CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

“Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If I have to summarize the meaning of the English language in one word then it
has to be freedom. Freedom to relate to others, explore new cultures, freedom of
information, to do what I want to do for a living and live in a place I love …
English has opened my horizons in every sense of the words and I owe who I am
today to the ability to speak the language.”
Francisco Rodriguez-Weil, set and costume designer, Venezuela

1.1 Idea of Language

Thinking of the idea of language, the first very first question that arises in the mind is
what is language. For the sake of simplicity, language can be understood as a set of sign and
symbols and utterances. When all these three (signs, symbols and utterances) used in certain
manner, it produces meaning. Speaking from linguistic point of view, a language is a
phonological system that works as an operating principle for the symbols to be structured in
such a manner to produce morphemes and a syntax whereby the morphemes are joined to
produce phrases.
Speculations about the creation or origin of language are a part of popular fables and
stories across all the cultures of human beings. Till date, it is an established fact within the
academic fraternity that cuneiform is the earliest written form of language that human beings
knew. But it is also a commonly held belief that spoken language came into existence much
earlier than the written language. Several religious traditions indicate towards it. Among the
most popular of accounts of the existence of language comes from the biblical story of the
tower of Babel. Other civilizations have different stories of the its origin. The study of
language, linguistics, has been developing into a science since the first grammatical
descriptions of particular languages in India more than 2000 years ago, after the development
of the Brahmi script. Modern linguistics is a science that concerns itself with all aspects of
language, examining it from all of the theoretical viewpoints described above.
It is generally held that it was Panini who laid the initial ground for the study of
language in India as a formal and serious issues debate, discussion and a matter of deeper
meditations. He propounded extensive research on Sanskrit language and its morphology
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about two and half thousand years before. But Panini was not the first of its kind. The
theoretical works on languages had already started in several other civilizations by experts in
language. For example, the Sumerian scribes had already studied distinctive characteristics
by comparing Akkadian and Sumerian languages much earlier in the 1900 B.C. it was these
initial studies that paved the ground establishing a culture of language study in general. Since
then, this culture grew more and more in its reach and understanding of the language which
can be gazed by the fact that even in contemporary times, the subject is widely debated and
discussed and is a matter great significance. In the 18th century, the first use of
the comparative method by British philologist and expert on ancient India, William
Jones sparked the rise of comparative linguistics. The scientific study of language was
broadened from Indo-European to language in general by Wilhelm von Humboldt. This trend
continued with even more furor with rise of several prominent scientist such as Ferdinand De
Saussure. Ferdinand de Saussure propounded that language is a set of inter-connected units,
working within a f9thed or stable or static system. What he basically meant is that a language
is close-knit of rules and systems that governs its use or meaning making activity. This idea is
the scientific community is labelled as a structuralist view of language. He is also claimed by
some scholars to be the father of modern linguistics as he was the first among many to
propose the synchronic and diachronic difference while analyzing a particular language.
Other than this, he also contributed immensely by providing several concepts and theories
such as the distinctions between syntagm and paradigm, and the Langue-parole distinction,
distinguishing language as an abstract system (langue), from language as a concrete
manifestation of this system (parole).

Many describes language as a system of exchange of verbal and symbolic patterns whose
utility lies in its ability as a tool to facilitate a social interaction. This way, it serves as skill
set for human beings to express and manipulate objects in the environment. Functional
theories of grammar explain grammatical structures by their communicative functions, and
understand the grammatical structures of language to be the result of an adaptive process by
which grammar was tailored to serve the communicative needs of its users. This view of
language is associated with the study of language in pragmatic, cognitive, and interactive
frameworks, as well as in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. Functionalist theories
tend to study grammar as dynamic phenomena, as structures that are always in the process of
changing as they are employed by their speakers. This view places importance on the study
of linguistic typology, or the classification of languages according to structural features, as it
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can be shown that processes of grammaticalization tend to follow trajectories that are partly
dependent on typology.

One of the renowned living philosophers of the time Noam Chomsky (1966) propounded a
theory in the decade of 1960 which is popularly known as the generative theory of language.
It says that there are underlying principles of syntax that are universal in nature i.e., for all
languages of the world. Noam Chomsky called it the „universal grammar‟, and identified that
this is where the work of linguists resides. Hence, according to him, the focus of linguistic
study should be to study these individual languages and the implicit commonalities of
grammar and then subsequently working out the variable factors.

Other than the generative school of Chomsky, there is group of scholars popularly
known in the academics as the functional theorist of language. They opine that the
fundamental utility of language lies in its use as a tool to facilitate human interaction, thereby
it should rather focus on its role in relation to the function it performs. Their main thrust is to
outline the different functions of language. The work of linguistics lies in finding the
relationship with these functions. On the other hand, there is another school of thought called,
cognitive linguistics. They opine that that language has certain underlying forms which can
only be grasped through concepts. By concept they mean both that belongs universally to
language and the variables that belongs to only a particular language. Their main thrust is to
find out how the mind generates meaning with use of language.

Writing, literacy and technology: The long history of human beings has witnessed
innumerable ways of representing spoke language into visible forms. These visible forms are
called different systems of writing. One of the biggest advantages that written form availed to
human beings is that now the information can be stored for posterity instead of being
dependent upon human beings as was the case earlier with spoken forms of language.
Coming of written forms of language was also of great help wherever the spoken forms of
language communication could not be trusted. It is also believed that writing affects one‟s
cognition which is the reason why formal education is a necessary prerequisite to acquire it.

When did the language acquired or came to be in written form is a question of

immense interest and debate among academicians. Broadly speaking, there is somewhat an
agreement that earliest evidence of written forms of language can be gleaned or belongs to
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the time of the onset of Bronze Age which is believed to have begun in the fourth millennium
before Christ era. As mentioned above, cuneiform script is oldest remnant available to us as
evidence of first use of the written form of language. Egyptian hieroglyphs ar e also believed
to be simultaneous to it. While the proto type of writing forms or systems developed earlier in
4th millennium B.C., it was only as late as 2600 B.C. that there developed a consistency in the
text or to put it in another words, a coherent writing system developed in a comprehensive
manner.

Acquisition: A healthy normal toddler starts to learn to use language that is spoken around
them by naturally absorbing it. It is this tendency that great biologist Charles Darwin
described as, "an instinctive tendency to acquire an art", in his magnum opus, The Descent of
Man. While for children, understanding to make use of language by listening is one aspect of
it, the acquisition of oral or sign language is believed to be no different a process. This
learning process is referred to as first-language acquisition, since unlike many other kinds of
learning, it requires no direct teaching or specialized study. There was a study conducted in
2013, published in the journal called Scientific American, that has found that the process of
language acquisition begins even before the child is born i.e., when the child is in fetus stage.

In the wee stages after birth, children‟s response is more aligned with human speech
sounds than any other sounds, for example the sounds of other mammals. By the age of one
month, they develop the ability to distinguish between different speech sounds. Only after the
age of s9th months that a baby starts to make some rudimentary sounds and hand gestures
conditioned to his surrounding environment. Only when the child is about one and one and
half years old that he starts to speak proper words. His vocabulary increases by the time to
about fifty words o an average. But still, he is a long way from speaking in proper syntactic
structure. He is still limited to using only a word or two for a sentence i.e., that it is still not
grammatically as complex as an adult speaks. It is only when the child is above the age of
three that develops the ability to speak proper sentences as the adult does with a coherent
syntactic structure.

