English as a second language in India

This blog is a part of our ELT-1 class activity,

The reference has been taken from research paper of Kapil Kapoor - “Teaching English as ‘Second Language’ in India.

               

                In India, English language has its position as second language, and as per Kapil Kapoor the aim of learning English would be achieved only if the language will be taught with appropriate methodology and technology. He talked about the place of English language in Indian society and how students are getting knowledge of English, even the role of English teacher is also important.

Kapil Kapoor has given two definitions of ‘second language’

1)    The second language is the language which is taught after one or more regional languages. For example English is second language after one or more Indian languages.

2)    In school education, the second language is what is introduced after the primary stage.

                            

                 As per Kapil Kapoor we study the English language because it is a language of power, and if English has declared as the most important language in India, half of Indians would remain outside from the privileged power structure. He has discussed three parts of this structure,

1)    Modernization: English language is a modern language, it is associated with our ‘tradition’ and made a new culture like ‘Indo-Western’ and Indians are not purely Indians and not even westerns, from their cloths they are western and from their mentality they are Indians, So the half modernization has created conflict.

2)    Mythology: this was a next step to connect English with India with the help of language planning. The concept of ‘Regional language’ has come in existence but English has not suffered as it is declared as ‘pan-Indian’ language.

3)    Language policy: it is a national policy to decide that which language should be in education as an optional language and as L1, L2 or L3. 

                English has got the metaphor of window which connects the world, all Indian languages have considered as walls which give us ‘darkness’ and English language as ‘window’ which gives us ‘light’. Further he talked about the role of teachers, that the teacher should be enough knowledgeable to teach students, India has so many schools with English as first language but it has not enough skilled teachers and this is the reason that the standard of teaching English is short.

                       

 By reading this research paper, we could conclude that the standard of learning and teaching English should be improved, because for years to come English will continue to be necessary in higher education as a library language. Also it should given its importance as a global language rather than second language.