De-coding English ‘Language’ Teaching In India

Dishari Chattaraj

Research Scholar, Centre for Linguistics, JNU, New Delhi

Keywords: ELT, Language Policy, Convergent Pedagogy


Abstract

English  Language  Teaching (ELT) in  India  is  more  than  two  centuries  old and  still, our  students  falter  with  the  language. The  aim  of  the  present article is  to  unravel  this  enigma  and  in  doing  so  it  adopts  a  deductive approach  and  critiques  our  language  policy  in  education  with  an  aim to  locate  the  crux  of  the  problem. The  article throws  light  on  how  our language  policy  in  education  is  evidently  monolingual  under  the  façade of  trilingualism. It  goes  on  to  establish  that  the   position  of  English  in the  curriculum  is  that  of  a ‘subject’ and  not  a ‘language’  and  questions the  standards  the  policy  aims  to  achieve. Providing  an  instance  of  the convergent  pedagogy  model  from  an  analogous  postcolonial  society, it offers  a  solution  to  the  problem  at  hand  with a  view to ending the plight of the learners.


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