Acquiring a language is a long-drawn process that provides a person an ability to perceive

and commend (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it),
and to utter words and create meaningful sentences in order to communicate. Acquiring a
Language involves structures, rules and representation. Speaking from the linguistic point of
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view, to communicate in a language involves the use of a system that involves namely,
morphology, phonology, semantics, syntax and vocabulary. It is a general human condition
that though the vocabulary of language is limited or finite but still it can be used to produce
infinite numbers of sentences. This condition is described as „recursion‟. Recursion has been
explained further a consequence of three things, namely relativization, complementation and
coordination which causes expansion or use of the sentences in a language seamlessly.
Second-language acquisition (hereafter denoted as SLA) off late has developed into a
separate subfield of study in applied linguistics. Thanks partly to the increasing amount of
literature from other streams such as education and psychology and partly to the increasing
tendency towards interdisciplinary culture in academia. Learning or acquiring a second
language only follows after that the child is exposed to the requisite environment. It is stated
that achieving grasp and fluency in the second language is easier for children than the adult as
it is believed that the children are more conducive and fertile round when it comes to
absorbing the second language. Moreover, it is a well-established fact that the language that a
child learns first, subsequently affects his ability to acquire second language in a considerable
manner.

While studying SLA (as a subfield of applied linguistics), two concepts become of
paramount importance namely, the concept of „inter-language‟, and secondly, the concept of
„language transfer.‟ The first concept (inter-language) is based on the idea that one can learn
second language only through the language he already knows. Now the language that he uses
in order to learn the second language is not the due to the difference per se with the language
that they are learning rather it is a complete language in its own right. That is to say that
while learning the second language through the language that they already know, leads to not
only carrying forward the ideas of the first language into the second language but also leads
to the oversimplification of the content of the second language that he is trying to learn. The
second concept (language transfer) is inextricably linked to the concept of inter-language.
The SLA is unavoidably gets influenced by the language one already knows. It is this leftover
from the first language that percolates itself into the second language has been termed by
scholars as language transfer.

To become proficient in language requires constant exposure to it and continuous

immersion. The long-term involvement in the language leads to the acquisition of language as
a subconscious process. To explain it in more clear and nuanced manner, linguist Stephen
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Krashen put forward the „input hypotheses.‟ Krashen theorizes that comprehensible input
alone is necessary for second language acquisition. He says that acquiring a language and
learning a language are two distinct activities. The former, according to him is a subconscious
process while the latter, a conscious one. Further delineating upon this distinction, he says
that the process of acquisition of second language is similar to that of first language
acquisition. Learning, on the other hand, refers to conscious learning and analysis of the
language being learned. Krashen argues that consciously learned language rules play a
limited role in language use, serving as a monitor that could check second language output
for form assuming the learner has time, sufficient knowledge and inclination (the monitor
hypothesis).

1.2 Position of English Language: A World View

As soon as it arrived in England from northern Europe, in the fifth century, it began to
spread around the British Isles. It entered parts of Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria and Southern
Scotland, traditionally the strongholds of the Celtic languages. After the Norman invasion of
1066, many nobles from England fled north to Scotland, where they were made welcome,
and eventually the language (in a distinctive Scots variety) spread throughout the Scottish
Lowlands. From the twelfth century, Anglo-Norman knights were sent across the Irish Sea,
and Ireland gradually fell under English rule. But, compared with later events, these were
movements on a very local scale – within the British Isles. The first significant step in the
progress of English towards its status as a global language did not take place for another 300
years, towards the end of the s9thteenth century. At that time, the number of mother-tongue
English speakers in the world is thought to have been between 5 and 7 million, almost all of
them living in the British Isles. Between the end of the reign of Elizabeth I (1603) and the
beginning of the reign of Elizabeth II (1952), this figure increased almost fiftyfold, to some
250 million, the vast majority living outside the British Isles. Most of these people were, and
continue to be, Americans, and it is in s9thteenth-century North America that we first find a
fresh dimension being added to the history of the language.

By 1750 A.D., Britain started to gain control upon Indian soil. This had far-reaching
consequences as far as the reach and spread of English language is concerned. By the time
the Britishers left the Indian subcontinent, there were substantial number of people, speaking
as their second language. Interestingly, this number only grew after India‟s independence.
The traditional view was that somewhere between 3 and 5 per cent of the people made
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regular use of English, which would have yielded a total of some 30–50 million around the
year 1999, when the population of India passed a billion. Since then, the estimates have crept
up – nearly 20 per cent, for example, in one encyclopedia summary. But some surveys have
suggested much larger totals, if a flexible notion of fluency is permitted, with one influential
review estimating that perhaps a third of the people of India are now capable of holding a
conversation in English. In real terms these estimates represent a range of 30 million to over
330 million. And we must not forget that there are also considerable numbers of English
speakers elsewhere in the region, which comprises five other countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). Having about twenty percent of the total population of the
world and chiefly being the colony of Britain, the South Asian countries have developed a
distinct character of its own in relation to the English-speaking fraternity in the world.
Although, of recent origin, but due to the vast numbers of people making use of it in daily
basis, the English language has developed several variants or separate languages so to say,
varying from region to region.

Contemporary Scenario: The indicated above, the contemporary niche position that English
as language has gained as a means communication, owes its existence due to two major
factors. First major factor was the colonization by the British in previous centuries leading to
the onset of English-speaking natives of the colony. Second major role-playing factor is the
emergence of United States of America as the dominant global power. The second factor is
the reason behind continuous increasing significance of the English language (much to the
discomfiture of some in Britain who find the loss of historical linguistic pre-eminence
unpalatable). The USA has nearly 70 per cent of all English mother-tongue speakers in the
world (excluding creole varieties). Such dominance, with its political/economic
underpinnings, currently gives America a controlling interest in the way the language is likely
to develop.

The total of 329 million represents a conservative estimate of those who have learned
English as a first language (L1). The total would be increased if we knew the L1 figures for
every country – especially in such areas as West Africa, where it is not known how many use
a variety of English as a first language. Some reference books (such as World Almanac and
Ethnologue) seem to take a more inclusive stance, in this respect, citing as many as 450
million as a grand total at present. The main variable, however, is whether the various
English-derived pidgins and creoles should be included under the L1 heading. If they are, a
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further 80 million must be added to the 329 million total – and it is this total of
(approximately) 400 million which is the most commonly cited L1 total in the early 2000s.

The total of 430 million represents an estimate of those who have learned English as a
second language (L2); but it does not give the whole picture. For many countries, no
estimates are available. And in others (notably India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, Malaysia,
Philippines and Tanzania, which had a combined total of over 1,462 million people in 2002),
even a small percentage increase in the number of speakers thought to have a reasonable
(rather than a fluent) command of English would considerably expand the L2 grand total. It
is, in any case, now well ahead of the L1 total, whether or not pidgins and creoles are
included.

In speculating about the future of English as a world language, several possibilities

can be envisaged. Language is an immensely democratizing institution. To have learned a
language is immediately to have rights in it. You may add to it, modify it, play with it, create
in it, ignore bits of it, as you will. And it is just as likely that the course of the English
language is going to be influenced by those who speak it as a second or foreign language as
by those who speak it as a mother-tongue. Fashions count, in language, as anywhere else.
And fashions are a function of numbers. As we have seen (p. 69), the total number of mother
tongue speakers in the world is steadily falling, as a proportion of world English users. It is
perfectly possible (as the example of rapping suggests) for a linguistic fashion to be started
by a group of second- or foreign-language learners, or by those who speak a creole or pidgin
variety, which then catches on among other speakers. And as numbers grow, and
second/foreign-language speakers gain in national and international prestige, usages which
were previously criticized as „foreign‟ – such as a new concord rule (three person), variations
in countability (furniture, kitchenware) or verb use (he be running) – can become part of the
standard educated speech of a locality, and may eventually appear in writing.

