Essay On English Language Teaching

INNOVATIONS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING – BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE

I. Introduction

Education is an engine for the growth and progress of any society. It not only imparts knowledge, skills and inculcates values, but is also responsible for building human capital which breeds, drives and sets technological innovation and economic growth. English, the official language of the entire world is a very tricky language to teach. In fact every language varies to teach. English is a very old language and has undergone many forms changes from Proto English derived from the Latin and the German culture to the Modern English which was established after in the post Renaissance period. Each version was simpler than its previous. Present

As an immediate offshoot of this scenario, the demand for Communicative Skills in English has been on the rise in all fields. Obviously the demand has brought a lot of pressure on English teachers to perform and produce good results. Consequently English Teachers and class room practices in teaching English have come into sharp focus for the assessment of the state and stage of teaching English in Indian classrooms. English Language Teaching is now at a crucial juncture as a number of methods, approaches and innovations have been discussed in series of seminars and conferences arranged at various colleges and universities in India. A few of them have already been in practice for a considerable time but found to be short of expectations in improving the language skills of the stakeholders. It needs a lot of motivation, innovation and commitment on the part of all concerned to sincerely and seriously take a new approach, an experiment or a theory through the process of practice from a superficial level to a deeper

No doubt that the basic teaching is needed. Teaching the alphabets and the formation of the words is essential and a must. But there is something that is even more important. The children must be able to speak the words and understand their meaning before writing them down. The foundation to teach English can only be taught using the orthodox methods of teaching the alphabets and the words and the rules. But then teaching only the rules is found to be boring by most students and it is because of this that they lose interest in learning the language. Although there is no way other than the traditional one to teach the basics of the language these methods must be tweaked a bit so as to appeal to the students. When it comes to teaching English to students of higher classes who already know the basics the traditional methods generally tend to yield poorer results that innovative methods. This has already been proven by methods implemented like use of stories, poems, movies, books and newspapers etc. These methods help the students learn the language better without them actually realizing and also it keeps their interest. This paper will discuss a few of such innovative Approaches, Methods and Techniques in English Language Teaching.

The Distinction between Approach, Design and Procedure

Let us try to know the distinction between Approach, Design and Procedure which was developed by Richards and Rodgers as, encompassed within