I often meetpeople who tell me that although they understand English and can read it, theyare unable to speak the language fluently or at least clearly andcomprehensively, because they consider conversing in English as a problem. Withthe repetition of such situations, I felt I had to write about the subject.
First of all, Ibelieve English is a universal language, along with many other languages. Manychildren can nowadays read and speak Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean,thanks to television series that they follow heavily on the Internet. Childrenare becoming multilingual since an early age because they can speak English, inaddition to their mother tongue - whether Arabic or others - and are ready tolearn new languages. English is not a problem for many youth, but those over 50face a problem.
The question iswhy they are unable to speak English fluently. The answer for me is education.The educational process is a troika between the teacher, the student and thecurriculum. If the teacher was weak in conversation and was able to climb theladder of education because exams depend primarily on structural answers andnot on conversation, their students will be weak in conversation as well. Theteacher is the main pillar in the educational process. The teacher will eitherhave a positive or negative role on the learning process.
Some teachersmake success in tests the goal for students, regardless of the skills theyacquire or how much they benefit from the language as an instrument they needin their lives forever. I believe that teaching aids such as language labs havea role in enhancing and upgrading the level of conversation among students, andif we don't utilize this important tool, then we are missing out on a greatopportunity.
I think weaknessin English conversation is cumulative, where the student moves from one classto another and suffers from weakness, which is difficult to deal with in theadvanced stages by conventional methods. Thus the student moves to thesecondary and university levels with a big shift in quantity and quality oftextbooks and materials.
Another issuehere is spelling, which can be a serious problem for many students. This is theinability of the student to read the words properly and to learn the correctpronunciation of many words, because there is a close correlation betweenspelling and good pronunciation and the ability to speak fluent English. Butlanguage ends with the end of the lesson without a desire or goal by the studentsto use the language outside the classroom.
Also, manystudents consider English like other subjects and tend to forget what theystudied in the previous year. Any language requires continuous and dailypractice. I believe parents and family are important elements that contributeeffectively to the educational process. This weakness may be the result of theignorance of the parents and their weakness too.
Sadly, the formof tests has become familiar to students, and they are fully aware of thematerial that the test can cover and the distribution of questions and grades,which leads them to make no effort to memorize and review. I think there arepsychological factors too that add some pressure - believing that English is alanguage that is difficult to understand. Here comes the role of the teacher tocorrect this misconception and help the students break the barrier ofdifficulty by facilitating the material through available educational methods.
I remember duringmy high school years that many teachers used to speak Arabic frequently in theclassroom during English class. I believe this is wrong, because it contributedgreatly to lowering the standard of students. I hope that the ministry ofeducation will conduct training courses for students on conversation and I knowthat it is now forbidden for the teacher to speak Arabic in English class. Butweaknesses indicate that there is a problem that was and still exists. Englishis the top language in the world. Maybe in the coming years, it will bereplaced by new foreign languages, but this current weakness cannot bepermitted.
By Muna Al-Fuzai
muna@kuwaittimes.net