Similar attitudes will be encountered in all parts of the world where English is
developing a strong non-native presence, and at all levels. Teachers of English as a Second or
Foreign Language have to deal with the situation routinely, with students increasingly
arriving in the classroom speaking a dialect which is markedly different from Standard
English. The question of just how much local phonology, grammar, vocabulary and
pragmatics should be allowed in is difficult and contentious. But there seems no doubt that,
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gradually, there is a definite ameliorative trend around the English-speaking world, with
expressions which were once heavily penalized as local and low-class now achieving a
degree of status. How fast this trend develops depends on economic and social factors more
than on anything else. If the people who use m9thed varieties as markers of their identity
become more influential, attitudes will change, and usages will become more acceptable. In
fifty years‟ time, we could find ourselves with an English language which contains within
itself large areas of contact-influenced vocabulary, borrowed from such languages as Malay
or Chinese, being actively used in Singapore, Malaysia and emigrant communities elsewhere.
First-language speakers from those areas would instinctively select this vocabulary as their
first choice in conversation.

Everyone else would recognize their words as legitimate options – passively, at least,
with occasional forays into active use. It is a familiar story, in the history of the English
language, though operating now on a global scale. Indeed, such a scenario would not be so
different from that already found in English. There are over 350 living languages given as
vocabulary sources in the files of the Oxford English dictionary. And, for example, there are
already over 250 words with Malay as part of their etymology in the OED. So, the foundation
is already laid. The contact-language words of the future will of course include more
alternative rather than supplementary expressions – localized words for everyday notions,
such as tables and chairs, rather than for regionally restricted notions, such as fauna and flora
– but the notion of a lexical mosaic as such is not new. It has always been part of the
language.

The global market for digital English language learning products and services reached
$1.31 billion in 2011. The worldwide five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is
14.5 per cent and revenues will reach $2.58 billion by 2016. But high-quality English
teaching – whether face-to-face, „blended‟ or virtual – will still need real teachers, and the
international employment opportunities for talented British graduates remain substantial. It is
also clear that reducing unemployment as a means of securing political stability is an
imperative for many of these countries.

At an individual level, the discernible relationship between English proficiency and

gross national income per capita is a virtuous cycle: „Improving English skills (drive) up
salaries, which in turn give governments and individuals more money to invest in English
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training improved English skills allow individuals to apply for jobs and raise their standards
of living.‟ In India, for example, hourly wages are on average 34 percent higher for men who
speak fluent English and 13 percent higher for men who speak a little English, relative to men
who do not speak English.
Interviews with English language students in s9th cities (Muscat, Cairo, Rome, Madrid,
Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City) reveal the range of ways in which courses impact on
their lives – an impact that goes beyond the obvious linguistic goals of accuracy and fluency.
Studying English, they reported, enabled them to be more competitive in the job market and
to move up the career ladder.

1.3 English as World Language

These are the kinds of statement which seem so obvious that most people would give
them hardly a second thought. Of course, English is a global language, you would hear
people saying every nine times out of ten as David Crystal says, “You hear it on television
spoken by politicians from all over the world. Wherever you travel, you see English signs and
advertisements. Whenever you enter a hotel or restaurant in a foreign city, they will
understand English, and there will be an English menu. Indeed, if there is anything to wonder
about at all, they might add, it is why such headlines should still be newsworthy.” And if
English is not your mother tongue, you may still have m9thed feelings about it. You may be
strongly motivated to learn it, because you know it will put you in touch with more people
than any other language; but at the same time, you know it will take a great deal of effort to
master it, and you may begrudge that effort. Having made progress, you will feel pride in
your achievement, and savour the communicative power you have at your disposal, but may
none the less feel that mother-tongue speakers of English have an unfair advantage over you.
And if you live in a country where the survival of your own language is threatened by the
success of English, you may feel envious, resentful, or angry. You may strongly object to the
naivety of the populist account, with its simplistic and often suggestively triumphalist tone.

English is acknowledged as the language of global communication although there are

a greater number of speakers of Mandarin and Spanish all around the world than the English
language speakers. For one reason, its usage throughout the world is that it is the only
language that is spoken by a wide range of speakers in all the countries. Even Mandarin and
Spanish are spoken by more speakers than English, they are limited to some countries,
whereas English is the language that is spoken all around the world. A language attains its
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rank of globalization in terms of the total number of countries where it is spoken and the total
number of people who speak that language as native speakers and second or foreign language
speakers. Hence a global language like English is of immense use in terms of international
communication. English language enjoys its position as a global language because of the
erstwhile British Empire, the emergence of USA as a global leader in all the fields such as
science and technology, business, commerce and trade, travel, education, entertainment,
information technology, news distribution, software, academics, engineering and technology,
the internet, and so on. It is the language preferred at some important international
organizations such as the United Nations. Moreover, it is the official language of the
European Union and is spoken as a foreign language in 19 of the 25 European Union Member
States even though English is not an official language in these countries.

English as a Lingua Franca: As English is widely spoken around the world, it is referred to
as the “lingua franca” of the modern era. In recent years, English is a “lingua franca” across
the globe. According to some statistics, nearly 89% of people who speak English are non-
native speakers. Crystal (2003) says, “Since roughly only one out of every four users of
English in the world is a native speaker of the language, most English as lingua franca (ELF)
interactions take place among non-native speakers of English.”

English as an International Language: Almost 2 billion people out of the world population
of 7.5 billion speak English. It means nearly 25% of the population on the earth speaks
English. Among them, 400 million people speak English as their first language whereas the
others speak it as a second or foreign language. Referring to English as an international
language, Antimoon (2012) states, that majority of world‟s contests are performed in English
– e.g. The Olympic Games, Miss World competition. Almost all conferences and
international organizations (e.g., the United Nations, the European Free Trade Association,
NATO, etc.) use English as a main language to communicate with other politicians,
diplomats and other state officers (Antimoon, 2012).

The future of English language seems bright as it is increasingly becoming the official
language of not only the academic world but also of trade and commerce. The recent
advancements in the means of transportation and communication have only exacerbated the
process in favour of English. Dieu states that, “Before the Treaty of Versailles (1919), which
ended the First World War between Germany and the Allies, diplomacy was conducted in
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French. However, President Wilson succeeded in having the treaty in English as well. Since
then, English started being used in diplomacy and gradually in economic relations and the
media. During the II World War, America intervened both militarily and economically to
save Europe from chaos. From then onwards, the United States have consolidated their
cultural, economic and technological power: inventions, rock and roll, the first man on the
moon, the revolution of the Internet, the country‟s growing prosperity and commercial
aggressiveness have contributed to the further expansion and importance of English in the
world today.”

Science and Technology: 81% of the scientific research articles are published in English,
whereas, 11% of them are published in French, 4% in Latin and 4% in the other languages.
Berthelot and Russell together conducted a study in 2001 on language of publication in
journals. They found that English was the leading language major journals as well as most
widely used in terms of publishing. They stated that while researches in humanities and social
sciences took place in either native language or the language of the culture being studied, the
case is completely opposite in the natural sciences. Most of the work in natural sciences in
conducted in English. French language stands right below English in terms of use in
academia, followed by German and Japanese.

Testa (2006), Director of Editorial Development at Thomson Scientific states that,

“English has become the standard language in the international research community,
especially in natural sciences. It is for this reason that Thomson Scientific tries to focus on
journals that publish their full text or, at the very least, their bibliographic information in
English.” Comparing SCI (Science Citation Index Expanded) and SSCI (Social Sciences
Citation Index), he stated that currently SCI lists about 6000 journals in more than 150
disciplines of sciences. According to Weil and Weil who conducted another study in 2006,
stated that, “As of January 1991, it contains searchable, full-length, English-language author
abstracts for approximately 70% of the articles in the index. Conversely, the SSCI is a
multidisciplinary index with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the
social sciences. It indexes more than 1,725 journals spanning fifty disciplines, as well as
covering individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world‟s leading
scientific and technical journals. As of January 1992, SSCI contains searchable, full-length,
English-language author abstracts for approximately 60% of the articles in the index.”

