“SPICE” Spoken English Training in Sri Lanka’s
Northern Province, March 2013
Killinochchi, located three
hundred kilometres to the north of Colombo, situated in the “Dry Zone” and well
in truly in the “Vanni”. It served as
capital of the Eelam State during the 28 year long Civil War that many had
branded as “unwinnable”. It was vacated during the second battle of
Killinochchi when the Sri Lankan Army’s 57th and 58th
Divisions defeated the LTTE in January 2009. Capturing the town had not been an
easy task; when the LTTE withdrew the damage was considerable.
Mohan Samarasine founder and Chairman of the UK registered “Spice”
charity had chosen the area to support two intensive five day in-service
workshops for local teachers. He felt deprived towns like Killinochchi and
Mulliaitivu deserved help because of the suffering they had experienced during the
cruel war. The goal of the teacher training programme was to introduce new and
powerful methods of furthering spoken British English by developing listening
and speaking skills.
The old LTTE capital
of Killinochchi is now a bustling place of redevelopment, spread out straddling
the A9 road. The town’s old water tower
has been upended by explosives and lies as a stark reminder of the destruction
metered out at the hands of the “Tamil Tigers”. Today it boasts two or three
hotels, signifying it is opening up to visitors once again.
Life in Killinochi
The Spice
Teachers Training project started on Monday 18th March at the “Zonal
Education Office.” There were 22 enthusiastic participants.
The first day was devoted to discussing problems faced by the
teachers. By far the biggest challenge was the lack of resources. Most of the primary schools lacked qualified
teachers, so the onus fell on the secondary sector for the introduction and later
teaching of English. This made it extremely difficult for the participants to understand
the syllabus. Overall there seemed to be a lack of serious commitment on the
part of many of the students. Until English becomes a compulsory subject in the
system, this difficulty will continue. The political will was somewhat lacking
as many teachers think they have little voice in the birthing of change in
their region. If they do not confront the authorities and speak up for better
conditionsม it is unlikelyม the current situation will
change terribly much. Fortunately Spice is there to accomplish its mission,
devoted to speaking, promoting and introducing children in Sri Lanka, to English.
This charity run from the UK, works in close partnership with the Rajapaksa
brothers youth organisation “Tharunyata Hetak” (A Tomorrow for Youth). Such a
link-up eases the way for Spice to work with schools and teachers .It depends on
kind donations from the public to make its work possible.
One of the most pressing issues stressed in the training is
that the tendency to revert to the native language in monolingual classes. This
has to be discouraged. The purpose of the Spice training Programme is to
emphasise the skills of listening and speaking. To achieve this objective, it is
stressed that carrots are much stronger motivating tools than sticks. A
tremendous emphasis was placed on games and other activities that inspire
participants to speak. For many of the children, the only experience of
listening to someone speaking English comes by interaction with their own
teachers. It is, therefore, paramount the teachers themselves speak an
acceptable form of Sri Lankan English conforming to recognized grammatical
rules. The purpose of a language is to communicate and most importantly not to
be misunderstood. The Teachers own communication skills need to be enhanced. An
enthusiastic teacher can do a lot to help him or herself by repeated exposure
to the language. It is not enough to do this on an occasional basis; the
exposure needs to be daily. The Internet is an invaluable resource that enables
people to listen to spoken English and thanks to Skype and other voice based
programs to speak it, too.
The Course explored methodologies via micro teaching and
demonstration lessons. All this is a far cry from the time honoured and highly
restrictive practice of slavishly following the text book, which by the very
nature of the exercise emphasises reading and writing and side-lines the
communicatively more basic skills of listening and speaking. Although such an
approach is much easier for the teacher, it is far less useful to the student!
Day 4 time was devoted to exploring how spoken English could
be encouraged by means of extra curricula activities. How to set-up and use an
English Club which meets on a regular basis
with the intention of generating interest through drama, music, songs
and games. Teachers already using such schemes were singled out to tell others
on how to set them up. An extension of the English Club is the English Camp,
where exciting activities can be incorporated into an intensive one or two days
out of school event. Teachers are encouraged to introduce these concepts into
their own schools. Plans are afoot to develop a residential “English Camp” at St.
