Only recently communicative method has been introduced at the SSC and the HSC levels. The aim is to give students genuine practices in the four language skills -- Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing -- and to enable them to speak and write the language fairly comfortably, the implied emphasis being on oral communication. But, to all appearance, the so-called communicative method has failed to deliver.

The secondary and higher secondary text books, comprising a collection of passages drawn from diverse sources, are indeed a good reading. But what is lacking in the new syllabi is that no particular skill is targeted. Nor are there any clues as to what linguistic and cultural hindrances a non-native speaker of English is likely to confront in a native situation.

In all fairness to the method in question, a diligent reading of these passages should no doubt equip the learners with massive word power and facilitate their reading comprehension to a certain degree. But as far as language learning is concerned, words learnt this way are of little practical help when it comes to expressing oneself in a real life situation. Instead, concentrating on the idiomatic usage of some basic words like get, make, take, put, give, do etc. which constitute the magic of spoken English, would be amply rewarding. These words bring home to the learners the fascinating aspect of the language and help improve the quality of his/her English. This is a world which our syllabus designers have never bothered to unfold to the young learners.

A language is rooted in its culture. Without the knowledge about the culture of a language speaking as a skill cannot be effectively learnt. Culture is pervasive in a language -- in its structure, in its intonations, in its punctuations and pauses and even in its silences. Special lessons in some cultural words should unmistakably find place in the reading texts. Students must be thoroughly introduced with such cultural words as Hallo, Hi, Good Morning, Please, Thank You, Sorry, Excuse me etc. without which no civilised conversation can be sustained with a native speaker and the lapses of which may bring a world of trouble in a native situation. Hence to initiate the students into the culture, some relevant extracts from contemporary English texts could serve the purpose best.

The job of the students would be to condition themselves to those sentence patterns and diction through repeated practice until they can manipulate freely within those structures and can replicate them at will. Unless trained in authentic use of English, students cannot possibly know the accepted form of expression. Unaware of natural workings of the language, they may fall for artificially constructed structures with unhappy choice of words leading to an awkward expression unintelligible or only vaguely intelligible to native speakers.

Lamentably, at no stage of our learning up to graduation level, there is any active oral use of English in the class room either by the students or by the teachers themselves. Even the introduction of communicative method makes no difference. There being no explicit dialogue making lessons, the act of speaking has been left to the whims of the teachers and the students. As usual the class room teacher keeps himself busy reading passages and providing translation in the mother tongue which is followed by solving some grammatical riddles. The pupils simply keep quiet, look at books and get through the lesson without learning anything. The mutual disinclination to speaking owes to the factor that speaking has nothing to do with passing the examination.

Of course, whether a student at the secondary level, given the poor initiation at elementary level, can at all express himself/herself in tolerable English is an open question. As usual a young learner gets started with reading as a matter of legacy and with it comes the inevitable question of writing. She/he learns the alphabets first, then individual words followed by short sentences. This early introduction of printed or written form is a potential threat to language learning. Language specialists lay stress on learning to understand and speak at least some of the language before learning to read or write it. A young learner's acquisition is natural, free from mother tongue interference. At this stage, simple structures have to be drilled into him till they become part of his instinct. But in practice, the language activities done at the primary level is far from satisfactory. Hence when a child grows up with inherent weakness, s/he finds it difficult to cope with the communicative method at the advanced levels which eventually frustrates its purpose.

Listening is a part of speaking and is just as important. An average Bengali learner's listening is atrocious. No matter how conversant one may be with written or spoken English, unless his ear is attuned to the tongue, he is bound to find himself hopelessly at a loss in the face of the steady flow of speech. This is because the colloquial cliches, the word combinations the stress and intonation he hears are distinctly different from what he has been used to. Only persistent practice through audio lingual aid can come to his rescue. In this regard the current communicative approach remains stubbornly silent as the previous grammar translation method.

Free composition is something still foreign to our students. Memorising is their usual recourse to get through the examination. The condition the students to guided writing there is no NCTB authorised text book written in standard English, students invariably fall back upon the traditional notebooks which are only replete with mistakes. Worse still is the face that these so-called notebooks betray complete disregard of the writers for English idioms and display colourful distortion of normal English. The kind of English represented in these books is a revelation, if we may so call it, of abysmal depths to which our standard of English has fallen.

After a spate of criticism and adverse reaction for the banishment of explicit grammar from secondary and higher secondary courses, the NCTB authorities have reintroduced grammar at SSC level. Despite their best of intensions, the new hand book on grammar portrays only a cosmetic update of what used to be the traditional grammar book. No wonder, the taste, flair and beauty that authentic English exhibits, is conspicuously missing there. Grammar taught as a dead set of rules has proved anything but useful to generations of students.

Against the background of an evolution of language teaching all over the world what is required in our case is to have a correct understanding of the nature of cultural and linguistic difficulties our students are likely to encounter and offer some practical tips to tackle those. This job has been done admirably well by Professor M Harunur Rashid of North South University in his book "English for Bangali Learners." By reading it one can learn English through fun. The NCTB authorities would do well to take stock of it if they are at all planning to introduce any grammar at the HSC level.

Sikandar Ali is a Lecturer in English, Kushtia Govt. College.