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 The trend is increasingly in favor of English as the lingua franca of academic and
scientific community especially after the decades of nineteen eighties and nineties. By the
eighties of the 20th century, about 70 per cent of publications of the French scholars was in
English. It has since then, comprehensively replaced German as the language of the science
related journals. Some of the famous German journals have almost completely switched the
language to English.

Other than the journals, English has gained ascendancy even in the publication of books.
According to Bowker Publishers (North America‟s leading provider of bibliographic
information, the official agency for assigning ISBNs in the United States), “United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand released 375,000 new titles and editions in 2004. Anglo-
American publishers published 80% of all new English-language books in 2004, while the
US alone accounted for 52% of the total. Including imported editions available in multiple
markets, the total number of new English language books available for sale in the English-
speaking world in 2004 was a staggering 450,000.”

Commerce and Trade: Graddol says that, “about 80% people use English while they are in
Europe. Not only in Europe, but also used in global business that has happened under the
control of World Trade Organization.” The success of the tourism management depends on
the ability to interact successfully and productively with the international tourists,
government officials, concerned private managements and suppliers. In a 2012 survey by the
Economist Intelligence Unit, 70 per cent of executives said their workforce will need to
master English to realize corporate expansion plans, and a quarter said more than 50 per cent
of their total workforce would need English ability. According to Vistawide.com (2012),
nowadays, a lot of the companies are willing to expand abroad nowadays, so they need their
employees can speak a foreign language.

An international trade business survey by the British Chambers of Commerce in

2012– to which over 8,000 businesses responded – specified a number of obstacles to export
growth. Over one in five businesses identified a language deficit as one of these; up to 96 per
cent of respondents had no foreign language ability for the markets they served; and the
largest language deficits were for the fastest-developing markets. The consultancy firm Brand
Finance estimates that the full, long-term economic benefit to the UK through the use of

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English, in both international trade with English-speaking countries and in the domestic UK
economy, is £405 billion. The Intellectual Property asset value is £101 billion.

The Language of Hollywood: English, being an international language, is widely used in

movie and television industry. The biggest and most famous world movie, television and
music industries in the world have their base in Hollywood, in the US and they use the
English language as their medium of communication in order to make the message
understood by all the people around the globe.

The Internet: English is the major language in the global internet usage. It means more than
fifty percent (56%) of the language of the internet is English and no other single language is
used not more than 6%. The extraordinary growth and speed of cross-cultural online
communication, combined with the emergence of global English varieties, is creating a new
dialect of English for the web: let us call it English 2.0, the unofficial language of the
internet. Here, the rules of the language are relaxed, grammatical and structural purity have
become far less important than flexibility and openness to change, and new loan words are
put to immediate and global use. Those who use it can be immediately heard, seen, read and
understood by far greater numbers than ever before.

Software programmers develop software programs that form the basis of the Internet.
They make up the majority of professional and related occupations, and account for about 34
percent of the industry as a whole. Computer programmers write, test, and customize the
detailed instructions, called programs or software that computers follow to perform various
functions such as connecting to the Internet or displaying a Web page in English. Language
teaching in general and English language teaching in particular has tremendously changed
over the centuries. Educational technologies, especially computers and computer-related
peripherals, have grown tremendously and have permeated all areas of our lives. It is
incomprehensible that anyone today would argue that banks, hospitals, or any industry apply
technical knowledge. The Internet in particular gradually has become a vital tool in our
information society. We can witness people going for online education, business transactions,
personal correspondence, research and information-gathering.

Media and Press: English, being an international language, is widely used all over the world
in publishing newspapers, magazines, journals, books, and comics and it is the primary
14
language used in the field of press and media. Most of the newspapers and books published
internationally are in English than in any other language. It is a known fact that 70% media
and entertainment channels use English for broadcasting purpose. Electronic media made the
world transform into a global village, it brought the people of whole world very close through
expanding use and this has become possible only through English language.

Education: The learners of their countries are taught or encouraged to learn English as a
foreign language or a second language to promote them for higher studies in the field of
science, engineering and technology, software, medicine, information technology, business,
etc. Moreover, almost all the books related to higher education are available only in English.
A Euromonitor report for the British Council says „Up to 18 million Nigerians are expected
to move to urban areas over 2009–2015. Urban dwellers have far higher levels of exposure to
English, and are also better placed for access to schools than their rural counterparts.‟

The 1994 genocide left Rwanda with a severe skills shortage after many professionals
either fled the country or lost their lives, and English is crucial in Rwanda‟s development and
participation in the global economy. In 2009 the government announced an ambitious plan to
switch the country‟s entire education system to English: a huge undertaking in a country
where more than 95 per cent of schools teach in French to pupils from about the age of nine,
alongside the indigenous

Kinyarwanda. Thousands of teachers are already being taught English as schools

begin a rapid switchover to using the language for tuition in a few core subjects.

As there are some students who cannot afford to study in foreign countries, English is
the right solution for them to continue their courses through online system. Loren Griffith,
Director of the International Strategy team at Oxford University, sums it up in these terms:
„Today most of the world‟s best universities are in English speaking countries, and that is no
coincidence. English has become the lingua franca of academia. Moreover, Curtain (1988)
believes that: “Research has shown that through foreign language study, elementary school
children receive the opportunity to expand their thinking, to acquire global awareness, to
extend their understanding of language as a phenomenon, and to reach an advanced
proficiency level in that foreign language.” David Graddol identifies three main drivers of
this growth: education (increasing demand for English-medium schools, widening access to
15
higher education, incorporation of English training in vocational education); employment
(many jobs in the organized sector now require good English skills); and social mobility
(English is seen as an access route to the middle classes and geographical mobility within
India and beyond). Many of the world‟s top films, books and music are published and
produced in English. Therefore, by learning English you will have access to a great wealth of
entertainment and will be able to have a greater cultural understanding.

It is clear that what we currently think of as the „English-speaking world‟ will eventually lose
effective control of its „own‟ language. „If there is one predictable consequence of a language
becoming a global language,‟ writes the eminent academic David Crystal, „it is that nobody
owns it any more. There is therefore a job to be done. There is a need for high-quality
teaching of English even more than ever, if not to protect the purity or integrity of the
language, then to ensure that the diverse dialects that are being allowed to flourish are clear
about the source code from which they are diverging and share enough common elements to
„interoperate‟ as a global operating system.

Position of English Language in India

The history of the origins of several English variants found South Asian countries
owes to the coming of the British East India company on its shores in the beginning of the
17th century under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth I. The Company established its first
trading station at Surat in 1612, and by the end of the century others were in existence at
Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. During the eighteenth century, it overcame competition from
other European nations, especially France. As the power of the Mughal emperors declined,
the Company‟s influence grew, and in 1765, it took over the revenue management of Bengal.
Following a period of financial indiscipline among Company servants, the 1784 India Act
established a Board of Control responsible to the British Parliament, and in 1858, after the
Indian Mutiny, the Company was abolished and its powers handed over to the Crown.

As has been hinted in the preceding paragraphs, the seeds of English language in a
concrete manner, first planted in the deeper soil with their gaining extensive control in the
subcontinent after the battle of Plassey and Buxar, which made it evident that new power
(Britain) is here to stay for a long time. Earlier, it was the missionary zeal of the Britishers
that paved the way for the proliferation of English language in the Indian soil. Missionaries
like Charles Grant were among the earliest to openly plead for the cause of English language
16
for the upliftment of the native people from drudgery and downtrodden life conditions. Since
then, the case for English language in the subcontinent grew more and more strong. No
sooner than later, even Indian social reformers such Raja Ram Mohan Roy also pleaded for
the cause English language for the native people as way forward to progress.

During the period of British sovereignty (the Raj), from 1765 until independence in
1947, English gradually became the medium of administration and education throughout the
subcontinent. The language question attracted special attention during the early nineteenth
century, when colonial administrators debated the kind of educational policy which should be
introduced. A recognized turning-point was Lord William Bentinck‟s acceptance of a Minute
written by Thomas Macaulay in 1835, which proposed the introduction of an English
educational system in India. When the universities of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were
established in 1857, English became the primary medium of instruction, thereby guaranteeing
its status and steady growth during the next century.

