What role do environmental factors play in language teaching and learning?

      NAME: BHATT URVI P.

ROLL NO. : 31

STD: M.A. (SEM-3)

SUB: English Language teaching-1

PAPER NO. : 12

TOPIC: What role do environmental factors play in language teaching and learning?

SUBMITTED TO: DEPT OF ENGLISH M.K BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

 What role do environmental factors play in language teaching and learning?

     Introduction:

                           

                 The term second language acquisition refers to the process through which some acquire one or more second or foreign languages.

                        

                    English is taught in India as second language. In Indie a very interesting situation operates. India being a multilingual country, English serves as a link language across the nation. It is also a language in which a lot of Indian literature is being written- that is to say, literature by Indians, about India but in English.

               It must be remembered that a language is not an isolated entity. It is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural, religious, etc. Concept of the native speaker’s life. In a wider sense, it represents across time and space the dynamic nature of these aspects. As stated above, when a language is used in a non-native context which has a different socio-cultural pattern, but not for expressing this non- native culture, it remains a foreign language, like French, or German or Russian are in India. But under these very circumstances, when it comes to be used to express the non- native culture and becomes a means of communication in some domains from interaction, it becomes a second language and is precisely in it is exploited. The results are very interesting, especially linguistically.

  The objectives of the language teaching:

                Teaching is not a unidirectional process of pumping bits and pieces of unrelated and undigested gobbets of knowledge into empty sacks. It is a bidirectional, interactional process. Learners are not just passive recipients of socially accepted language patterns. They play active role in this teaching- learning process. They actively strain, filter and recognize what they are exposed to. Their imitations are not photographic reproductions but artistic recreations. The learners are meaning- makers. The main objective at every level of teaching should be to help learners learn how to draw out their latent creativity.

  Background:

                                    Family Background and the surrounding also play an important role in the acquisition of language. A child acquires language very quickly. If the family of the child speaks first language, the child would have no problem while learning. But for teaching the Second Language, if created, can be helpful. The acquisition is quicker in suitable environment.

                                          If the family is educated, the acquisition is fast. If the student is the resident of urban area, there is possibility of the learner to be quicker. The types of tasks in which learners engage and the number of participants in a task also affect learner’s participation. Studies have been conducted on learners’ participation in tasks involving pair work, group work and the whole class.

                         The term acquisition was originally used to emphasize the sub- conscious nature of the learning and acquisition has become largely synonymous.

                   There has been much debate about exactly how language is learned, and many issues are still unresolved. There are many theories of SLA, but none are fully accepted by all SLA researchers. The SLA can be divided into five Stages:

Ø The first stage is preproduction which is also called silent period. At this stage learner can’t yet speak.

Ø The second stage of SLA is early production. During this speaker starts speaking short phrases of one or two words.

Ø The third stage is known as speech emergence. At this stage learner starts speaking simple sentences. Grammatical errors occur.

Ø The fourth stage is called intermediate fluency. Learner starts using complicated sentence structure. They do make frequent errors

Ø The fifth and final stage is said to be the stage of advanced fluency. The ability of learner is quite near to that of the native speaker.

     Language acquisition in children:

                

                       Swiss Psychologist- Jean Piaget was development psychologist rather than learning theorist. He studies the nature of children of different ages can benefit teachers. He provided a tenable ides in regard to the nature of learning process.

                       For Piaget the term ‘Genetic epistemology. ’Genetic’ means, developmenter and ‘epistemology’ is a theory of knowledge acquisition. Piaget’s genetic epistemology is developed to a study of the development stages of children as they relate to their acquisition of knowledge. Piaget studies were biologically oriented and he gives prominence to psychological factory he gives secondary place to cultural factors in explanation of human behaviour. He says that development of a child consists of a succession of three stages or periods.

                                     Each stage extends the proceeding periods reconstructs it on a new level, and later surpasses it an even greater degree.

            The process in development is assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation consists of filtering or modification of the input from the environment. Accommodation consists of the modification of one’s internal skill to fit reality.

v The different stages of acquisition in children:

Stage- 1                               

                        During the first stage from birth to 18 months or 2 years, an infant lacks any symbolic function and so displays no direct action on reality.

Stage- 2

                                   During the second stage from 18 months to the age of 1 or 8 years a child uses differentiated signifiers.

Stage- 3

                                       During the stage of concrete operations from 7/8 years to 11/12 years a child internalizes actions as related to objects but he or she does not yet use verbally stated hypothesis. Such hypotheses appear only in the periods of preadolescence.

