4 Real-life English

Now try these two activities.

Activity 5: People who use English – a planning activity

Your students may know people who use English regularly for personal or professional reasons. Heightening their awareness of these uses of the language can reinforce the value of learning English.

Plan a language lesson where you ask your students some questions based on the following prompts. It might be helpful to write some of these prompts on the board before the lesson:

  • Have you seen a member of your family fill out a form in English? Why was this – to get a driver’s licence or a birth certificate? Discuss the English words and meanings.
  • Have you seen someone in your family receive or send letters and/or emails in English? Have you received or sent letters and/or emails in English?
  • Have you seen someone in your family write their address in English? Can you write your address in English?
  • Have you seen a doctor write a prescription? Was it in English or the local language?
  • Have you seen a policeman write a ‘challan’ to fine someone? What language was this in?

Tell students to write a table with two columns. In the first column, they list people they know (for example, their doctor, a policeman, their grandmother, etc.) or they can draw pictures of these people. In the second column, they list what they have seen these people reading and writing in English. They should use the prompts from the board to help them make their lists.

  • Does your textbook refer to any of this English? Are there connections you can make between the textbook and the students’ tables?

Use the students’ tables to plan language lessons on ‘everyday’ English. See where you can make a link to what is in the textbook.

Pause for thought

Would it be possible for you, or someone at your school, to invite someone who speaks English to come to the class to talk about how they use English? Could you contact a doctor, postman or policeman? The students could prepare for such a visit by looking around for examples of English used in these professions. The class can prepare simple questions to ask the visitor. After the visit, the students could write the person a short letter in English, thanking them for the visit.

Activity 6: English and technology

Both the English language and its alphabet are gaining increasing popularity in Indian communities, in part because of their role in technology. These days, almost everybody has a mobile phone. Now people commonly send each other text messages, often employing English phrases to do so. The roman script is increasingly used to write texts in local languages as well.

Ask your students to work in groups and brainstorm answers to the following question:

How do you communicate with each other and your families – both those family members you live with and those who live elsewhere?

At the end, each group reports back on the ideas in their brainstorm. When you use a brainstorm activity one student in each group should take responsibility for writing down the ideas. They can do this in their notebook or on a large sheet of paper.

Walk around the room as the students do the brainstorm. Listen to their ideas. If some students are finding it difficult to think of ideas, you might want to use one or two of these questions to help them.

  • ‘Do you use the telephone or a mobile phone?’
  • ‘Do you send text messages?’
  • ‘Have you ever seen a typewriter?’
  • ‘Have you used a word processor (computer)?’
  • ‘Do you or your parents write letters or emails?’

When they have written down their ideas about how people communicate, ask them to think about what language(s) people use for these activities – is it English, Hindi or their local languages? Or a mix of these? They should show this information on their brainstorm chart.

Then gather the students together and hold a class discussion about what determines which language they use for each activity. Is it easier to use English because of the computer keyboard? Do they use the roman script for transliterated Hindi words? Write the class ideas on the board so that students see and hear more English.

Pause for thought

Are there ways in which you could use technology in your lessons? Could the students send an email or text message to someone, inviting them to their class, or thanking them for their visit? You could compose the text together on the board, or students could draft the message in groups if your class is large. Then someone could type the message into a computer or a mobile phone. You can help draw out students who are too shy to participate in activities that require them to speak by giving them more time to type into the computer (if you have access to one) or mobile phone.

Video: Using local resources

3 Discovering English words

5 Presenting English to the community