In India, English was first used as a tool of power to cultivate a group of people who
identified with the cultural and other norms of the political elite. It provided a medium for
understanding technology and scientific development, and by the 1920s had become the
language of political discourse, intra-national administration, and law. Focusing on its
cultural importance once Gandhi said, “English is a language of international commerce; it is
the language of diplomacy and it contains many a rich treasure; it gives us an introduction to
western thoughts and culture.” If you can‟t speak it then you are nothing and you feel
humiliated if you can‟t speak English. People think you are dumb. Seeing its importance C.
Rajagopalachari once said, “English language is the gift of Saraswati.”

English has been introduced in syllabi right from the early stage. More and more
institutions have been opened in for English teaching and learning. Right after the
independence, Indian government appointed a commission called „University Education
Commission‟ for the future course of education I India and thereby also for the fate English
language. The commission was headed by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. The commission mandated
in favour of continuing English as the for study. It quoted that, “English, however, must be
continued to be studied. It is a language which is rich in literature - humanistic and technical.
If under sentimental urges, we should give up English, we would cut ourselves off from the
living stream of ever-growing knowledge.”
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 In 1952, the Government of India appointed another commission known secondary
Education commission for re-organizing the structure of secondary Education, it supported
the study of English and expressed that, the study of English should be given due position in
secondary schools and facilities should be made available at the middle school stage for its
study on optional basis. In this formula, the place of English comes after the mother or the
regional language.

Keeping in mind the larger interests of the country, the Central Advisory Board of
Education re-evaluated the issue of the teaching of languages in the year 1956. The remarks
of the official language commission (1956) in this regard worth quoting, “since we need
knowledge of English for different purposes, the content and character of that knowledge as
well as imparting the method it has to undergo a change. English has to be taught hereafter,
principally as a language of comprehension rather than as literary language.” In this, English
was given a second or third place; and it was to be studied as a second language. In order to
maintain uniformity of standards in both Hindi and Non-Hindi areas, English was mandated
to be studied as the second language. After independence, Indian parliament passed a bill in
1963 that gave a major spurt and sealed the future of English language in India by declaring
that English will serve as the associate official language of India in the near future. This is the
position till today. English plays an important role in India today. Judging from certain trends
it appears that the influence of English is on the increase rather than on the decrease in India.

Another commission was set in motion in 1964 called the Kothari Commission titled
on the name of the chairperson of the commission Dr. D.S. Kothari. Similar to the previous
commissions, Kothari also advocated for the continuation of English as the library language
for not only higher education but for the school level as well. As the Library Language, The
Kothari Commission is of view that English plays a vital role in Higher education and is a
library language. The commission maintained that in higher studies, teachers must maintain
that requisite level of fluency in English should be present in a student passing through
master degree programs. According to the Commission, “The implications of this (English as
a library language) are twofold: all teachers in higher education should be essentially
bilingual in the sense that they should be able to teach in the regional Language and in
English and all students (Particularly post graduates) should be able to follow lectures and
use study materials in the regional language as well as in English.”

18
 He opines that second language acquisition (SLA) can only be effective once the
voluntary reading habit is developed within the students. He maintains that before enrolling
into higher education, the cultivation of the habit of reading for fun, joy and to extract
necessary information out of the books, should be an integral part of the students. Further, he
says that this aspect of education should be a necessary component during the school
education as only than its effectiveness can be promised for higher positive outcomes.
Since, in India, several languages are spoken and also one set of people are reluctant
to learn one common Indian language, we have to borrow a new non-Indian language.
Considering the above facts, learning English, the universal language, as a Second Language,
becomes inseparable branch as also unavoidable in Indian education system. In India, the
bitter conflict between the supporters of English, Hindi, and regional languages led in the
1960s to a „three language formula‟, in which English was introduced as the chief alternative
to the local state language (typically Hindi in the north and a regional language in the south).
It now has the status of an „associate‟ official language, with Hindi the official language. It is
also recognized as the official language of four states (Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland,
Tripura) and eight Union territories.
In a period of globalization and modernization English language learning enables in
transferring the individuality of a child into a personality. During 1980s private sector was
encouraged in educational sector and the most of these institutions adopted English as the
medium of instruction. Vast majority of the population are inclined to send their children in
English medium schools. It is due to the fact that English is an official as well as international
language. Some parents were interviewed and they pointed out that their children feel
uncomfortable in understanding the subject matter, which is not in their own language. But
no one can deny the importance of English as medium of instruction plays the key role in
achievement level of students.
Ramamurthi committee (1990) observed that “the standard of English teaching has
been going down”. As it is taught a second language in most of the schools, it does not
receive the proper attention the failure in English has an impact on the overall results. In
many good schools a large majority of students fail in schools.
Harasawa once argued that one of the reasons why Japan is able to compete shoulder
to shoulder with Western European nations is because of the fact that English became a
language of instruction and use in country long ago in the year 1868. This equipped the
Japanese people with up-to-date information and new research and advancements in several
fields research thereby enabling them to better cope with the ensuing problems and issues at
19
hand as well as spearhead innovation in new fields to steer the way for the future. Similar has
been the case with China and in recent times, it has gained an even greater push, considering
increasing value of English language in all walks of life in the contemporary world order.
And it was this potentiality of English to dictate the future course of action in the world arena
that Jawaharlal Nehru had sensed and was wholeheartedly in support of its proliferation and
for having an optimistic outlook towards which can well be estimated by his remarks saying,
“English is our major window on the modern world.”
For a variety of reasons, India has nevertheless chosen to adopt and maintain English
as the secondary official language of the country, after standard Hindi. Successive
governments have seen the advantages of this position, at the individual, community and
international level and English is now spoken by approximately 100 million Indians.
(According to the 2001 census, 258 million speak Hindi and a further 30 indigenous
languages are spoken by more than a million native speakers).
English has, as a consequence, retained its standing within Indian society, continuing
to be used within the legal system, government administration, secondary and higher
education, the armed forces, the media, business, and tourism. It is a strong unifying force. In
the Dravidian-speaking areas of the south, it is widely preferred to Hindi as a lingua franca.
In the north, its fortunes vary from state to state, in relation to Hindi, depending on the
policies of those in power. Pakistan has also provided English as the status of associate
language of the official works. Though only India and Pakistan has honored English with the
status of associate official language, it has gained a currency as a language for international
communication in the region of South Asia. And more importantly, its adoption is
increasingly being seen as a status symbol and a means to projecting oneself modern.
Generally, English is used in official communication in the country. It is the language of
research and advancement. It is the language of computer and Internet. It is therefore, that
English has been retained as Associate National Language.
Prakash (2008) has rightly observed that “It was in the English class-room that the
Indian literary renaissance was born.” It is, henceforth desirable for our people to have
sufficient command over English. It has also been observed that so long as it is necessary not
only to understand and speak, but also to read and write correct English to get a job, nothing
can be done in schools and colleges. English will remain supreme. And the pity of it is that
the job is just selling postage stamps or drafting an ordinary letter, which can be better done
in our own language.

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1.4 Reading as a process

Reading is a critical method for people to learn and execute their jobs. It is a source of
fun and an important way to interact with family, friends, and the world around us. In the
contemporary "information era," the ability to read critically and analytically is essential for
every for meaningful participation in any democratic system. It is pertinent to have the ability
to read and comprehend information to be successful in life. Reading provides youngsters a
lot of joy from the beginning of their schooling phase. It is a necessary skill for them to carry
out their studies. If a child's reading skills is inadequate, it will show up in his/her academic
achievement. The ability to read properly is the cornerstone of a child's education in today's
world. Literacy is a need for a successful existence in today's market. NAEP (2010) reported
that reading is an active and complex process that involves:
• Understanding written text.
• Developing and interpreting meaning.
• Using meaning as appropriate to type of text, purpose, and situation.