                 Every learner is born with a built- in language- learning mechanism. This mechanism gets activated when the learner is exposed to that language. What is, therefore, essential is to create an atmosphere where learning can take place. Children learn the language they here around them. Exposure to a rich variety of linguistic material is as important in first language acquisition as in second language learning. The teaching of English as a second language, in particular, has often been less successful than it might have been, as a result of the restricted variety of linguistic contexts with which students are provided. Learners should ideally be exposed to a variety of contextualized language materials. They must here and see language in action.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Social Environment:

                            

   The idea of the social environment plays a major part in an individual’s cognitive and affective development was modelled by Bronfenbrenner (1979), who described the environment of a developing person as being similar to a Russian doll. He stated that the individual’s environment can be represented as a set of concentric interactive Layers. Their continues interaction with each other and with the individual defines the possible routes of development. Although based on this model numerous studies have been conducted concentrating on the validity of the model in different circumstances. I know of no research which aims to describe the nature of the influence of the attitudes and motivational roles of the social environment on the attitude of adult EFL. Learners at non- company courses. Therefore, the present study intends to validate a questionnaire with which it is possible to draw up a model of this interrelationship. 

  

               [Kovacs’s model of adult EFL learner’s social environment]

                               A figure shows, in my model there are two social environmental circles, the first being the immediate micro- environment that consists of family and friends. I included these people who in in adult life represent the Private environment and process the most personal information about the individual adult EFL learner. the other circle, the exo- environment, comprises the workplace, the language teacher and the language school. For adult EFL learners these do not attitudes of these two major facts influence the attitudes and motivations of adult EFL learners.

                          Some students learn a new language more quickly and easily that others. This simple fact is known by all who have themselves learned a L2 in School. Clearly, some language learners are successful by virtue of their sheer determination, hard work and persistence. However there are other crucial factors influencing success that are largely beyond the control of the learner. These factors can be broadly categorised as internal and external. It is their complex interplay that determines the speed and facility with which the new language is learned.

Internal Factors:

                                    Internal factors are those that the individual language learner brings with him or her to the particular learning situation.

  Age:

         SLA is influenced by the age of the learner. Children, who already have solid literary skills in their own language, seem to be in the best position to acquire a new language efficiently. Motivated, other learners can be very successful too. But usually struggle to achieve native- speaker equivalent pronunciation and intonation.

Personality:

                   Introverted or anxious learners usually make slower progress, particularly in the development of oral skills. They are less likely to take advantage of opportunities. More outgoing students will not worry about the inevitability of making mistakes. They will take risks and thus will give themselves much more practice.

Motivation:

                  Intrinsic motivation has been found to correlate strongly with educational achievement. Clearly, students who enjoy language learning and take pride in their progress will do better than those who don’s.

                                     Extrinsic motivation is also a significant factor. ESL students, for example, who need to learn English in order to take a place at an America university or to communicate with a new English boy / girlfriend, are likely to make greater effects and thus greater progress.

Experiences;

             Learners who have acquired general knowledge and experiences are in a stronger position to develop a new language than those who haven’t. The student, for example, who has already lived in three different countries and been exposed to various languages and cultures has a stronger base for learning a further language than the student who hasn’t had such experiences.

Cognition:  

                          In general it seems that students with greater cognitive abilities will make the faster progress. Some linguists believe that there is a specific innate language learning ability that is stronger in some students that in others.

Native language:           

                                     Students who are learning a second language which is from the same language family as their first language have, in general a much easier task that those who aren’t. So, for example, a Dutch child will learn English more quickly that a Japanese child.

External Factors:

                                     External Factors are those that characterize the particular language learning situation.

Curriculum:

                               For ESL students in particular it is important that the totality or their educational experience is appropriate for their needs. Language learning is less likely to place if students are fully submersed into the mainstream program without any extra assistance or, conversely, not allowed to be part of the mainstream until they have reached a certain level of language proficiency.

Instruction:

                                            Clearly, some language teachers are better that others at providing appropriate and effective learning experiences for the students in their classrooms. These students will make faster progress. The same applies to maintain teachers in L2 situations. The Science teacher, for example, who is aware that she too is responsible for the students English language development, and makes certain accommodations, will contribute to their linguistic development.

Culture and Status:                                                

                                                There is some evidence that students in situations where their own culture has a lower status than that of the culture in which they are learning the language make slower progress.

Motivation;

                                                       Students who are given continuing, appropriate encouragement to learn by their teachers and parents will generally fare better than those who aren’t. For example, students from families that place little importance on language learning are likely to progress less quickly.

