"Be smart"
Shoaib M. Siddiqui Dhaka City College
I can't fully agree with Mr. Dev as his letter did not focus on the whole situation. It is true that English is not that important for those Japanese and Chinese scientists, but it is almost impossible for most of the ordinary people to possess extra ordinary genius like them.So, we have to focus on the common people and the ground reality of Bangladesh, and not of Japan or China. Learning English is a must in this world. The language is of utmost importance. Most of the universities here run their courses in English. As students have to express themselves in English, teachers also do the same in classrooms. Just think about a situation--all the students and the teacher of a class are good in Bengali and as-- according to some people-- smartness is not at all connected with right pronunciation they all are saying 'ishtudent' instead of 'student' , 'ishtyle' instead of 'style' and so on. How can we call them smart students or teachers? We also notice that most of the recongnised business houses nowadays want people who are smart and have good command over English. Will they select me as an executive if I am just great in communicating in Bengali and don't know the right pronunciation of English words? The answer is very simple-"NEVER" For learning right pronunciation, we don't need teachers and students who will go beyond the syllabus. In my last letter I wrote about my native American teacher but he was not a spoken English course instructor. He just taught us SSC English and communicated with us in right pronunciation, which magically changed the pronunciation of the students. Speaking English in right pronunciation may not be all for being smart, but it is obviously a very important factor.
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