Improving reading comprehension has always been a concern for language

teachers, parents and hence for researchers as well. The internal and external factors
influence reading, resulting into both slow and dramatic changes in the domain of
reading. The behavioural, cognitive and constructivist scientists have presented
different perspectives of reading comprehension.

The behaviourist perspective perceived learning as „habit formation formed by

the repeated association of a stimulus with a response‟. It characterized language
learning as a “response system that one acquires through automatic conditioning
process” where “some patterns of language are reinforced whereas others are not” and
“only those patterns reinforced by the community of language users will persist”
(Omaggion, 1993). It is based on the bottom-up approach to reading, which considers
reading as a linear process by which reader translate text word by word, subsequently
connects the words into phrases and then into sentences. Thus, behaviorism considered
reading as an overt approach of responding to printed words as external stimuli without
undergoing the process of understanding what is going on in the mind of the person
while he/she tries to understand the printed words. Here learner is considered as a
passive decoder putting little consideration to prior knowledge of learner.

However, this perspective had took the back seat with the advent of the

21
cognitive perspective which focused on the interactive and constructive nature of
reading comprehension based on the previous knowledge of the learner and the
strategies used to attain and sustain understanding.

The cognitive approach is a top-down processing approach which perceived

reading, not merely extracting meaning from the text rather a process of connecting
information in the text with the previous knowledge of the reader as Tierney & Pearson
(1994) opined that the reader‟s background knowledge plays a key role in the creation
of meaning which makes reading as a purposeful and rational process which in turn
depends on the prior knowledge and expectations of the learner. Hence the cognitive
view of comprehension attributes more credibility to reading strategies than to skills
and assumes the learner as an active reader who constructs meaning of read passage
through the assimilation of previous and new knowledge and employs varied strategies
to promote, monitor, control and maintain comprehension.

The cognitive perspective gave path to more recent perspective i.e. constructivist
perspective where readers are builder of meaning where all readers, at every stage of
the reading process, create the most lucid meaning of the text they are reading.
The constructive orientation has been further extended to the social perspective
making it as social constructive perspective also named as socio-cultural, social-
historical, and even socio-psycholinguistics. It includes social, cultural, and even political
contexts in which teaching, learning, and comprehension take place to give meaning to the
reading texts. The emphasized the social nature of learning and the role played by
teachers and peers in facilitation of individual learning. The Vygotsky‟s concepts of
MKOs, zone of proximal development, scaffolding, mediated learning etc. got its place
in reading comprehension.

1.5 Writing as a process

Only reading is not enough. The ability to write well is imperative for the
success of an individual especially with the advent of information and communication
technology. Writing has become an essential human activity after speaking and reading
to the extent that it starts controlling our lives as Bazerman (2008) observed that the
economy, law, government, bureaucracy, knowledge, journalism, literature, and all

22
prime professions are structured around the reading and writing of texts. Today
teachers and students interact extensively through writing on social network pages,
emails and instant messages. The success of every academic, non-academic and
entertaining idea counts largely on effective writing. Democratization of education
especially higher education has made writing skill more pertinent for success at
educational, professional, organizational and social fronts. The inability to write
correctly and effectively adversely affects the academic performance and success.
However, writing is something which is not given due place of importance in our
school education and the time devoted to writing is quite less than is required. Most of
the time, it is assumed that if one can speak and read correctly, he/she can write as well.
Our teachers are not equipped with the essential skills to teach students in effective
writing.
Writing is much more than mastering of grammar and punctuation. The ability
of writing sentences does not make one a good writer. Those who are well versed with
parts of speech but can‟t produce a good piece of prose.
Expressive writing is the ability to express one‟s thoughts, ideas and feelings,
effectively and meaningfully in a systematic and organized manner into words. It is a
complex, multifaceted and purposeful act of communication. Three prime
communicative purposes are involved in expressive writing i.e., ability to persuade, to
explain and to deliver experience. Putting thoughts and feelings into words helps relieve
stress and anxiety. The studies have shown expressive writing can help in improving mental
and physical health. It helps in better understanding of one‟s life.

1.6 Difficulties in reading comprehension and expressive writing in relation to their

attitude towards English
From earlier days it is assumed that reading and writing is a skill and means of self-
expression. The complex processes of reading and writing integrates visual, motor and
cognitive activities related to writing. It is a major means through which students demonstrate
academic study. Legible writing, spellings, content of the writing, comprehension,
punctuations, and grammar are effective tools for learning. It has been found that regardless
of the content, teachers assign higher grades to papers with clear handwriting. For students,
reading comprehension and writing task represents the usual medium by which they convey
to their teachers the progress they have made in learning what is taught. Incomplete notes
leave gaps in understanding the content areas (Lovitt et al., 1986).
23
 The ability to read and write at an age-appropriate level is required for all academic
purposes. For some children, the acquisition of written expression skills is a difficult and
enduring problem. Children having markedly different reading and writing performance than
their no disabled peers affect their academic achievement. The major areas of reading
comprehension and writing expression are handwriting, spelling and written expression. The
three areas have been recognized as areas of potential ability. Nearly all the learning
difficulties authorities recognize the potential difficulties in reading, handwriting, spelling
and written expression.
The major criteria to decide the quality of handwriting are legibility, speed, and
accuracy. Disorders in revisualization (spelling disorders), occur in such students who can
speak, read, and copy with a fair degree of competence, but have visual memory problems. A
correct spelling is required for easy reading and writing. Wrong spelling often leads to
confusion and misunderstanding. A person‟s entire education is judged by his ability to spell
correctly. Disorders or deficiencies in formulation and syntax (written expression) can be
seen only after the students have developed some elementary level of reading and spelling
skills. It is the ability to express thoughts, ideas and feelings through writing. It is quite
possible to find students who can both read and copy the printed word effectively but have
serious difficulties in written formulation. Written language is far more complex than oral
language (Fox & Suhor, 1986).
In any classroom one can find children with special abilities and disabilities. The able
children are generally viewed as talented or gifted or children with specific abilities. On the
other hand, there are children with physical disabilities such as visual impairment, hearing
impairment and orthopedically handicapped and children with mental deficiencies or
retardation. Apart from the above, there are substantial numbers of students with problems in
learning specific aspects like reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic. Such children are
normally called ‘children with learning difficulties’, and these children constitute a sizable
percentage of student population at our school level. Recent researches at national, regional,
state and local levels reveal that about 15% to 20% of our student population experiences
these specific learning difficulties (Reddy, Ramar & Kusuma, 2004).
The Federal Register (1977) definition of Learning Difficulty adopted in India is
“Specific Learning Disability” means a disorder in one or more basic psychological processes
involved in understanding or in using language-spoken or written–which may manifest itself
in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, and spell or to do mathematical
calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual handicaps, brain injury,
24
minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include
children who have learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor
handicaps, of mental retardation or emotional disturbance or of environmental, cultural, or
economic disadvantage” (Federal Register, 1977).
Children with specific learning difficulties are those who in the absence of sensory
defect or overt organic damage have an intractable learning problem in one or more of
reading, writing, speaking, and mathematics and who do not respond to normal teaching
(Tansley & Panckhurst, 1981).
The term LD emerged from a need to identify and serve a group of children who were
failing in school, but did not fit in the existing categories of exceptional children. This group
of children, however, exhibits a wide variety of problem behaviour and requires the services
of professionals from a number of disciplines (Reid, 1981).
It is a disorder that inhibits or interferes with the skills of learning. A child is
considered having learning difficulty, if his or her level of academic achievement is two or
more years below the standard for his or her age (DSM IV –TR 2000).
The three types are as follows:
 Reading disorder(dyslexia)
 Written expression (dysgraphia)
 Mathematics (dyscalculia)

