As far as English is concerned we are really in a paradoxical situation. At no stage in our recent history has the need for English been so great as it is now, because of globalisation and free market environs, but at no previous time has the standard of English been as low as it is at present. The paradox has also an embedded irony. The current emphasis is more on language learning than on literature. Our Secondary and Higher Secondary English syllabi have been designed solely to equip our young learners with language competence. Yet, when the students come up for tertiary education their English proficiency level is at least two or three rungs lower than the expected standard.

The reason for this may be socio-political, but a deeper reason can be found in the lack of coherence between different parts of our institutional English education. The English Departments in our universities, and the vast number of postgraduate colleges under National University follow a curriculum traditionally made up of literature courses. Graduates from these institutions are expected to, and also do, take up jobs as English teachers at schools and colleges. In the circumstance they are likely to find themselves unprepared in having to deal with purely communicative curriculum with their literature education background.

How far communicative approach is effective outside target language situations and in an atmosphere of artificially contrived lesson plans and materials bereft of attention to grammar is itself a matter of serious rethink. A major problem of language teaching in the classroom is the creation of an authentic situation. A language class wholly dependent on a technically devised methodology in isolation of the integrative context of events and actions, which produce natural and authentic language situations, cannot but be ruinous for motivation.

In this respect using literature for extended language teaching may be a viable alternative because a literary text combining authentic event and action based language functionality and appeal will combine both motivational aspect and language learning needs. According to Provis, a great linguist and a literary scholar, "literature will increase all language skills because literature will extend linguistic knowledge by giving evidence of extensive and subtle vocabulary usage, and complex and exact syntax."

But the problem is: what kind of literary texts to use! Our University English Departments and the National University colleges offer literature courses including only one or two language courses. The main point is that almost the whole of the literature courses derive from British and American English literature. Students have to confront and tackle highly complex individual texts, some of which are simply archaic; they also have to follow very closely the development of the whole of the British English literary tradition from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day!

The end of the empire and the rise of creative writings in English in the former colonies by non-native users of English have brought about a sea change in the educational and social imperatives of English learning. These writers have portrayed the impact of the imperial culture on the life and tradition of their people. The empire ended and indeed stood being written back and renarrated causing an overwhelming psychic disorientation among the present-day learners of English towards the British English literature.

This is not merely a reactive response. For the non-native users of English, the new writings from the periphery hold better brief in style and content than those from the motherland. In an interview on VOA sometime in the early eighties Walter Allen was asked if he didn't think that the standard of English fiction had fallen over the years. His response was that on the contrary it had become more innovative and more colourful. He mentioned R.K. Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand of India, VS. Naipaul of Trinidad, Chinua Achebe of Nigeria and Ngugi of Kenya as the great writers of modern fiction.

In reality these writers from the periphery have created a nativised cultural context and a pattern of language very much akin to our sense and sensibility. Chinua Achebe writing his first novel to show how their potentially wholesome culture disintegrated under the impact of a newly arrived aggressive civilisation or R.K. Narayan showing in his inimitable low-key humour and amused ironic tone how the tension emanating from a clash between the age-old Indian customs and tradition and the spirit of the western sense of life creates a resonance in us are hardly to be found in any contemporary British English text. A relevant conversational extract from these writers can be used for a dialogue making lesson or an informative narrative piece can be used for devising lessons in everyday English usage. To sum up, exercises and drills can be derived from these writers in order to transfer linguistic structures to the learner's active repertoire.

Finally one thing needs to be emphasised. The selection of reading materials for English degree programmes should not be 'either/or' type. It will be an unwholesome extreme step to abandon the British English literature texts wholesale. The obvious thing is to select texts which are relatively easy from the point of readability.

Dr. Nurul Islam is Professor of English and Dean, Faculty of Arts, Eastern University, Dhaka.