Students' Failure in English
English is an international language. To adjust to the modern developed world, we must learn English. English becomes a fearful subject to our students. They are failing in English in their exams. Different causes are apparent for this massive failure.
English is a foreign language. It is highly rich and dynamic. Definitely, it is difficult to learn a foreign language. This difficulty becomes higher if there is the lack of learning environment of that language. Our students feel fear in learning English. These are ingrained within their mind so highly that they cannot come out of these fears. They lose heart when they think of reading this. They feel they have no capacity and power to acquire competency in English. This type of subconscious fear dissuades them to attend to English whole-heartedly. Again, the premonitions about the difficulties of English also impede the students' normal progress in English.
Our students are not fully responsible for these massive failures in English. Our overall situation is greatly responsible for this. It is a matter of great regret that we have no fixed English learning method. We are still experimenting on different methods. Our students are lost within these methods. Our syllabuses are changing, modifying without any logical grounds. We cannot still select whether our students will follow grammar-translation method or communicative method. The indecision here greatly hampers our students' progress. Not only that, different institutions follow their own methods. There is no fixed method for everyone. This also accelerates the failures at an alarming rate.
The fears in English also increase when our students do not get proper books for their learning. They become restless and fall in tension. The books available in our country fail to instill the students to learn the basic rules in English. Again, the books encourage the students to memorize the answers instead of flourishing their latent talents. Thus the lack of books is another glaring cause of our students' failure in English.
We have also shortage of trained teachers. Our teachers themselves do not know how to create the students' attentions in English. They have no proper experience in communicative English. Their classes are based on lecture method. The students are encouraged to memorize the answers. Our teachers also find no suitable atmosphere to teach the students in English. Their classroom lectures are mother-tongue based. Thus there creates an indifference among the students to learn English suitably.
English is a language. It is a medium of expression. If the young learners fail to express their emotion, feelings etc. in target language, they must fail. The communicative language method or Audio-lingual method needs sufficient materials which are not found in our institutions. Even the communicative English books written under the auspices of our National Curriculum and Text Book Board are materials based. But these materials are not available. These pose a great hindrance for our students to learn English.
English is taught in our country as a foreign language. There is none in our country whose mother tongue is English. Thus our Bengali speaking students cannot use English in their practical life. They learn English only in their classes. Outside the classes, English remains untouched to them. If suitable atmosphere prevails in our country, our student will get interest in English.
Our exam methods are also responsible for our students' failure in English. Our exam system is writing-based. This system is run to understand the students' memory power. But ignoring skill-based education, memory cannot beget good results. Again, the curriculum of our English is not suitable enough to touch the students' soft mind. The students only want to cross the huddles of exam. They give emphasis more on memorization instead of acquiring practical knowledge. Thus our exam system also appears as a bar for our students' good results in English.
In this global world, English language occupies the highest place. So, we must learn it. We have to create suitable atmosphere for our students to do well in the exam. We must remove all the obstacles. If we can shake off all these, it is hoped that our students will cut a good figure in English exams.