1.7 Identification of Individuals with Difficulties in English

Certain characteristics are exhibited in one form or multitude of a number of forms by an
individual such as:
 Reading and spelling problems
 Weak oral Language including
 Inability to understand cause and effect
 Unable to respond to explanations given in language i.e, they learn better when shown.
 Weak reading comprehension-inability to understand what they have read.
 Weak expressive language including: inability to express themselves; lack the ability to
gesture; may be verbal but their verbalizations are scattered and difficult to follow
(ramble on without getting to the point)
 Weak writing skills- poor organization, unfocused, sees only parts and not the whole.
 Messy handwriting/ avoidance of written tasks

25
 Slow in processing information-slow reaction time, reading writing, talking, thinking
 Difficulty in making decisions

1.8 Reading Comprehension in English

Reading comprehension is a symbolic behaviour wherein the visual symbol is employed
to represent the authority symbol leading to higher order mental activity. In other words, it is
essentially decoding of written symbols on a page and attaching meanings to them. Some
consider it to be creative closely allied to thinking. While others considered it as a tool for
learning all the subject matter. Reading is not a general ability, but it is a complex activity
with many specific abilities, and many factors have been listed to be conducive to the growth
of reading ability. Factors such as physical and mental health, sight, hearing, intelligence,
home and background experiences, desire to read, interest in reading, purpose of reading,
reading skills, etc., contribute to the development of reading ability.
Reading is essentially recognizing, understanding or getting an impression of some
written material. A passage can be properly read with varying degrees of understanding. The
scale of comprehension ranges from no understanding of meaning to complete understanding.
There are various skills that make up ability to comprehend the material that is being read. As
Thompson and Wyatt say, “The power of expression in a language is a matter of skill rather
than of knowledge. It is a power that grows by exercise, not by knowing merely meanings or
rule.”
Gibson and Levin (1965) have given definition by breaking into bullet points to pin-point the
crux of the matter. They state that comprehension is all about making sense of the written
text in its totality by asking questions such as:
 Comprehending the written material to get what the main idea is?
 What ae the important information the text is talking about?
 How to seek answers for particular questions being asked?
 How does the text fit together to create a coherent narrative that follows orderly
arrangement of sentences?
Sanford, on other hand suggests that comprehension simply means capturing the
meaning that the writer of the text intended. To delineate further, what he meant by capturing
the meaning is to grab the essential gist of the text which the intended to pen down in the first
place. Jolly and Hafner propounded that comprehension is to use one‟s intellect to decode the
meaning of the text in its broader sense. Further delineating upon that, they state that broadly

26
the literature divides comprehension into certain classes namely literal, critical and
interpretative. All of these classes treat text in a different way from understanding the literal
denotative meaning of the text to understanding what is meant by the text and then reach to a
judgement utility or vitality of the text depending upon the contents of the text.
With the adding on of the method of factor analysis in the arsenal of the research scholars and
scientists in the nineteen thirties, breaking comprehension into several small sections so as to
make a focused study of every single factor on its own right, helped to considerable length
our understanding of it. Davis was one such schola, working in the early nineteen forties, who
extensively made use of the factor analysis for reading comprehension. He proposed a nine-
point formula for its study. The points are:
 Testing the vocabulary
 Context specific meaning of the particular word within the text
 Understanding the composition of the text and the available references.
 Understanding main idea of the text or the given passage
 Understanding the questions being asked and to know their answers.
 Comprehending the answers asked from the passage but with the use of different
vocabulary in the questions.
 Understanding the implicit meanings from the passage so as to properly understand its
gist.
 The skill of identifying the literary devices or figures of speech being used in the passage.
 To understand the mind of the writer by understanding the contents of the passage by
analyzing his point of vis-à-vis passage and inspiration behind it.
To further expand upon the issues discussed in the above passages, one ought to
understand that the comprehension of a passage involves a set of necessary attributes so as to
fully understand the width and depth of the given passage. One way to explain it is to
understand the relationship between the cluster of words and the particular words, knowing
the phrases, the punctuation marks and literary devices used in it. In the words of Tinker and
McCullough, “The comprehension of a paragraph requires comprehension of its sentences as
well as an understanding of the relationships between the sentences which are essential for
grasping the larger meaning of the paragraph.”

1.9 Expressive writing in English

27
 Expressive writing is a necessity in everyday life. It is a lifelong requirement. In
today‟s world, students write a lot through social network pages, emails and instant messages.
There is not one movie, magazine, article, advertising jingle, or hit song that did not begin
with and rely heavily upon effective writing. Now-a-days, the access to higher education has
expanded never before and expressive writing has been viewed as a necessary skill for
participation and success in higher education and to have access to the powerful social,
professional and organizational roles in later years of one‟s life. If a child is poor in his/her
ability to write, it badly gets reflected in his/her academic performance. But expressive
writing is one of the neglected areas in our school education and the time spends on writing
activities are very less. Most of the time, we take writing for granted. Our teachers are ill
prepared to teach expressive writing.

Aspects of expressive writing:

 Syntax (sentence structure and choices, etc.)
 Content (Relevance, clarity, originality, logic, etc.)
 Grammar (Rules for verbs, agreement, articles, adjectives etc.)
 The writing process (Getting ideas, getting started, writing drafts, revising)
 Mechanics (Handwriting, spellings, punctuation, etc.)
 Audience (The readers)
 Organization
 Word choice (vocabulary, idioms, tone)
 Purpose (The reason for writing) (Graham & Perin, 2007).
According to Hammill and Larsen (1996) Expressive writing is a tool which is used to
enable us to express what is in our mind and for some people is almost as important as
speech. Gersten and Baker (2001) defined expressive writing as an instrument for preserving
the knowledge which the pupil has gained or the judgment he has formed. It serves as a check
on his forgetting useful items of knowledge and ideas. The habit of making notes of what is
read and of summarizing helps the recollection of what has been studied. Expressive writing
is the physical expression of what you think. The close relationship between writing and
thinking makes writing valuable. Thus, writing is closely related to the inner processes within
a child‟s mind, i.e., the internal manipulation of external experiences. In addition to this,
writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that we have been

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teaching our children, writing skill makes the language items learnt firmly f9thed in the
minds of the learners (Graham & Harris, 2009).
Expressive writing is the cornerstone of wellness and writing connections. Expressive
writing literally comes from our core. It is personal and emotional writing without regard to
form or other writing conventions, like spelling, punctuation, and verb agreement. Expressive
writing pays more attention to feelings than the events, objects, or people in the contents of a
narrative. Like narrative writing, expressive writing may have the arc of a story: beginning,
middle, and end. Sometimes expressive writing behaves like a story that swells to crest and
resolves itself on firm ground. But often, expressive writing is turbulent and unpredictable.
Expressive writing is not so much what happened as it is how you feel about what happened
or is happening (Pennebaker, 2004).
Improving writing ability of the students is always been an area of concern for the
majority of language teachers and researchers. Writing is more than mastering of grammar
and punctuation. The ability to diagram a few sentences does not make a good writer. There
are students who are even capable of identifying every part of speech, who are barely able to
produce a piece of prose (The National Commission on Writing, 2003).

Communicative Purposes of Expressive Writing: Written expression is viewed as the ability

to express one‟s thoughts, ideas and feelings, correctly and meaningfully in a systematically
organized manner through writing. It is a complex, multifaceted and purposeful act of
communication. Every time, one writes, he/ she will have a clear purpose or goal in mind
which he/she tries to attain through the writing process. It is the communicative purpose. A
special emphasis was given to the communicative purpose of writing in this study. There are
three communicative purposes identified. They are ability to persuade, to explain and to
convey experience.

To persuade: In persuasive writing, the writer makes use of varieties of approaches to

thinking and writing. Here, one has to consider one‟s own views and the views of others to
persuade effectively. It demands sharp thinking and effective use of language.

