We had a small get together at a friend's place who we were meeting after a long time. The children were meeting each other after a long time and as usual were caught up with discussing their routines, pushy parents and of course, the teachers and their quirky manners. I was listening to their conversation with interest and happen to notice their jokes about their teachers English pronunciations. Though it was quite funny and they were right about their teachers speaking horrible English with wrong pronunciations and wrong grammar, I thought I myself was not great in these departments of the language. Reason being that I studied in a government aided school and then in a government college where teachers and students were from middle class or lower middle class backgrounds. Our English was not great and our confidence was low. We were scared to try talking in English for the fear of being teased by others.
I vividly remember the instance when a girl who had studied in an English convent earlier, joined our class when we were in 8th std. She carried herself with great confidence and naturally her English was far better than ours and we all were in awe of her. In fact, she became our automatic choice to represent us for any matter we had to discuss with the teachers.Such was the power of the foreign language and mastery over it. To expect a government school kid to master a foreign language that is being learnt from a non-native speaker and have impeccable pronounciation is next to impossible. It might be easier when children study in international schools. But why do we have this mindset that speaking a language with perfect pronunciation (even pronouncing this word is difficult for a non-native speaker) is equal to great knowledge in the language?All of us have come across people who speak the language with bad pronounciation but have profound knowledge in its literature and those who have great pronounciation but know nothing about its literature or do not appreciate its beauty.
My father himself was a great example of a man who had terrific knowledge in various languages like English, German, Sanskrit, Hindi and Tamil, was very well versed in all the languages, spoke them perfectly albeit with an indianized pronounciation. But never was he looked down by native speakers who appreciated his vast knowledge. Actually foreigners feel happy when we speak their language despite our bad pronunciations. It gives us the same pleasure when a foreigner speaks our mother tongue, it might not be perfect, but still we appreciate their effort and feel proud that they speak our language than looking at how perfect they are at it.
I think we should realize that all the Indian teachers who speak English
have not learnt it from native speakers to have impeccable pronunciation and its their knowledge that should matter.
I vividly remember the instance when a girl who had studied in an English convent earlier, joined our class when we were in 8th std. She carried herself with great confidence and naturally her English was far better than ours and we all were in awe of her. In fact, she became our automatic choice to represent us for any matter we had to discuss with the teachers.Such was the power of the foreign language and mastery over it. To expect a government school kid to master a foreign language that is being learnt from a non-native speaker and have impeccable pronounciation is next to impossible. It might be easier when children study in international schools. But why do we have this mindset that speaking a language with perfect pronunciation (even pronouncing this word is difficult for a non-native speaker) is equal to great knowledge in the language?All of us have come across people who speak the language with bad pronounciation but have profound knowledge in its literature and those who have great pronounciation but know nothing about its literature or do not appreciate its beauty.
My father himself was a great example of a man who had terrific knowledge in various languages like English, German, Sanskrit, Hindi and Tamil, was very well versed in all the languages, spoke them perfectly albeit with an indianized pronounciation. But never was he looked down by native speakers who appreciated his vast knowledge. Actually foreigners feel happy when we speak their language despite our bad pronunciations. It gives us the same pleasure when a foreigner speaks our mother tongue, it might not be perfect, but still we appreciate their effort and feel proud that they speak our language than looking at how perfect they are at it.
I think we should realize that all the Indian teachers who speak English
have not learnt it from native speakers to have impeccable pronunciation and its their knowledge that should matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment