KARACHI: Several concerns about the teaching and learning of English in Sindh’s schools were highlighted at the launch of the second research publication on the language in education series by the Society for the Advancement of Education (SAHE) and the Campaign for Quality Education (CQE) in a local hotel on Tuesday.

The study, Teaching and Learning English in Sindh Schools, analyses English language use in classrooms in Sindh and seeks to inform the policy debate on adopting English as the medium of instruction in public schools in Pakistan.

Giving an overview of language and education during a discussion on SAHE/CQE prior study on the teaching and learning in English in schools of Punjab, Abbas Rashid executive director of SAHE that their basic concern was two-pronged — does the introduction of English in early schooling hinder or help learning and what happens to the learning of English itself during it all?

“Then we also come to the issue of medium of instruction and at what stage is it appropriate to introduce a second language in schools,” he said.

“But first of all we have the basic question, why English? English has become synonymous with quality,” he said, adding that having two different systems of education where private schools were English-medium and the government schools Urdu-medium was contributing to class divide hence steps were being taken towards equity by introducing the language in government schools.

But now when government schools in Punjab had been teaching English for some three years, it had been noticed by taping classroom sessions there that there was not much learning going on in the language and English was used in reading out from textbooks or just giving commands. The explanatory component of questions and answers and interaction in English was just not there and the children were unable to express themselves in the language.

“Even the subjects of maths and science are not understood by them when taught in English,” he said.

Dr Fatima Dar, assistant professor at the VM Institute for Education and an independent researcher, shared her findings on teaching and learning English in schools of Sindh. “The National Education Policy of 2009 says that English should be made compulsory in all schools so we thought of seeing how that will work out by examining the conditions,” she said.

Taping the class eight lessons in schools of four districts of Sindh — Karachi, Sukkur, Jamshoro and Khairpur — she shared her findings by reporting that 30 per cent of the words used in the classroom were English and those, too, were mostly read out from textbooks.

“The discussions carried out in class also comprised close-ended questions. There was also a high incidence of code switching where the teachers switched to the mother tongue to explain topics or to give instructions because they themselves felt comfortable using that language. The students, too, could not easily converse in English and felt more comfortable reading in English from a textbook.

“We also found that there was no big difference between the rural and urban schools. All had weak classroom strategies for teaching English, their teachers lacked competency to teach English and the students had poor language skills. And all this despite the teachers having BEd and MEd qualifications,” said Dr Dar.

“Then when we talked to the teachers, most of whom said that they felt that the children learnt better in the mother tongue but the parents on the other hand wanted their children to study English for all the wrong reasons. They thought English would help them get better job opportunities, have better prospects abroad. They simply associated prestige and power with English.”

And after reviewing class eight textbooks, Dr Dar realised that the books needed more learning activities instead of carrying repetitive themes. She recommended aligning the curriculum and the textbooks and teaching English as a subject with focus on communication from class one.

Giving a practitioner’s view about language practice in the classrooms of Sindh, Sadiqa Salahuddin, executive director at the Indus Resource Centre, said she felt that it was not really an issue about education. She saw it more as a political issue. “People think it there basic right to teach their children English but we wonder how to teach the language when we lack an English-teaching environment,” she said.

She shared her having overheard a parent telling some researchers from the World Bank in Khairpur that she had two children, one wanted to become a judge and the other a doctor, but she didn’t know how that was going to happen since the children didn’t know English. The mother thought that the language had to do with knowledge of law and medicine. “The parents’ vision is also important. After all I, too, am a mother and I sent my children to the schools of my choice. Therefore I say, don’t dismiss parents’ dreams. We must see how we can help them realise the dreams they have for their children,” Ms Salahuddin said.

She said that when opening a school she had also wanted to impart the best English teaching to the children but when they interviewed teachers for the job none of them could match her standards. “So looking at the ground realities, we had to lower our standards a little. The fault is in the system, not in the parents for having high hopes for their children,” she said.

“Actually, it’s not just English that they want their children to learn, they also want them to know computers. And it’s also not that English is not doing well here, the Sindhi language, too, is in dire straits here. I know of students who have done their Masters in Sindhi Adab but they can’t recite a verse other than Bhitai’s verses,” Ms Salahuddin said.

Senior education trainer Abbas Hussain said there were so many colleges offering BEd and MEd courses in English but not many interested in enrolling in them.

The dialogue was also attended by Raza Ali Abedi as well as representatives from the Bureau of Curriculum & Extension Wing, AKU-IED, Teach for Pakistan, SPELT and the TCF.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2014