ELTWeekly Issue#88 Contents
Word of the week: Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic – VAK Video: English Language Teaching In Action – Disc 2: Productive Skills Resource of the week: Learnable.com (Take an online course.…
#88, Article: ‘The Status of English Language Teaching in Pakistan’ by Syed Ali Waqas
In Pakistan with its 63 year’s history and a colonial past the role of English has been a controversial one. To quote Rahman, successive constitutions of 1956, 1962 and 1973 all articulated the desire to replace English by Urdu in all domains but for all practical purposes. Today English remains a second language in Pakistan. It is the language of government, business, technology and law. As Haque (1983) points out the anchorage of English in Pakistan is that the constitution and the law is codified in English.
The medium of instruction in most of Pakistan’s schools is Urdu but students have a choice to take their Matric (10th class), Intermediate, Gruduate and Postgruduate examinations in Urd or English. English, however is taught as a compulsory language from class VI to the BA Graduate level in Pakistan’s schools and colleges. The exception is now both Punjab and Sindh. The Provincial Government of Punjab, made English a compulsory subject from class one in early 1994. January 1995 the Sindh provincial government also announced its policy of introducing English as a compulsory subject from class one. (more…)
#88, Research Paper: ‘The Daily Newspaper and the English Text books: A Study’ by Dr. Shree Deepa
Dr. Shree Deepa works with the University of Hyderabad.
English Text books are indispensable entities in the language class room. Newspapers are mere ‘aids’ or additional decorative material. Text books are printed and published in different editions and remain in print for years. One edition of the text book lasts for a particular period of time and to introduce new and spanking information is almost impossible and the syllabus designers need to wait to incorporate the latest notes. The situation hard to ignore is that all the prescribed text books are a collection of prose, short stories and some poetry. The skills of the language are taught drawing from these selected texts. These texts are often battered through the years and the ‘experienced’ teacher would have usually lost the interest in ‘teaching’ from such a text. The teaching process in such a class room is often monotonous and dull bereft of life. (more…)