability to use language to communicate successfully.The Communicative Competence this term first introduced by Noam Chomsky in his very influential linguistic book Aspect of the Theory of Syntax. This concept broadly explained and developed by Hymes. According to Hymes, “Communicative Competence not only as an inherent grammatical competence but also as the ability to use grammatical competence in variety of communicative situations, thus bringing the sociolinguistic perspective.” The concept of communicative competence has the potential to bridge the gap between theory and performance in everyday social settings.( Wiemann) The Communicative Competence approach teaching model proposed by Canale and Swain in 1980. The aim of communicative approach is to enhance students’ language ability and skills and prepare them to use verbal and nonverbal communication in social context appropriately. There are numbers of fundamental EFL/ESL teaching methods available. Teacher should refilter these methods and use appropriate method in Indian context for language learning.
Cultural Empowerment in Language Teaching and Learning:
Culture has important role to prepare learners language skills and ability to use language in social context. As Hall reminds us, “Culture is communication and communication is culture. Culture is learned, transmitted and preserved through communication. Communication and Culture are inseparable.” EFL language learners have a culture to learn language but ESL language learners have a reason to learn English language. English was introduced in India (by Macaulay Minute on Education in 1835) with the lofty purpose of making accessible to Indians the knowledge and learning of modern Europe. English language developed during the end of colonial period in India.
English language becomes more powerful during postcolonial situation with British culture and power. “However problems based teaching of English during postcolonial period that have continued to affect the shape and direction of English in studies in the country. First problem, heavily literary bias in the way English was taught. Second problem, teaching of English was conducted with little reference to the cultural background of the students and third problem , the study of English in India was some extent designed to help Indians understand and evaluate their own heritage more critically and interprets both that heritage to the West and the heritage of the West to their compatriots.” (Gupta R, 74) Indian English was taught by cultural control and cultural constructed of neocolonialism. It is important to remember that ESL takes place within an English-speaking environment. As a result the ESL students have a far greater need to communicate. Our Culture is a major factor in understand our world-view and use it in every cross cultural communication. Teacher should use communicative approach to test learner ESL language skills and provide opportunity them for practice language skills use in real life context.
Intercultural Communicative Competence:
Intercultural communication competence study was developed in 1960. Intercultural communicative competence has been studied by sociologists, psychologists and sociolinguistics. Intercultural communicative competence becomes a necessary ability for citizens to interact appropriately and effectively in diverse culture context and interaction scenarios. As Ting- Toomey (2007), “addressed intercultural face work competence by defining it as the communication skills in managing identity-based interaction scenes successfully. To be a competent person, individuals must acquire face managing knowledge, cultivate mindfulness and face-saving skills. Of all the concepts of face work competence, knowledge is the most important one. The operational skills include deep listening, de-centering, consensus decision-making, cooperative conflict, and face –sensitive respectful dialogue skills.” Thus,with communicative approach teacher should provide language skills and cultural awareness to learner to develop intercultural communicative competence. In ESL language learning when students unable to get opportunity or environment use language then teacher has important role to motivate learners to use language in social context.
English for Local Thinking and Global Speaking:
In the confusion between Eastern and Western world view, learners quite trap and feared for known own heritage from other culture and language. Due to over western culture impact on English language feel scared and afraid to learn English Second Language (ESL). According to Raja Rao Indian novelist, “English is the language of our intellectual make up not emotional.” We have reasons to learn ESL language but first language learns have culture to use language in social context. So teacher have need to use local culture or day today life culture in language classroom which feel and involve learners emotionally. When students motivate with own world then they will use language confidently in global context. English use with local culture help learns to understand roots of language and help them to develop communicative competence and become global employee or global citizen.
Empowering Teachers through Professional Development:
When Eastern culture meet west culture, then enhancing the teaching quality a necessary step, According to The American Commission on Teacher Education, “The quality of a nation depends upon the quality of its citizens. The quality of its citizens depends, not exclusively but in critical measure- upon the quality of their education. The quality of their education depends more than upon any other single factor, upon the quality of their teachers.” Thus, it indicate that in ESL language classes’ teacher has important role. Teacher is a facilitator, motivator, performer, friend, decision maker counsellor, catalytic, and mentor. When East culture meets West culture some miscommunication raise due to lack of cultural awareness. ESL teachers in Indian context should have cultural based awareness to conduct language classes. Empowerment is the process through which teacher become capable of engaging in, sharing control of, influencing events, and institution that affect their lives.
