Modern

trends in ELT: Placing the learners in the spotlight, National Seminar, St.
Josephs Evening College, Bangalore, 17th August 2015.


ELT in 21st century India
Panel Discussion

Lina Mukhopadhyay
Dept of Materials Development, Testing and Evaluation
The English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad
linamukhopadhyay@efluniversity.ac.in

India has enjoyed a long-standing history of ELT practice for more than a century
now. In the recent times with the implementation of the right to education act
(2009), this practice has become more widespread and intensive. An implication
of the application of the act is: ESL teachers have to cater to large numbers in
primary and secondary classes but often do not have the expertise to do so. I
would suggest two ways in which practice of ELT in difficult circumstances in
21st century India can be addressed. However, as a word of caution it is
imperative to mention here that these are not easy or ready made devices and
have to used with discretion and training. One is using the multilingual and
multicultural knowledge that both teachers and learners bring to the ESL
classroom as a rich source of comprehensible input (Krashen 1982). Second is
training teachers to pay attention to learner language and capture instances of
learning and provide scaffold to help learners move through the zone of
proximal development (Vygotsky 1962, 1978) in areas where they are found to
struggle. In this multilingual resources of learners should be acknowledged and
utilized one way being the use of translanguaging (Canagarajah 2011;
Cummins in press) to promote ESL skills.