NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH SKILL DEVELOPMENT (NIESD) CHENNAI - INDIA
English skill will never let you down
The aim of NIESD is to provide training in functional English to the students, employees, executives, businessmen teachers, trainers etc., to improve their communication and presentation skill.
What is English skill?
When
people talk of English skill they think about English literature, novels, drama,
the bulky dictionary, other literary works and finally the grammar. Some people enroll in English literature (degree) and other such courses to gain the language skill, at the end they find it difficult to frame or speak even a
single simple sentence of their own.
A Language is a form of verbal communication with the fellow human beings to convey the desires, wants, suggestions, emotions etc. There is a link between the sentences the people use to communicate and the grammar and literature of the language, of course culture plays an important role in acquiring the language skill. A same idea can be
communicated in a variety of word combinations or many thoughts can be
communicated using the same word combinations.
Communication skill training is such a vast area that no single course, or a teacher, or a training can
accomplish the task. Language is purely a personal domain, because no two
individuals can speak in the same way, the language skill can be acquired by constant observation, and usage.
How people acquire English skill?
Native
people (Say English) acquire language fluency by observation, necessity,
situations, body language etc., even
without knowing the alphabets or grammar of the language. A child speaking
in his/mother tongue is the best example, this is the most effective and the fastest way of acquiring a language skill.
Non native speakers of the language acquire the language skill in the following ways.
1.Studying grammar: This method wouldn’t be of much help because it’s
is not based on day to day communication needs of the speakers, besides it’s is a
long and tedious process.
2. People working
in corporate houses and multinational companies, acquire language skill by interacting with their co workers
3. Students
studying in reputed universities acquire language fluency by listening to the
lectures, interacting with the English speaking students, and by participating in
debates, GDs and seminars.
4. Very few
students/people acquire langue fluency by studying English literature, books,
novels, etc. Majority of the
students who take up English literate at degree or post graduate level end up
memorizing the content without acquiring the language skill.
5. People who are
exposed to cartoon films and books based on cartoons or Picture story books or
comic books tend to acquired better language proficiency than the above
mentioned four methods.
6. Regular English
news paper readers and English news watchers acquire remarkable and high degree of language proficiency, their vocabulary is better than that of the native
speakers. People of this category climb up the career ladder faster than anyone
in non-native speaking category
7. Another way of acquiring fluency in a shortest span of time is to master at least one thousand Lexical Chunks. Lexical chunks are the frequently and widely used phrase (In various contexts) in spoken English.
7. Another way of acquiring fluency in a shortest span of time is to master at least one thousand Lexical Chunks. Lexical chunks are the frequently and widely used phrase (In various contexts) in spoken English.
7. Now the trend in
non native speaking countries is, mushrooming of Spoken English
Training centers. These centers just issue books/CDs containing Stereotype
dialogues, expressions, conversations etc. The trainees are made to memorize like parrots, and of course they are taught the pronunciation
of some frequently used words-group (American English) . The irony is that these poor trainees
can’t frame their own sentences even after spending
hundreds of dollars.
In India an average student is exposed to English for twelve years at school, nearly 95% of the these students fail to speak a single sentence of his/her own. At university/college level the universities/colleges have failed miserably to deliver the goods, oops! many universities/colleges staff are very poor in English. The end result is that the millions of graduates are unable to secure a decent job due to lack of English skill. India is losing billions of dollars of outsourcing jobs to Philippines, China, Sri Lanka etc., as these countries are very serious about providing english skill training to the common man.
End of the post
In India an average student is exposed to English for twelve years at school, nearly 95% of the these students fail to speak a single sentence of his/her own. At university/college level the universities/colleges have failed miserably to deliver the goods, oops! many universities/colleges staff are very poor in English. The end result is that the millions of graduates are unable to secure a decent job due to lack of English skill. India is losing billions of dollars of outsourcing jobs to Philippines, China, Sri Lanka etc., as these countries are very serious about providing english skill training to the common man.
Present status of English in India
The falling education standard in India is directly proportional to the declining English standard. Further investment including FDI in higher education is bound to fail unless the free fall of English standard is arrested. Today a common man in India is well aware that, upward mobility is impossible without English skill. Unlike Japan, Russia , Germany etc. where the knowledge is available in their respective country language , India is solely dependent on English for information and knowledge. With the new role as the Global language of commerce and communication, English commands more respect and Elite status , among the masses and affluents.
2004 story
Once Jerry Rao, Chairman of National Association of Software and Service Companies lamented that ‘The average student in India who completes high school doesn’t speak good English, thanks to the ill-conceived chauvinist educational policies’. He called to step up investment in English speaking workforce. He went on to say that, ‘A large English speaking workforce is a National Asset’.
2013 story
‘Investment in picking up one’s English language skills hasn’t found much favor with Indians in Comparison to science or technology or other areas, they like to invest in’. This was the opinion of Angela ffrench and Coombe of Cambridge English Language Assessment (CELA) which is part of University of Cambridge, UK. Further they added ; ‘Brushing up one’s English could lead to overseas study and employment opportunities is something we needn’t tell people . They should have realized by now’, they further stressed that ‘people shouldn’t miss out on great opportunities just because they are handicapped with respect to communication’.
2014 Story
Hardly 15 percent of the graduates are employable, the remaining 85 percent lack English communication skill. The inference is 85 percent of investment is going into drains. The Universities in India still consider English literature, history, criticism etc. as integral components of the English language, they are fail to realize that the employers need communication skill not the literature and criticism. The University/College teachers themselves are poor in Communication skill. This has resulted in mushrooming of thousands of the so called English Language Training Companies all over India and it’s the most sought after business these days(better than investment in gold). The only aim these companies is to cash in on the English craze, the youth who fall prey to the catchy ads of these companies end up as parrots with no knowledge of speaking or wring of their own. There are few International Schools and some Elite colleges where students get an opportunity to hear and speak language fluently and this fraction doesn’t make any impact. I am of the view that India is losing at least a billion dollar a day due to joblessness/underemployment of it's youth, due to lack of English skill.
National Employability Report (2014) says that 73.6% of engineering graduates lack English speaking and comprehension skills, one can imagine the fate of graduates in Arts and Science colleges. The prediction of the World Bank in 2010 that ‘Skill shortage remains one of the major constraints to continued growth of the Indian economy’, is true even today. It is time the government stepped up investment in skill development rather than opening more and more universities and colleges. Look at the fate hundreds of Engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu , struggling for survival in just two decades of their inception. `