Access to native speaker;

                                            The opportunity to interacts with native speakers both within and outside of the classroom is a significant advantage. Native speaker are linguistic models and can provide appropriate feedback. Clearly, L2 learners who have no extensive access to native speakers are likely to make slower progress, particularly in the oral/ aural aspects of language acquisition.

Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ is an elaborate exercise in examining the postcolonial world.

NAME: BHATT URVI P.

ROLL NO. : 31

STD: M.A. (SEM-3)

SUB: The Postcolonial Literature

PAPER NO. : 11                   

TOPIC:Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ is an elaborate exercise in examining the postcolonial world.

SUBMITTED TO: DEPT OF ENGLISH M.K BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ is an elaborate exercise in examining the postcolonial world.

“No one today is purely one thing. Labels like Indian, or woman, or Muslim, or American are not more that starting points, which it followed into actual experience for only a moment are quickly left behind. Imperialism consolidated the mixture of culture and identities on a glob scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that they were only, mainly, exclusively, white, or Black, or Western, or Oriental. Yet just as human make their own history, they also makes their cultures and ethnic identities. No one can deny the persisting continuities of long traditions, and sustained habitations, national languages and cultural geographies, but there seems no reason except fear and prejudice to keep insisting on their separation and distinctiveness, as if that was all human life was about. Survival in fact is about the connections between things, in Eliot’s phrase, reality cannot be deprived of the ‘other echoes (that) inhabit the garden.’ It is more rewarding and more difficult to think concretely and sympathetically, contrapuntally, about others than only about ‘us.’ But this also means not trying to rule others, not trying to classify them or put them in hierarchies, above all, not constantly reiterating how ‘our’ culture or country is number one.”

                     Orientalism is a term used by art historian and literary and cultural studies scholars for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures by writer’s designer and artists from the west. Since the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 much academic discourse has begun to use the term “Orientalism” to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian and North African societies.

Edward Said:

Edward Wadie said (1935-2003) was from Jerusalem, Palestine. He was a literary theorist. He became professor in 1991. As a cultural critic, Said is best known for the 1978 book- “Orientalism”, “O” is based upon Said’s knowledge of colonial literature, literary theory and post structuralism. In Said’s analysis, the West essentializes these societies as static and undeveloped- thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced. Implicit in this fabrication writes Said, is the idea that Western society, is fully developed, flexible and for superior.

Meaning:

Orientalism” refers to the “Orient” or “East” in contrast to the “Occident” or West”, and often, as seen by the West Orient came into English from Middle French orient. Orients have related meanings:

ü  The Eastern part of the world

ü  The part of sky in which the sun rises

ü  The rising Sun

ü  Daybreak

ü  Dawn

                     “Orientalism” is widely used in art to refer the works of the many western 19^th century artists, who specialized in “Oriental” subjects, often drawing on their travels to Western Asia. In 1978, the Palestinian- American scholar Edward said published his influential but controversial book. He used the term “Orientalism” to described what he argue was a pervasive Western tradition, both academic and artistic of the East, shaped by the imperialists in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Edward Said’s book became one of the basic tests of post colonialism or post-colonial studies.

“You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once- there has to be a limit.”

Post colonialism:

Post colonialism deals with conflicts of identity and cultural belonging. Post colonialism or Post-colonial studies is an academic discipline featuring methods of intellectual discourse that cultural legacies of colonialism and imperialism a country and establishing settlers for the economic exploitation of the native people and their lands. as anthropology, post colonialism records human relation among the colonial nations and the subaltern people exploited by colonial rule.

Definition:

         As an epistemology as an ethics, and as a politics, the field of post colonialism addresses the politics of knowledge- the matters that constitute the post-colonial identity of decolonised people. In post-colonial literature, the anti-conquest narrative analyses the identity politics that are the social and cultural perspectives of the subaltern colonial subjects- their creative resistance to the culture of the coloniser.

                                     A major aspect of post colonialism is the rather violent- like, unbuffered contact or clash of cultures as an inevitable result of former colonial times, the relationship of the colonial power to the colonised country, its population and culture and vice- versa seems extremely ambiguous and contradictory.

“Consider that in 1800 Western powers claimed 55 present but actually held approximately 35 present of the earth’s surface, and that by 1874 the proportion was 67%, a rate of increase of 83,000 square mile per. By 1914, the annual rate had risen to an astonishing 240,000 square mile per year, and Europe held a grand total of roughly 85% of the earth as colonies, protectorates, dependencies, dominions, and commonwealths. No other associated set of colonies in history was as large; none so totally dominated any so unequal in power to the Western metropolis.”  - ‘Culture and Imperialism’

                            

              Edward Said’s evaluation and critique of the sets of beliefs known as Orientalismforms as important background for post-colonial studies. His works deals with the inaccuracies of questions various paradigms of thought which are accepted on individual, academic and political levels.

