Can coaching centres teach English?

Can coaching centres teach English?

Nothing happens without any reason. The mushroom growth of coaching centres teaching English has been in existence to respond to the growing needs of the time to produce more and more English knowing people in the country. Students did not learn English in schools and colleges; they read English just to pass the examination. Passing in the examination in English does not necessarily mean acquiring English. In student life students read and pass the examination without putting necessary and reasonable importance on English. Obviously students are not responsible for it. If we knew how to prepare examination questions to make the students really creative, they would have been creative. Their creativity in English would prepare them both to pass in the examination and to learn English. Year after year the same kind of questions is set in the examination which helps students and teachers to prepare suggestions. It is learnt to students and teachers if ‘A visit to a book fair’ paragraph comes this year next year it will not be set. Students and teachers prepare suggestion to memorize the paragraph ‘a visit to a village market.’ This art of suggestion makes a teacher famous and highly skilled but make the students crippled. Students and guardians pour in the doors of these teachers. These teachers also take pride in their effort. Students pass very nicely and obtain a good grade in English by virtue of this suggestion and memorization. But they don’t learn English for practical purposes in life.
Again, out of four skills only two skills (reading and writing) are tested in the public examinations. Whereas, to acquire a language all the four skills need to be tested which is done in the international English testing systems such as TOEFL and IELTS? In our country we give certificate to the students A+ (80% or more than that marks a student obtains) without testing their communicative ability in speaking and listening which constitute the two major skills of language.
It is an established fact that the country experiences serious dearth of language teachers in secondary and higher secondary levels let alone primary level. In this situation who conduct language classes in coaching centres. I am afraid, what the students or traditional teachers teach the learner? Passing out from the university even in English literature does not ensure that a candidate can teach English effectively. Teaching a language is a sophisticated art which calls for vast subject knowledge, dedication and sincerity, experience and continuous professional development training and subject training. I deal with English training for secondary level English teachers which gives me opportunity to go far into the depth of teachers’ ability to teach English. My prior experience as an English teacher in Cadet College, Cantonment College and Rajuk Uttara Model College tells me how different a teacher can be with and without training. Training is a must to teach a language like English.
The professional who come to coaching centres to learn English probably don’t go through English newspapers and get the messages published here. If they regularly go through English newspapers, they can a good amount of English. They learn English through Bengali which becomes ‘ Bangraji’ or ‘ wrong English’. They should understand that when they learn through a wrong method, their development in English will stand far apart. None of their teachers are trained let alone well trained. Only advertisements are their real capital. Is there any statistics that the candidates of these centres have acquired the necessary skills of language? The answer is definitely a big ‘ NO’. Only through advertisements and arranging some big seminars at the cost of these people’s money they want to prove that they are the champions in these lines. Actually they are doing a lucrative business indeed! Sometimes I happened to watch some programmes thrown by these coaching centres. I just watched the whole class was being conducted in Bengali.
“Coaching centres are adding to the poor condition of students in terms of the English language efficiency” says Dr. Ashraf of Dhaka University. He adds “Coaching centres show a shortcut method of learning English. They teach certain rules to secure good grades in examinations. But for proper learning, no shortcut is ever effective.” “One day I was watching a programme on Bangladesh Television where the director of a coaching centre was conducting the show. I counted seven mistakes during the programme alone.” Laments professor Manzurul Islam of Dhaka University. He agaisn says,” If you read the course books of some coaching centres, you will find countless mistakes” FM Institute, another coaching centre claims that one can learn English without ever learning English grammar. If you do a course in FM Institute, you can deliver a speech in English. Its spoken consists of thirteen classes and the course fee is Tk 5000. Saifur’s is among the most advertised coaching centes in the city but its performance in comparison to other coaching centres is more or less the same. A student of city Mirpur Bangla High School says, “ In school, my English teacher just makes fun of students, sometimes teaching limited rules of grammar and stringently asking us to memorize guide-prescribed rules, paragraphs and essays. Sometimes when he cannot find students at his private classes, he punishes school students very badly and we instantly know that he is in need of students for private tuition.”
To manage some job opportunities for the unemployed youths or to make the weak students pass in examination through the English teaching coaching centres is not bad but when they challenge as the authorities of teaching English sounds very unimpressive and unreasonable.
Md. Masum Billah
Programme Manager: BRAC Education Programme, PACE
Phone: 9355253(res), 01714-091431(cell)
Email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com, mmbillah@dhaka.net