Essential Steps for Integrating Communicative Competence Development:
In communicative approach, the language class is student –centered and there is a lot of scope for interaction and discussions. The teacher establishes an appropriate physical and Psychological atmosphere in the classroom. Fluency and acceptable language is the primary goal. Language is created by the individual, often through trial and error. Students are expected to participate in pair and group work. Teacher should channelize the students’ mind and elicit responses from the learners. Teacher must pay attention to different abilities and potentiality of the students. Students learn best by ‘Doing things’ and so let us give them an opportunity to ‘to do thing.’ The oldest English-language use of the proverb, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a Lifetime.
Communicative approach is based on student centric; we don’t teach something we teach some. Communicative approach involves learners to learn language skills and use them in social context appropriately.
Use of Textbook and Authentic Material in Language Classroom:
When Eastern culture meets Western culture in language teaching-learning situation, the textbook is an important element after the student and teacher. According to Sheldon, L.“Course books (textbooks) are perceived by many to be the route map of any ELT programme.”(1988: 238) They are an important source to conduct language classes more effectively, especially in the Indian context. A teacher should choose a text books because it is the teacher that knows the needs of his/her students. Nowadays there are offered different textbooks and the possibility of choosing but this has its own advantages and disadvantages. According to M.K.Gandhi, “If Textbooks are treated as a vehicle for education, the living word of the teacher has very little value. A teacher who teaches from textbooks does not impart originality to his pupils. He himself becomes a slave of textbooks and has no opportunity or occasion to be original. It therefor seems that the less textbooks there are, the better it is for the teacher and his pupils.” (Harijan, September 9,1939 ) Textbook actually use between two type of educational systems. First teacher has a freedom to select teaching material and use for developing a lesson and second educational system ties the teacher to the prescribed textbook. In Indian context educational system give importance to second type.
Roots of Textbook culture can be traced to the early 19th century when the East India Company took certain definite steps for establishing education system in India. Textbook analysis could show whether an English class provides authentic materials and communicative activities. Textbook analysis is an important because textbook analysis also allows teachers to check the usefulness of chosen materials. Evaluating ELT Textbooks and Materials by L. Sheldon is an article that provides insights into identifying learners’ needs and producing authentic materials appropriate to the culture of learners.
Authentic texts are around us in real life. They provide various opportunity to language learners to use communicative language and develop communicative competence in their lives. Some examples of authentic materials are newspaper, magazine, railway timetable, telephone, literature, radio news, internet, directions, videos and various practical group activities etc. To achieve the maximum of success while applying communicative language teaching a great importance should be given to the use of authentic materials.
Use of Communicative Approach to Enhance Vocabulary in Cultural Context:
The vocabulary is the most powerful drugs use by mankind. Vocabulary helps to build up the sentence, to express our thoughts and feeling either in written or in spoken form of language. According to Prof. Krishnamurthy says, “The world makes man free whenever he can’t express himself; He (man) is become a slave speaking is an Act of freedom itself.”(30) Our freedom is depends on vocabulary. It is a power of communication; because vocabulary help to communication and expand ideas. We can’t learn all the words, but a good vocabulary is that which feels our needs, give us confidence, and helps to understand language in culture context. Communicative approach provides opportunity to learners use language and words in social context in a language classes. Communicative approach motivates learners to use vocabulary in real world context.
Conclusion:
Thus, in present paper researcher discussed views on Communicative Competence and Cultural Empowerment When East Meet West in the Context of Language Teaching and Learning in Maharashtra. Own cultural awareness helps learners to avoid miscommunication when East meet west in teaching and learning. In Indian context, ESL teaching and learning have impact of neocolonial period and other culture. Teacher has an important role to do mediating for teach language without biases system with local culture. The aims of communicative approach is prepare students to use language in written and orally in appropriate way and develop their communicative competence and cultural empowerment in real life context.
References:
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