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The proficiency in English language on entrance to the
English department varies from country to country
throughout the world. In countries
close to England with long
traditions of English teaching and an efficient secondary
feeder system, the standard of the new entrants is likely to be
generally high. There will always be room for advanced
English teaching, with specialisation in certain areas. Beyond
improving the advanced student’s use of the language, it
should be possible at this level to increase his knowledge about
English—that it is English as a content subject as well as a skill.
Many departments offer a course in the history of English,
which provides valuable insights into why English is the way it
is today. A higher priority is a
description of contemporary
English presented as a formal system in as much detail as time
will allow. Strongly to be recommended for this purpose is
R.Quirk and S.Greenbaum’s
University Grammar of English.
A good new grammar is S.Chalker’s
Current English
Grammar from Macmillan. It is also worth reading through
an introduction to the principles of language—R.Hudson’s
Invitation to Linguistics or J.Aitchison’s
Linguistics are fairly
basic; somewhat more advanced are D.Bolinger and
D.A.Sear’s
Aspects of language and V.Fromkin and
R.Rodman’s
An Introduction to Language.
Many less developed countries pose different problems.
Often the intake is of very mixed ability. A few people may
have spent several
years in Britain or America, others may
have attended the English department because other
departments of their first choice had no more places available,
and their knowledge of English is very poor. Yet these people,
and many in the middle, find themselves in the same class.
There are two main ways to deal with these heterogeneous,
very mixed ability groups—one administrative, the other
pedagogic. Administratively it is best to devote all the class
hours to intensive language
work directed towards a
Language Barrier exam which everyone must pass before
going on to the degree course proper. Those who can pass it
immediately should be allowed to proceed—but it is
important to pass in all areas. Many people who have spent
years in an English-speaking country may be orally fluent but
quite incapable of expressing themselves in writing. The
Language Barrier exam should be set as early as possible, but it
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189
is very common that one year’s intensive English, and in some
countries two years’ study, is required
before a student is in a
position to do any justice to the subject matter of an advanced
level degree course.
The pedagogic solutions for mixed ability classes are
varied. It is useful to discover just how great the range is by
using a diagnostic test. There will certainly be a large block
in the middle of the ability range who can be separated off
as a group for some parts of the lesson, or for some lessons,
and will form a more homogenous teaching group. If this
strategy is adopted, the poor ones and the better ones must
receive their due time and attention.
Individual work is
essential for each person not in the main group, with the
emphasis on bringing the weak ones up to standard to join
the main group. A planned scheme of work using available
textbooks and particularly class tape recorders and the
language laboratory is vital in individualised learning of
this type. A great deal of time, probably outside class hours,
will need to be spent coaching the weak ones. There is one
advantage, however, in that the
weak ones may well not be
proficient in English through lack of practice or
opportunity, but they should, through the very fact of being
selected for Higher Education, be intelligent and able. With
care and attention they should always be capable of
catching up with the others.
A danger of splitting a heterogeneous group in this way is
that the very act of division may intensify rather than
alleviate the difficulties. So it is probably better to have the
whole class together for the majority of the time, and use
techniques which involve each person at his own level. With,
say,
oral questioning, it is possible to ask the more difficult
questions of the able students at a speed that will tax them
and the easier questions of the less proficient and at a slower
pace. Similarly, there might be a choice of titles for the
composition, some more difficult than others, to cater for
different levels of proficiency. One effective technique here
is group work, where the good
students are asked to be
group leaders and given the task of helping along and
getting the best out of the others. In general terms, the
teacher’s task is to provide each student with a learning
experience at his own level and a challenge to improve, so
