Enjoy the humorous but meaty incidents worthy to unveil, Rajashri Iyer met with, in her one month long (short) sojourn as a Spoken English teacher.

I usher you from the evolutionary aerobics of English education In India, which myself narrated in the article ‘English, uninterrupted’. Hope you had already gone through it.

Thus evolution process went on uninterrupted. School curriculum has seen a number of remarkable changes. Almost all the crash courses in spoken English for the school teachers came to an end. Next thought was something brawny. That is to teach the school children from KG class onwards, the communicative aspects of English. It is a scientifically proven fact that, a child can learn more than 5-10 languages simultaneously, before he attains the age of 10. That period is known as LAP i.e. Language Acquisition Period. And if he has got a systematic training in spoken English, in this period he will be able to speak English fluently, without any inhibitions.

Thus the school time table has got one more period as ‘spoken English’ where the students are got to be trained by some other ‘teachers’. These spoken English teachers are specially molded by some local institutes under the guidance of some English-spitting guys, who own no teacher resources, but some experiences working abroad. As these spoken English teachers were not the enrolled staff of the school, they were paid by the said institutes, which collect Rs.50-60 per month from each student as ‘spoken English fee’ through the school management.

Molding of a Spoken English teacher

They are getting trained in the coaching institutes hardly for one month, 2 hours a day. The training module contains, English rhymes, various ways of salutation, thanks-giving and a list of phrases and usages and simple English exercises to be mugged up on a whole. These candidates need not be graduates. (Sometimes never an English-fluent!!!). I was kicked aback to hear the selection procedures of the spoken English teachers, to be molded. No age bar, No sex bar, no qualification bar. They need not possess any teaching experience. The only thing is that they should be willing to work any where in India. The institute takes utmost care not to appoint a native person in his own state. They are distributed to various parts of India after the one month ‘training’ session. After the appointment, certain institutes make some follow-ups with the school authorities, but most of them visit the school only to collect the fee from students.

If the person is an Anglo-Indian, the institute as well as the demanding school authority is happy. When asked, the Principal of a Higher Secondary school replied, “The Anglo-Indians do not know any word in regional language. So, naturally the students will be pushed towards English, as there is no other way to communicate with the teacher.”

When talked to the students of that school (in a rural area in Karnataka), the complete picture has got unveiled before me. When asked in English, even the middle school children could not understand what I was asking. So I switched over to Kannada and got what I want.

Old wine in the Foreign bottle

For the toddlers, the spoken English class is simply for ‘English’ games and music. The only difference when it comes to the LP level is that they would be able to say ‘hello’, ‘good morning’, ‘good afternoon’ and ‘thank you’. When it comes to the middle school level, they call somebody ‘excuse me’ to seek attention. They also have mugged up 4-6 sentences like ‘when will the next bus to Mudaru come?’ ‘Which is the way to Udupi?’ and like. For this kind of training, the institutes claim that they teach the children to make ‘one-lines’. But for the hapless Kannada medium students, making a one-line sentence is something very difficult, as they are trained only to mug up some notes and never the basics of a sentence structure, by their spoken English teachers who possess no teacher resources.

When it comes to the high school section, the condition is more pathetic. They have loads of subjects to study and are always seen apprehended with examination mania. Besides, the spoken English teacher is not equipped with any basic knowledge of English, (other than spitting the Yankee spurts)

to deal with them, except some spoon-fed idioms. The students might have forgotten what they learned in the UP class as ‘one-lines’.

When discussed this matter with some English language teachers of such schools, all of them had the same thing to say, irrespective of the regions. “They (the spoken English teachers) are just disordering the skills of our students by skimpily drifting through the colloquialisms….actually, there is no need for such teachers. New syllabus is having ample communicative content. We can do that in order to support the child to learn to speak English, in an orderly manner.” When enquired about their fluency and command over English, a local TV channel reporter from Trivandrum told me, “You just come to Kovalam Beach. There you will find some guys with dirty shirts on, selling peanuts to foreigners. Just talk to them in English. You will be stunned to hear their foreign accent and unhindered flow. Don’t you know? Language is a habit..”.

Soap opera

“Yes, I know, it is a habit” Chanting this mantra, I applied for the vacancy of a spoken English teacher in an institution in Kerala, where I got the ‘rigorous training ‘which was the same I heard from Karnataka with a number of gewgaw English games to mesmerize the children . But one major difference in Kerala was that, they asked a fee of Rs.2000/- for this ‘valuable knowledge’ we acquired from there. When some protested, they deducted the amount from their first month salary. After the training and before the appointment, one more opera has staged on – interview to grand grades for the candidates and adjust the salary accordingly. The girl who interviewed me was looked like an Anglo-Indian, and during the interview she corrected my grammar mistakes without lifting her head towards me.

