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Language
assaulted before 'English days' It was a time
when English learning gained great acceptance in the rural schools.
"Villages vanquish towns in English" was a front page
headline of a report of the All-Island English Week in a morning
daily, which said, "The standard of English in rural and out
station schools is far better than that of the leading city schools."
"Rural schools excel in English" and "Uva students
attain high English standard", said other headlines. Premalatha
Gunasekera of Galahitiyawa Madhya Maha Vidyalaya won the gold medal
for oratory with her rendering of Mark Antony's funeral oration
at the All-Island English Week. Reading, recitation, story-telling,
action songs, group singing, drama, spelling contests, handwriting
and a whole range of activities formed the rich agenda of those
"English Days". The late R.
C. L. Attygalle's perceptive comments on the sad state of English
teaching at the time that preceded those "English Days"
deserve remembering, for they have lost none of their relevance
more than forty years after their utterance: "Large classes,
crowded and uncomfortable, compelled to learn a language that is
inflicted on them with the sometimes dubious and not seldom distracting
apparatus of "aids", rattling the dry bones of structures
from which all living flesh has been plucked are sufficient to give
children a sense of unreality. They do more.. They ensure that not
only will the language be assaulted but that it will be hanged,
drawn and quartered. "It is
perhaps one of the unfortunate consequences of the flourishing trade
in know-how which a certain conception of rapid economic development
has encouraged that techniques have become a highly marketable commodity.
Teacher-training has not escaped the effects of this streamlined
development. It is no doubt very useful, especially in teaching,
to know how to say what you are supposed to say. But it is much
more important that you should, above all, have something to say.
A knowledge of techniques can hardly compensate for inadequate or
no real knowledge of the subject to be taught and in language teaching,
which affects a child's capacity to think clearly, it can only result
in an expense of spirit in a waste of words." The man who
lifted English learning from a drab exercise in "rattling the
dry bones of English structures" into a living experience with
a living language -an experiential reality- was D. R. L. Samararatne,
who was appointed to the newly created English Inspectorate of the
Ministry of Education. He had had an illustrious track record of
English teaching in an urban as well as a rural school in Kurunegala,
of which he was also principal. In this rural school he had produced
100 per cent passes in English at the GCE (OL) whereas other schools
like his had produced none at all. This must have been his biggest
claim to be elevated to the supervisory post in the educational
bureaucracy. He blazed a
new trail as Mrs I. De Silva, a teacher of English for 24 years
from Galle, wrote in a tribute. "I cannot recall a year of
greater effort on the part of the English teacher, a period of greater
enjoyment, a full realisation of the wonder of our experience as
we prepared for the All-Island English Activities Programme."
Accolades poured in through letters to the Ministry and in Letters
to the Editor columns. "It is very heartening to find that
a new spirit and enthusiasm has been infused into the children to
change their attitude to the learning of English. Parents, teachers,
children and everyone else will be ever grateful to the promoters
of this programme and in particular to Mr D. R. L. Samararatne,
its architect," wrote Dammika de Silva, also a teacher from
Galle. It was in Galle
that Samararatne first began what English teacher and freelance
journalist J. F. Jegarajasingham in a feature article in the old
Times of Ceylon called "Operation English". Many rural
schools in the region did not teach English at all and even schools
that did teach the subject had produced no GCE (OL) passes. In 1966
only 145 candidates obtained OL passes, with just nine of them gaining
credit passes. Within a year
of "Operation English" 297 passes, 58 of them credit passes,
were recorded in Galle region.Under Samararatne's dynamic guidance
and inspiration, the English teachers in Galle revolutionised the
teaching of English. Their success was such that similar programmes
of new techniques and new approaches spread to all other regions
when the late I. M. R. A Iriyagolle, Minister of Education at that
time, brought Samararatne to the Ministry with an assignment to
do for the whole country what he had achieved in Galle. The rich
pebble that he dropped into the ELT pool in the South produced ripples
through the length and breadth of our country. Samararatne,
now a septuagenarian is only so in years. His vision
for good English teaching is as bright, meaningful and youthful
as it was in the sixties and his services will undoubtedly benefit
the Ministry of Education as it gropes for a path to take English
to the rural child. What he achieved for English teaching in his time was missionary in scope. The zeal with
which he enthused both teachers and learners and also Ministry bureaucrats
was missionary too. One wonders
why a local Adviser in English Teaching to the Ministry of Education
remarked at an English Teachers' Conference at the National Institute
of Education last year, "I abhor 'English Days' ". Fortunately,
nobody in his audience agreed with him. Certainly not the group
of schoolgirls from Joseph Balika Vidyalaya, Nugegoda, who had been
invited to the Conference. They follow the "English Day"
tradition in their school and enjoy it hugely, they said."English
Days" are held in other schools too, even in tertiary institutes.
'Bare basics and no frills,' describes the new dwelling
place of the Silva family, keeping them safe from the elements of
nature and other sources of harm. Their roughly built wooden shack
that leaked every time it rained, could not have provided any form
of protection much longer. Over
the years the 5- member family has encountered various hardships,
the most trying being, little Dinujaya's cancer that keeps him and
his mother Amita Silva in hospital most of the time. Taking care
of the other children, Nadisha and Chamath by parent Ranjith who
was incapacitated during a suicide bomb attack, that does not allow
him the use of his right arm for manual labour, hasn't been too
easy. Built through
the initiative of Silver Hands, comprising of 8 senior ladies, the
house was formally handed over to the Silva family at a Pirith Ceremony
on 21st December 2002. This was made possible with the proceeds of the eco-friendly sale organised by Silver Hands and other contributions received from well-wishers. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
