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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mag123" data-source="post: 20181553" data-attributes="member: 73975"><a href="http://www.island.lk/2001/10/10/midwee05.html" target="_blank">http://www.island.lk/2001/10/10/midwee05.html</a>Midweek Review "A Bilingual English Course" by Dr. D. Walatara — a review English Language teaching in Sri Lanka has been afflicted with a lingering malignancy for the last few decades. Instead of reaching a higher standard of English over the years as India has done, we have increasingly diluted the quality of English language teaching to shocking levels. As a result a student who secures a distinction pass in English at O/L is very often unable to express a few ideas correctly in English. To aggravate this, there is an acute shortage of English teachers, especially competent ones. Quite a number of our English teachers possess poor levels of competence in English. The English Readers used in schools and the methodology employed in teaching English don’t seem to have improved the situation. But the time is here when we have to give our young men and women a firm grounding in English to prepare them for the emerging competitive world.In such a perspective, ‘A Bilingual English Course’ blows in a breath of fresh air to the English teaching scenario. The material presented in this publication was tried out successfully at a few selected schools in the mid - 60’s and introduced in year 6 classes in all schools in the late 60’s. But the course was withdrawn shortly after without any explanation or notice.Dr. Walatara advocates the controlled use of Sinhala to teach English. He uses Sinhala sentences to provide the ideas, the thought units or the facts which when translated into English produce English sentences of a particular pattern. In fact, the Sinhala sentences are designed to direct the student towards a controlled structural content. Each lesson commences with a few sentences in Sinhala to be changed into English. Here’s an example:Students are expected to translate these into English orally. Next they write the English sentences. These sentences are followed by a brief reading passage in English which incorporates the sentences the students have already translated into English. In fact, the reading passage gives further practice in the use of a particular type of English sentence. An important feature of the book is that it provides quite a variety of drills to consolidate the students’ ability to produce particular types of sentences in English. Starting with simple sentences, the book introduces complex and compound sentences in easy steps. Lessons are so designed that each one is a stepping stone to the next. This control of the structural content of the lessons enhances the acquisition of competence in English within a pre-determined framework. It certainly is a result - oriented approach to teaching English.One aspect that needs to be looked into, however, is the inclusion of reading passages dealing with current topics so that the lessons are of relevance to the world of today.The course contains twenty nine weeks’ work, i.e. about one year’s work. As stated by the publisher, the material can be used by pupils from year 6 onwards and by adult ‘who wish to consolidate their fragmentary knowledge of English acquired in the course of their exposure to English at school’.We hope "A Bilingual English Course" would be the first in a series of English Readers that would help our students gain competence in English within a few years. The book comes out at a time when we need fresh perspectives and new approaches to rejuvenate the teaching of English in Sri Lanka.The author Dr. Douglas Walatara is a former lecturer in English at the Government Specialist Teachers College, Maharagama. He was also Director, Institute of Worker’s Education, Colombo University and subsequently Consultant in English at the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka.Upali PannilaSabaragamuwa University of Sri LankaBelihuloya.</blockquote>

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