Rabindra Raja Shahi
Background: The issue I am going to raise here may in all its likelihood unleash a storm of debate and provoke a fiery controversy-yet I am being unequivocally fact-based and so, not in the least, baseless. Whether or not I am in any way successful in outlining my criticism of compulsory- English -course discrimination in bachelor’s level under Humanities and Education streams in Nepal- I don’t give a damn. But, I do it without necessarily relying on emotional presentation of my views and giving less and less attention to logic. Striking proper balance between reason and emotion, and refraining from courting controversy- what I am tempted to argue is that in tertiary level, there is a heavy discrimination against BA students under compulsory English subject in the first year.
Zero Grammar Activities: I have the ground to assert it, first because under compulsory English in BA, there is very little or virtually no emphasis on grammar teaching –learning; or, in another word, the book writers duo-respectively Moti Nissani and Shreedhar Lohani-lay claim to their airy-fairy, flashy and fashionable talk that the teaching of grammar is only an exercise in futility; or by implication, formal grammar instruction has no impact on reading and writing. So, Flax Golden Tales, which is the government prescribed course book of compulsory English for BA first year, bears little appeal to explicit grammar teaching together with these authors reaffirming and conclusively underscoring that students acquire English as a foreign language in the same intuitive manner in which they acquired their mother tongue.
My Counter-Argument: To the assertion of these writers duo- as a long-time teacher of English, I have however got outright reservation since English in Nepal still holds the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) status and what is more, there is nowhere English speaking environment at all except in the English classes, with the exception to a handful of high-end private schools and colleges based solely in urban areas. In such a hostile atmosphere, how are students supposed to pick English up and improve it considerably without the strong base of grammar, without their attention being drawn to explicit rules of grammar, without memorizing vocabulary items? Here, I’m not guided and directed by any abstract, unfounded claim, but more so by my own long, practical experiences in the domain of English language and literature teaching right from high school level to master’s level.
I myself am a direct case in point. Had I not been exposed to grammar teaching-learning during my early student days, I am sure and certain –I would not have been very knowledgeable about English, I would not have been able to speak and write in English nor would I have been successful as an English educator instructing at tertiary and master’s level. It is all thanks to grammar that I learnt proficiently and robustly by successfully internalizing almost all the grammatical algorithm as well as rules of thumb and its practical application in day-to-day conversations and writings. My gut feeling is, nay I even go to the length of asserting with confidence, that grammar should be allowed a sizeable, fair value and importance in compulsory English, for, under grammar students will have a golden chance to know such three linguistic components as phonetics, vocabulary and grammar that will definitely fortify and consolidate their grip on English language- be it speaking, reading or writing. To my way of thinking, thus, grammar is a must in compulsory English pedagogy. It mustn’t be eschewed. Through grammar and grammar alone, English can be mastered.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no grammar Nazi, no grammar dictator, no grammar authoritarian nor do I take grammar mechanics as a hegemonic tool of English pedagogy. I’m just a grammar police or a grammar watchman. I’m rather as enchanted as anyone else by the decided benefit of reading fascinating, well-written texts of good literature that expand our intellectual and spiritual horizons and underscore the nobility of humanity’s never-ending search for truth, beauty, and compassion. But then, too much of negligence or apathy towards grammar is outrageously unacceptable and untenable. I strongly disagree with the writers duo’s overemphasis on literature alone, pushing grammar to the periphery or treating it as a mere appendage to the reading texts.
In the second place, B.Ed. first year compulsory English subject in other hand inundates learners with an excessive plethora of grammar rules, has them memorize those theoretical rules, and prompts them to be involved in practicing grammar exercises –without so much as downplaying literature or without necessarily compromising the essence of literature in English language classes. Similar is the case with BBS first year compulsory English that doesn’t bypass grammar chapters, rather instead allows for it in proper proportion. In both of the faculties, the textbook writers have acted under the assumption that mastering a foreign language involves a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears- grammar, drills, and vocab memorization.
The Need of Separate English Grammar Course: In Nepal-like EFL countries, where students’ knowledge of English is trenchantly low, where English is severely confined to classrooms only, and where nowhere outside is it used excepting the English specific classrooms, or so to say, realms of English pedagogy, it would not be fair to deprive learners of grammatical knowledge in the English language teaching-learning process. OK, in ESL ( English as a Second Language)or anglophone nations, it would be alright even if grammar is not taught in the English subject at schools and colleges as there is already English speaking environment everywhere else apart from the English classes: in education, administration, the press, radio and TV, civil service, high court, parliament, banks and book stores, business and even private correspondences, English is often more predominant, prominent, pre-eminent and omnipresent. In Nepal where students of all levels have their miserable linguistic imperfections and inadequacies, a separate English grammar course is unavoidably required to be introduced to help students overcome their poor grammar and sloppy constructions, and learn the nuances of language.