Thomas’s College, Gurutalawa. This will be run in conjunction with the UK’s leading
“Millfield School”.
On the final day, procedures designed to
assess competency in spoken English were also examined. It is stressed that fluency in spoken English
can only be tested by speaking the language. All tests have to be spontaneous
to ascertain a realistic level of ability. The Training ended on Friday 22nd
March. Hopefully, the message stressing that language learning is all about
communication got across; if you are not mis-understood you are communicating.
Many of the teachers attend courses like this one to interact with native speakers.
True, they want to learn from the native speaker, but they also need to be able
to determine how well they can communicate with them. Bear in mind this will be
the first time some of these adults have had any extended conversation with
someone who speaks English as a “Mother tongue.”
A significant purpose of these trainings is to identify the
future leaders amongst the teachers attending. Spice has already addressed
the issue where UK graduate and TEFL expert Tom Cellar along with Sophie Minor
have been in Tangalle assisting local teachers put on trainings such as this
one for their colleagues. Mohan would like to see more projects in a similar vein
take place in the North. Such plans need funding. Feedback from these courses
is resoundingly positive. The teachers are eager to participate. However, funds
are not always available to make such exciting schemes materialise.
...The 10 Year National Master
Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka has provided equal opportunities for all Sri
Lankans to obtain skills in Sinhala and Tamil as languages of communication and
debate with English as a life skill at levels suitable for individual needs and
ambitions. Sunil Fernando President’s
Advisor and Co-ordinator on the Task Force on the Teaching of English.
The Mullaitivu Teachers”
Training Course began on Monday 25th at the recently constructed
Mullaitivu Mahavidalay M School. It was built under the auspices of UNICEF, and funded
by the Cathal Ryan Trust. The trust is named after Cathal Ryan, son on Irish
billionaire and founder of low cost airline Ryanair, Tony Ryan. Cathal spent
several years in Sri Lanka flying for Air Lanka; he died of cancer in 2007.The estate
was valued at Euro 250 million on his death; his brother and daughter Danielle
worked with family members to set-up a trust to give some of this money back to
Sri Lanka. The school was a result of the donation.
The Course starting on March 25th began with 16
participants; this number grew to 19 as the week progressed. Tuesday the 26th
was Full Moon or ‘Poya Day’. In Sri Lanka such days’ are public holidays.Participants,
in a vote of confidence on the Spice Programme, universally agreed, to come in
on their day off, for which Spice
rewarded them with a lunch. The material covered was the same as in
Killinochchi, except it all had to be condensed in to four days. The reason for this was Friday 29th
was ‘Good Friday’. Good Friday is also a public holiday. Besides many teachers
had homes and families in faraway Jaffna, understandably they wanted to spend
the long week-end with them. The course ended ,therefore, on Maundy Thursday,
the 28th of March. There was a short ceremony where speeches were
made, and the winning team received their prizes of an umbrella apiece. This
was followed by a short reception where all enjoyed short- eats and Coca-Cola. The participating teachers were so delighted
with their Course they made a collection ; three of them then crept out of the
classroom, made for the market and presented the facilitator with three
beautiful shirts as a token of thanks.
Several of the teachers displayed
injuries received during the war. Many had harrowing tales to tell but asking
impertinent questions about their traumas seemed somehow indelicate. Ilango had
a badly scarred arm, Mary Rejinah told of how she sheltered in a bunker for
three days whilst being shelled by the SLA. Kathya Yasotharan’s husband was
killed, leaving her to bring up her son as a single mother. It would be
fascinating to know more but intrusion without invitation is an invasion of
privacy.
Such trainings can only continue with your help. If you feel
such projects are worthwhile, please donate generously.
Alister Bredee
Koh Samui.
April 2013
