English Language Teaching in South India…

VI.         The next mistake was in the production of text books. Most of these books were produced, not by authors who could write books for children and make them interesting, lively and enjoyable, but by ELT specialists who were more concerned with lexical counting and structural introduction rather than with enjoyment. Multiple authors became the order of the day and indeed is still so. Here is an example from a mathematics book written by NCERT for Standard III (repeat for Standard III): ‘If we multiply the numerator and the denominator of a fractional number by the same number (other than zero) we get an equivalent fraction’. This book was written by an editor, two assistant editors and eighteen contributors; the first draft was then reviewed by another sixteen specialists (including eleven with Ph.D’s): result, disaster. The same thing has happened with regard to English books, particularly in the state systems, where books are written by retired headmaster, inspectors of schools, friends and relations of people in high places and numerous other people, few of whom are able to write books; the result is almost always disastrous. The average lecturer or administrator, when asked to write a book for children, collects a dozen or so books written for the same Standard, chooses a chapter from each, and then rewrites it, perhaps not so well as in the book it was chosen from at first. It is then vetted by one or two people who probably know less English than the author, and is then unloaded on to many lakhs of children.  

CONTD…

David Horsburgh
Former Professor, RIESI, Bangalore
was a Member of the National Teachers' Commission, Government of India
Passed away in August 1984

Courtesy: Perspectives on English Language Teaching by J. M. Ure and S. Velayudhan

Collected by: P. K. Jayaraj and R. Gangadhar, RIESI, Bengaluru