Resurrection of Grammar: As a teacher of M.Ed. English grammar, I’ve come to know that in recent years, there has been the re-emergence and rediscovery of grammar and revival of interests in grammar teaching. There is now a general consensus that grammar is too important to be given the go-by, and that without a good knowledge of grammar, language development of learners will be severely constrained. Isolating grammar from language teaching thus makes no sense in that grammar lies at the heart of language and language use. Every bit of communication relies on the grammatical system of a language. Grammar serves as a springboard for step-wise explication of linguistic principles and rules, word comprehension skills, and distilling styles of writing. That’s why, we shouldn’t dismiss grammar instruction. Let me once again reiterate that unlike India, unlike the Philippines, unlike Ghana, and unlike Singapore which are bonafide ESL countries-Nepal is, in effect, an EFL country and that we are learning English as a foreign language, and not even as a second one. Averagely speaking, even the Bhutanese are way better than us Nepalese in English proficiency. It in turn naturally follows that grammar is an inevitable, indispensable aspect of foreign language teaching in Nepal.
Different Modes of Question Setting: Let us now consider this year’s(2081B.S.) English question papers of BA, B.Ed. and BBS. One irresistibly comes to notice vast differences in terms of marks weightage allocated for grammar portion. In BA, grammar questions covered just meager five marks, in BBS fifteen marks in the minimum and a whopping twenty-eight marks in B. Ed. What does this bias of faculty-wise different marks weightage allude to? It goes without saying that the government’s intent and intention towards students of Humanities and Social Sciences appears awfully prejudiced and biased. This apart, question-setting style in the TU exam, too, is discriminatory and hence deplorable and condemnable. In BA first year exam, question paragraphs are so long, so lengthy, and so many that even the brightest of the brightest examinees get lost in the dense, trackless jungle of the passages. It is very perplexing, taxing, and time-consuming to decipher and trace the targeted answer –points, and finish attempting the questions within the scheduled time –span. What a joke! What an irony! In sharp contrast to it, BBS and B.Ed. questions are far shorter in their length and thus somehow easier to locate the intended answers. BA compulsory English question-paper looks not like a question-paper, but more like a horoscopic chart or like a hand-calendar of some sort. While question-setters of BBS and B. Ed. Compulsory English are more judicious, meticulous, serious, systematic and lenient, for BA compulsory English, exam questions are set rather randomly, insanely, brutally and in a stark senseless manner.
Academic Anarchy: One more thing which is enigmatic and mysterious to me is: again English as a compulsory subject has been prescribed this time around, not in second year but in third year of BA- marking a stunning departure from usual convention and long-standing norm. It begs the question ‘why’? Why not in the second year and why in the third year? The students who have gained and acquired even a little bit of English knowledge, skill, and proficiency during their first year of English study will almost have been bound to clean forget their English by the very time they get to BA third year. There occurs a full one year gap causing massive discontinuation of and delinking their English knowledge. By contrast, in BBS, compulsory English subject is there in the first and the second years consecutively. Against such a backdrop, I can’t, therefore, resist wondering to a fault why concerned stakeholders are tongue-tied and eerily silent even when this sort of ‘academic anarchy and epistemic injustice’ are taking place right under their nose. Or, has their thinking power gone dead and defunct, or are they suffering from brain rot?
The Way Forward: Now, let us stay awake to this ongoing educational anomaly surfacing at Humanities bachelor’s level, and raise our voice for prompt solution to the said problems. Now, let us apply a break to the masquerading academic sleaze and sophistry in time. So that, our students and their guardians won’t have to bear the brunt of their hard-earned money, their unremitting toil and labor, and the precious years of their life going in vain. Now, let us counsel TU authorities in polite voice to introduce a uniform, homogeneous, and common compulsory English course for BA and B.Ed. as these faculties bear so many things in common in their subjects except for teaching method which is the backbone of education faculty. These subjects, to boot, overlap with one another overwhelmingly in Arts and Education faculties.
Conclusion: At long last, BA students are, at all costs, at a loss-the loss which is colossal, the loss which is irreparable, and the loss which is damaging altogether! Thus, let all concerned persons and institutions pay heed to the gravity of this problem and thereby strive to address it concertedly.
(Rabindra Raja Shahi is an Associate Professor at Triyuga Janata Multiple Campus, Gaighat, Udayapur)