In
the 1970’s Communicative Approach to language teaching began to have vociferous
proponents in the West. Aged professors
in Hindoostan were swept off their feet
when they made faint protests in academic meetings about the shallow content being imposed upon students in text books by novae
-scholars who opined that what they are
doing is something purely revolutionary!
Decades
have passed since the fervour with which the new generation of teachers have
embraced Communicative Language Teaching. What the proponents had predicted has
indeed come true!!! We have churned out
millions of students who have the consummate ability to direct tourists to the local bus stand or instruct someone on how to buy a ticket! Our
students can even astound everyone with the precision
with which they direct a person
keen on attending a call of nature to
the appropriate location!
So
all is well and good ….Now why is it that most multi-national companies when
they come to recruit, tell us that our
students are incapable of speaking and writing immaculate English, have a
phenomenally poor vocabulary and have an
atrocious pronunciation! Were such things ignored by the Communicative Language
teaching experts through a conscious dilution of content?
Don’t
you think dear reader that we have made the mistake of leaping before looking?
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