Post-colonial Curriculum Practices in South Asia

Building Confidence to Speak English

Asantha Attanayake, Asantha U. Attanayake

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780815355526
• eBook ISBN: 9781351129787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Post-colonial Curriculum Practices in South Asia gives a conceptual framework for curriculum design for English Language Teaching, taking into account context specific features in the teaching–learning settings of post-colonial South Asia. It reveals how the attitudes prevalent in post-colonial South Asian societies towards English negatively influence English language learning. The book provides a comprehensive analysis to design a course for English language teaching that aims at building learner confidence to speak English.

Based on original research, the study covers Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The book focuses on the context-specific nature of learners and considers a curriculum design that binds teaching materials and teaching methods together with an aligned assessment. Chapters discuss language attitudes, learner characteristics and English in the context of native languages, and introduce a special type of anxiety that stems from existing language attitudes in a society, referred to as Language Attitude Anxiety.

The book will appeal to doctoral and post-doctoral scholars in English language education, students and researchers of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics as well as curriculum designers of ELT and language policy makers.

1 Introduction

Introduction

More than half of the world was ruled by the British Empire. The legacy that empire left behind made many post-colonial societies more complex and confused, manifesting inferiority and superiority complexes, dependent and colonial mentalities, etc. The English language is the unmistakable carrier of this complex legacy in its various manifestations throughout former colonies. Post-colonial South Asian societies continue to form, shape and re-shape their attitudes towards those who speak English and those who do not, those who speak it better, various attitudes towards vernaculars and so on. Inevitably, such factors complicate the teaching of English and, when they are not taken fully into consideration, English language teaching (ELT) fails.

The post-colonial South Asian element in ELT

Teaching English specifically to learners in the former British colonies of South Asia is an unexplored area because of the fact that a teaching methodology has not been devised to address the issues arising from certain prevalent social attitudes and their influence on ELT. Most scholars in the field are unfamiliar with the attitude problems attached to the English language in the former British colonies in South Asia where minority elites have set themselves up as the watchdog of the masters’ language. The watchdogs still exist, even decades after our countries obtained ‘independence’, and their role is perpetuated by the Anglophone culture of capitalism in these countries today. As a result, many, especially rural learners, the large majority, lack the confidence to speak English for fear of ridicule.

When we presented papers about the ‘confidence building issue’ at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, the questions were geared, surprisingly, towards understanding why and how it was necessary to build confidence for ELT. Even in Singapore, academics were interested to know why confidence was involved with speaking English. In contrast, in the presentation we did at the North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh in February 2015 there was great eagerness among Bangladeshi academics to know more; the problem addressed was overwhelmingly similar to their own experience in teaching English language. In March 2017, we presented on the same issue in India at a conference in Utkal University, Odisha, and several students, as well as academics, identified the issue as one close to their experience as well. And quite surprisingly, in April 2017, when we spoke about the need for confidence to speak English at several universities in Pakistan, all of the teachers identified the problem as one they face. It was a surprise for the teachers, as well as students, in four separate universities, namely: Islamic International University in Islamabad, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Islamabad, Air University, Islamabad and the University of Lahore where we presented. Their experiences in relation to English language education were identical to those found in Sri Lanka.

In the west, scholars have discovered an anxiety related to foreign language learning which inhibits learner performance. It is called Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA)/Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety – FLCA (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986). However, this is quite different from the lack of confidence to speak English that is being discussed here that exists in the former British colonies in the South Asian region. How does the fear, shyness, uncertainty, etc. that makes English language learners lack confidence to speak English in South Asia differ from FLA?

The thrust of the argument in this book lies in the decisive role of attitudes present in South Asian post-colonial societies in creating psychological barriers in learners that discourage them from speaking English and how this creates a need for a context-specific teaching methodology, to arrest these attitude-related obstacles to learning in these former colonies. To this end, the book is set up to achieve some specific objectives.

The objectives

This book is set up

1. 1 to create awareness among the experts in the field on the necessity of considering context-specific features vis-à-vis ELT in designing ELT curricula
2. 2 to give a comprehensive analysis of curriculum design for ELT with a strong theoretical framework
3. 3 to understand the attitudes related to and prejudices attached to languages
4. 4 to examine new dimensions namely language attitudes and language competition (English as opposed to vernaculars) to be considered in designing curricula for ELT
5. 5 to show how to create a ‘safe zone’ within the classroom for low proficiency English language learners
6. 6 to show the importance of the context-specific nature of problems related to English language by contextualizing the materials and teaching methodologies to address the problems of teaching English in different localities
7. 7 to show the importance of a needs analysis for ELT that is rarely carried out when undergraduates enter universities in countries like Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. (Student needs are assumed based on teachers’ perceptions, which are not always accurate.)

To this end, data collected from four South Asian countries, namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are analysed,

1. a to compare and contrast the attitudes related to speaking English among the post-colonial South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
2. b to examine the reasons for students not speaking English
3. c to find out whether the shyness and fear of speaking in English are present in front of specific persons such as teachers, strangers, friends, etc. or whether they are present in front of everyone
4. d to find out whether the lack of confidence to speak English is restricted to the English language classroom or whether it is present among the learners outside of the classroom as well
5. e to carry out an in-depth analysis of the fear and shyness present among South Asian English language learners to speak English in terms of the various settings mentioned above
6. f to compare and contrast the factors mentioned in objectives (b), (c), (d), and (e) among South Asian learners.

This book consists of 12 chapters. The first chapter outlines the framework of the book and the aims and specific objectives of the study. In addition, it describes the content of each chapter briefly.

Chapter 2 of the book is dedicated to a discussion on the constitutional treatment of English in Sri Lanka and other former British colonies in South Asia and the usage of it in education and higher education. The advent of the open economy in Sri Lanka made English a necessary requirement in education and higher education as employment became more ‘open’ to the private sector. Other post-colonial South Asian countries went through similar transformations in their economies by and large even though the pace at which the economy opened varies in each country. A survey that has been carried out from 2007 to 2018 vis-à-vis the undergraduate population of Sri Lanka discloses that the desire for English, from a student perspective, is primarily to be able to speak in English. Interestingly, the data collected over ten years has shown that this desire has remained unchanged over the entire period. At the same time, the data reveals that students’ reason for not speaking in any kind of English that is understood by the linguistic community, despite having learned it over the entire course of their school careers is due to a lack of confidence. This scenario becomes complex because in spite of the student community desiring the ability to speak English most, they are not speaking it due to a lack of confidence. Upon examination, it was found out that this lack of confidence stems from shyness and a fear of being ridiculed by others in society. The chapter discusses in detail the fear, shyness and uncertainty linked to speaking English in South Asia, locating them in the attitudes of the society towards the English language and the people who speak English well and those who do not speak well.

Chapter 3 is about the study itself. It devotes its content to the sample, the tools and the approach used to collect data and the methods of data analysis and discussion. The discussion demonstrates that learners in post-colonial South Asia experience anxiety associated with speaking English both inside and outside the language classroom. While some are afraid, shy or uncertain to speak English in front of their teachers and peers, others also feel the same way in front of outsiders and strangers. Still more experience the same anxiety in front of everyone. This demonstrates another powerful area in which anxiety relates to language education in addition to the concept of FLA, the leading theory available to scholars discussing anxiety issues related to foreign and second language teaching.

The fourth chapter examines in greater detail how social attitudes towards a language and its speakers influence English language learners in post-colonial South Asia with a special focus on the learners’ most sought-after language skill, speaking. The fear/shyness/uncertainty that surrounds South Asian learners is a creation of social attitudes that generate a lack of confidence in the learners when they attempt to speak English. This lack of confidence to speak in English may in turn cause the learner to develop a set of negative attitudes towards their own speaking ability, which may then be projected onto the entire English language learning process, which results in further poor performance in learning English. The effects of the societal language attitudes on the language learner can be explained in the following manner.

Language attitudes of the society –> lack of confidence to speak –> negative attitudes towards speaking –> negative attitudes toward learning.

This chapter introduces a special type of anxiety that is caused by the language attitudes present in society, labelled Language Attitude Anxiety (LAA). The role of LAA as a conduit between the societal attitudes towards the English language and its speakers and the lack of confidence in the learners to speak English is explained. The limitations of FLCA to capture the problems of the English language learner in post-colonial South Asia are discussed while taking the content as well as the structure of the FLCA scale into account. Two main components of LAA are identified as negative evaluation and communication apprehension. These two constituents are explained in relation to the societal language attitudes that learners come into contact with, both inside and outside the language classroom. The components are further discussed with their effects on the learners, particularly in regard to speaking English, and learning English in general. The chapter ends by establishing the centrality of building confidence to help students learn English against the backdrop of the unsuccessful practices used to teach English as a second language in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Chapter 5 is dedicated to a description of the learners in terms of their existing English language abilities in their local context. The power relations between the English language and learners are seen as an affective love–hate relation. Also the social, mental and educational paradigms in which learners are immersed are analysed alongside the constructs of learner identity, possible selves and role conflict. They are further elucidated by locating the learners in terms of their language acquisition stages. Learner responses facilitate the understanding of the power relations between the English language and its learners in their local context. The battle that language learners have to fight with FLA stems from the uniqueness of the language learning process, while societal attitudes create LAA is brought out by emphasizing the need to address and re-frame language attitudes in the minds of the learners in a positive way. The chapter discusses how LAA, which creates a lack of confidence to speak English, is projected and leads to poor performance in English language learning in a general sense.

The sixth chapter details the importance of intervention to build confidence. It signifies that the identification of the stage to intervene is important as is identifying the presence of Language Attitudes Anxiety. The way to eliminate and conquer LAA involves building confidence to speak English with a psychological approach by using habituation and exposure to scenarios in which learners fear speaking English. The chapter discusses the importance of, and the need for, a special course with materials and teaching strategies specifically designed to build learners’ confidence to speak English.

Chapter 7 is about the theoretical perspectives of the experimental curriculum design along the lines of the theme of confidence building. The principles include the suitability of Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS), Common Underlying Principles (CUP) and the Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency Skills (CALPS) theory of Cummins (2000) as an all-encompassing theory for the entire curriculum. This experimental curriculum has three courses given in progressive order, as sub-divided by us, and is illustrated with diagrams. The course under discussion in this book, ‘Building Confidence to Speak English’, is the first of the three courses, and it is discussed at length, including: the use of speech as a promoter to build confidence to speak/learn English; the use of Austin’s Speech Act Theory, first discussed in his lecture series in 1955 (Austin, 1975) and as developed by Searle (1969) and further advanced by Bach and Harnish (1979) and Crystal (1994) for choosing speech functions. The use of Speech Act Theory for material design is presented with examples. The sequencing and gradation of activities is analysed by juxtaposing Dubin and Olshtain’s (1987) activity potentials, namely communicative and cognitive potential development scales with Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). Further, how repetition of speech acts in an ascending order of difficulty to reinforce a particular speech function is examined in this chapter. An excerpt of a module (teaching material) is given highlighting these features. The chapter closes with the related logistics of the Building Confidence to Speak English course.

The eighth chapter details the Cooperative Language Learning (CLL) techniques that are incorporated into the teaching methodology of the course. The techniques of CLL are discussed at great length together with a discussion of the psycho-social features of language learners. These details are examined in relation to the ‘safe zone’, the classroom environment most needed to build confidence. The essential components of this safe zone are discussed along with the role of the teacher as the sole authority responsible for creating the safe zone. The discussion on the safe zone is carried out as opposed to the features found in an ordinary language classroom. For instance, error correction, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• ‘The post-colonial experience of doing research: the painful truth’
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Background
• 3 The study
• 4 Language attitude anxiety
• 5 Understanding the English language learner
• 6 Fight fire with fire
• 7 Experimental course design and material
• 8 Teaching methodology and the role of the teacher
• 9 Assessment
• 10 Course evaluation
• 11 Developing language attitudes as an academic discourse
• 12 Conclusions
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Index