The Orient:

          This word signifies a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into western learning, Western consciousness, and western empire. Orient is a major image of what is inferior and alien (‘other’) to the West.

                                   Orientalism is a manner of regularized writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient. It is the image of the ‘Orient’ expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship.

                  The Oriental is the person represented by such thinking. The man is depicted as feminine, weak, yet strangely dangerous because his sexuality poses a threat to white, Western woman. The Oriental is a single image, a sweeping generalization, and a stereotype that crosses countless cultural and national boundaries.

Contemporary Orientalism:

            According to Edward Said Orientalism can be found in current Western depictions of found in current Western depictions of “Arab” cultures. The depictions of “the Arab cultures.” The Depictions of “the Arab” as irrational, meaning, untrustworthy, anti- Western, dishonest, and perhaps most importantly prototypical are ideas into which Orientalist scholarship has evolved.

The hold these instruments have on mind is increased by the institutions built around them. For every orientalist, quite literally, there is a support system of staggering power, considering the ephemerality of the myths that Orientalism propagates. The system now culminates onto the very institution of the state write about the Arab Oriental world, therefore, is to write with the authority of a nation and not with the affirmation of a strident ideology but with the unquestioning certainty of absolute truth backed by absolute force.”

-          by Edward said

-                     According to Said “The Orient” cannot be studied in a non- Orientalist manner, rather the scholar is obliged to study more focused and smaller culturally consistent regions. The person who has until now been known as “the Orient” most be given a voice

.

-                                         As a public intellectual, said discussed culture, literature, music and contemporary politics. During from his own experiences as Palestinian Christians in the Middle East around the time Israel was established in 1948, Said argued for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Also he was an advocate for equal political and human rights for Palestinians in Israel and urged the U. S. to pressure Israel to grant and respect these rights.

“The Orient and Islam have a kind of extra real, phenomenologically reduced status that puts them out of rich of everyone except the Western expert. From the beginning of Western speculation about the orient, the one thing that orient, the one thing that Orient was credible only after it had passed through and been made firm by the refining fire of the Orientalists work.”

           A very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists, economists, and imperial administrators, have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts. While discussing Orientalism the writer has discussed many writers and their works dealing with Orient or Occident directly or indirectly.

“We cannot fight for our rights and our history as well as future until we are armed with weapons of criticism and dedicated consciousness”.

“When Disraeli said in his novel ‘Tancred’ that the East was a career, he meant that to be interested in the East was something bright young Westerns would find to be all consuming passion, he should not be interpreted as saying that the East was ‘only’ a career for Westerners. There were and are cultures and nations whose locations is in the East, and their lives, histories, and customs have a brute reality obviously greater than anything that could be said about them in the West. Above that fact this study of Orientalism has very little to contribute, except to acknowledge it tacitly.”

          Above paragraph talks about Disraeli’s work which dealing with prejudice. Edward Said further mentions Orientalized. He talks of K. M. Panikkar’s classic Asia and Western Dominance.

“To believe that the orient was created- or, as I call it, ‘Orientalism’ and to believe that such things happen simply as a necessity of the imagination, is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony, and is quite accurately indicated in the title of K.M. Panikkar’s classic ‘Asia and Western Dominance’.”

                                              Said also writes about Victorian specialist who had definite views on race and imperialism-

“Nearly every 19^th century writer was extraordinarily well aware of the fact of empire: this is a subject not very well studied, but it will not take a modern Victorian specialist long to admit that liberal cultural heroes like John Stuart Mill, Arnold, Carlyle, Newman, Macaulay, Ruskin, George, Eliot and even Dickens had definite views on race and imperialism, which are quite easily to be found at work in their writing.”

           He also refers to the writers like Mill and Marx. He also writes about the works and views of Gramsci, Lane, Renan or Flaubert while discussing Orientalism. The writer mentions about the richness of native literature of Arabia, India, Japan, Syria, Persia, Egypt, China, Germany, Italy, and Russia etc.

“…, a large part of the Orient seemed to have been eliminated- India, Japan, China, and other sections of the far East- not because these regions were not important but because one could discuss Europe’s experience of the Near Orient, or of Islam, apart from Orient...”

       

                   Edward Said examined many authors all over the world. He discusses various works of art by them. He skilfully tried to differentiate “Orient” and “Occident” and showed the richness of the literature of the Post-colonial world. Hence, we can assertively say that Edward Said’s “Orientalism” is an elaborate exercise in examining the post-colonial world.