‘What is your hobby?’ She asked

‘Observation’.

‘What observation?’

‘Just observing humans’… like… a child’s mannerisms, looking around..”

“Say children” She interrupted.

And like, the interview ended with a sigh from her. At the end of the session, we, the spoken English teachers got an advice from the head of the Institute: “We have only one years’ contract with the schools.  So, you need not be so supportive to the students. To clear their doubts there is their English teacher. Whenever you feel some compassion to any student, just remember that you are getting only Rs.20/- from him”.

Another one from my group got one more advice. “I know that you are a keralite. But the school authorities demanded for Anglo-Indians and we have no one like that, right now. So we’ve told them that you are from Maharashtra. So behave there as a Maratti. Never utter any Malayalam word in the campus.”

With nuns and ‘nones’

Even though short, my term in that convent school is worth remembering. For the last five years the students were got trained by the spoken English teachers from an institute based at Bangalore. But if asked anything in English, the poor children (8^th 9^th stds) will start stammering “ Mam, please ask in Malayalam.”. So I will have to explain my question in a Pidgin English (mixed with Tamil). Some students, who are able to communicate in ‘somewhat English language’, shared a lot of their past years’ experiences with their spoken English teachers, with me. I was interested to chat with them in a broken Tamil-Malayalam-English lingo.

For the higher classes spoken English period was for English games and relaxation. Children enjoyed it at the benefit of not having a ‘games period’. They used to play in the class, ‘without making any disturbances’ to the neighboring classes. When I started to teach them some ‘stuff’, they pressed me to follow the same old pattern of games and music. I told them, “I’m not your music teacher and I’m already ‘over aged’ to play with you”. But they sang a lot of English songs for me. They used to sing these songs when guests visit their homes and their parents look on with pride and brood over the worth of a ‘simple Rs.60/-‘. All on a sudden morning when their kids start saying ‘good morning’ to the news paper man and the milk man, parents were happy. When these guys sing English songs and English prayers, the principal was also very happy.

One day a girl told me with filled eyes, ‘You are so nice Mam. Earlier, our spoken English Mams won’t talk to us….they concentrated only on those who speak English.’ While patting on her shoulder I thought of ‘that mam’s” dilemma to understand and solve the doubts of these hapless ‘mallu’ chaps.

As the school curriculum demands more activities, these institutes which nurture the spoken English teachers, always create a smoke-screen of vibrant and colorful activities laced with a tint of English. They conducted various such performances almost daily in the school premises. Through the open assembly they made the children read the written conversations with poor English accent and intonation. Only the English language teachers could come to realize these absurdities and the others, including the principal, simply enjoyed it, agape, at these ‘elite deliveries’. In the notice boards on the walls, they made the children stick glitter papers in various patterns (the coaching institute’s name in bold fonts), banal quiz question drills, asking “who invented radio? Which is the largest flower in the world?’ and like. A lot of answers fall into the box on which the bolded names of the coaching institute’s name is engraved. The spoken English teachers have to search for the right answers, cast lot to chose the winner and in a ceremonious ambience, enjoying the teeming rhapsody of English megalomania, the fully contended principal gives away the prizes (usually a pen with the name of the institute etched on), while the English language teachers look on gravely.

Another cacophonic thing I really found funny, is the importing of some English men, putting them in the shoes of a ‘trainer’ to exhibit to the school authorities. This is just to hood wink the poor nuns (who get embarrassed on seeing a ‘Hollywood heart-throb’ alive for the first time), and nothing to do with the children or the completely passive spoken English teacher, their product.

Guised as a spoken English teacher, I too had to succumb to such ridiculous activities in which I found myself a major fiasco. English language teachers often scowled on seeing me, as if I descended there only to deglamorise them. Almost all the time they simply avoided or neglected me, like an uninvited guest who deserves no right to be called as a ‘teacher’, but receives a handsome salary almost double they get.

After my ‘mission’ I bid good-bye to the school premises, the innocent children and those generous and affectionate nuns without disclosing my real identity. I just told my children ‘Don’t feel inferior to anybody. Language is nothing but a habit, to be practiced like cycling and swimming. Clear your doubts with your English language teachers’. I know that they are not contended with my words. But I found tears in their eyes, because they loved me so much since, I was their spoken English teacher, once.

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1. English, Uninterrupted…