To explain: It is one of the most commonly used tasks while writing. Here the writer presents
the topic or views in an explicit manner so that the reader will understand. The writer
presents ideas clearly, logically and effectively so as to communicate. It demands various
approaches to thinking and writing
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To convey experience: In this form of writing, the writer brings real or imagined experience
to the readers. Writer connects to the audience through various descriptive details, voice, and
style and by evocation of emotional response (NCW, 2003).

Expressive Writing as a Cognitive Process: In a cognitive process model, the major focus of
analysis is mental process, such as the process of generating ideas. These processes have a
hierarchical structure such that generation of ideas is a sub process of planning. The
processes are not organized in a linear manner as these mental acts may occur at any time in
the composing process (Flower, 1985). The model developed by Harris and Graham (2003) is
a typical example of integration of different theoretical perspectives, wherein the initial
previous knowledge activation by the students reflects the cognitive approach, emphasis on
modeling by the teacher, scaffolding, and peer collaboration are the contribution of socio-
cognitive perspective. The semantic mapping strategy designed for this study can be used at
all phases of writing, prewriting, while writing and revision. It also makes use of individual
construction of ideas and collaboration among peers at various stages of writing.

1.10 Factors Influencing Reading Comprehension and expressive writing in English

There are a number of factors that play a crucial role in one‟s ability of
comprehending the given passage at hand. Scholars have suggested several such factors
namely, the interests of the students, his attitude towards the language in which the passage is
given, his overall attitude, his motives behind attempting comprehension of a given text,
curiosity, anxiety, the atmosphere of the classroom, the socio-cultural and economic
background of the child, the attitude of the teacher or level of sensitivity or emotional issues
not conducive for the purpose of comprehension of the passage. The issue of attitude has
been dealt separately in the subsequent paragraphs.

Attitudes: The word attitude refers to a bundle of psychological traits that varies from
individual to individual based several factors such as upbringing, heredity or the company in
which the person or student is involved. These psychological traits have been stated such as
individual bias, preconceived notions, particular feelings, the given emotion, the hopes and
fears etc. They act as filters for the student‟s ability to make use or hamper the growth of
reading comprehension of the given material. It is a lens that a child develops in growing
stages of his life that works as filters while comprehending the world at large and its given
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contents in particular. And it goes without saying the cliché that this is the reason why every
individual is unique and different from one another. The given mindset of the student directly
corresponds to his ability to understand reading comprehension. The cultural context
therefore also plays an extremely important part as it includes not only student‟s teachers but
parents, relatives, friends and the community in which he lives. The student‟s perception
would determine to large extent, his ability figure out the meaning from the given passage
and his ability to retain its contents or forgetting it. Simultaneous to it are the problems of
distortion of the text due to given particular attitude of the student that twists its meaning
based on individual‟s unique characteristics.

Interests: The inculcation of interest in reading comprehension is of vital significance, if not

provided would seriously hamper the student‟s ability to make proper use of his potentialities.
Students with learning difficulties must overcome a variety of challenges not faced by their
peers without learning difficulties in order to gain entry to and succeed in post-secondary
education. It is obvious that learning difficulties require early identification and early
intervention which is possible only when there is early identification. The identification of
learning disabilities should start in the classrooms by the teachers. Also, individuals face their
own problems in very different ways. In every class, there are a group of students, who do not
fit to the normal teaching. They have differences in prior learning which create the most
serious problems in instruction.
Smith (1966) expounds that some children may have significant difficulties in reading,
writing, spelling or manipulating number, which are not typical of their general level of
performance. They may gain some skills in some subjects quickly and demonstrate a high
level of ability orally, yet, may encounter sustained difficulty in gaining literacy or numeracy
skills. Such students with learning difficulties often feel like failures leading to low self-
esteem. They often feel frustrated and the frustration can turn into anger. They also are prone
to depression. Such emotional or psychological issues are more important than learning.
Peers may ridicule such students with learning difficulty.

Attitude towards English: Attitude is an organized predisposition to think, feel, perceive and
behave towards a cognitive object. Attitude is the degree of positive or negative effect
associated with some psychological object. These psychological objects mean any symbol,
phrase, slogan, idea, person and institution towards which people can differ with respect to
positive or negative effect. An attitude can be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of
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people, objects, event, activities, ideas, or just about anything in your environment. Attitude
is a readiness to respond in such a way that behaviour is given a certain direction (Travers,
1973).
Young (1951) has defined as a learned and more or less generalized and effective tendency or
predisposition to respond in a rather persistent and characteristic manner, usually positive or
negatively (for or against) in reference to some situation, idea, value, material, object or class
of such objects or person or group of persons. It introduces the following two elements:
 Attitude is generally positive or negative.
 Attitude is a learned or acquired affective tendency.
Attitude of students towards English can be measured by using five-point Likert scale to
classify students into favourable and unfavourable attitude group. Attitude toward English
and learning in general are areas of interest to educators past and current. The term attitude
(toward English) should be used to refer to general and enduring positive or negative feeling
about learning of English.

1.11Rationale of the study

There is hardly any scope to doubt the fact that English as library language will
expand more and will be the language of exchange media not only in schools but also in
higher education as far as the case of India is concerned. Hence it is pertinent to plead a
strong case for it. In order to prepare students for the new changing world, there is an ever-
increasing need for the development of English language learning among the students from
the earlier stages of schooling so that by the time they come out of schools, they should
already be possessing a workable ability in handling given matters in English language.
Therefore, the study is conducted to find out the impediments, if any, that a student
encounters while learning English language.
English has got much significance in the present-day context as never before. It is a
window to the world and it opened up the vistas of opportunities. It is the language of science
and technology, and it is the language of trade and commerce. In a multilingual country like
India, with a rich array of diversities, English act as a unifying language. India is unique not
only with the number and variety of languages, but also in terms of the number and variety of
language families that are represented in those languages. In today‟s world multilingualism is
a norm rather than exception.
In India, the number of children with learning difficulties in schools is significantly

32
high but very few children are identified. As the difficulty is not conspicuous and some
characteristics overlap with other conditions such as borderline intelligence, many a time, the
educators and administrators are in a f9th to decide whom to include? Though the most
popularly used definition gives a comprehensive description of inclusion and exclusion, there
is no single test that can clearly differentiate learning difficulty from other conditions. The
children in our school, even today, struggle to attain mastery over English language. It gets
reflected in their mastery of other subjects too, since the language is the basis for learning
other subject areas and in Indian context, English is one of the languages of higher education
in India. So, it makes the situation even worse for the children.
The National Curriculum Framework‟s (NCF-2005) stated goals for a second
language curriculum are twofold: attainment of a basic proficiency and the development of
language into an instrument for abstract thought and knowledge acquisition through literacy.
The NCF (2005) further highlights the need to put special attention on reading and writing in
English, particularly in home language. Reading and writing are the two areas where the
children have a lot of difficulties. These are two vital skills that child should master, along
with the other skills to creatively participate in this literal world. They make use of reading
and writing widely in and out of schools. Apart from that reading gives a lot of pleasure and
it gives access to the world of knowledge. Writing is also equally important. Writing has been
viewed as a necessary skill for participation and success from primary level to higher
education and it provides access to the powerful social, professional, and organizational roles.
Writing is actually thought in the paper. But it is one of the highly neglected areas in school
education. So, there is still a lot to do in our school education to foster the reading
comprehension and written expression of the children.
Reading comprehension and expressive writing in English is a complex domain to
learn and teach because it requires bringing together many skills. It can also be applied in
many different ways. Oral communication can rely on immediate verbal and nonverbal
feedback While, reading and written language is highly de-contextualized. Writing and
reading has been thought of as falling at the top of the English language hierarchy. In fact,
most children struggle to acquire writing skills.
The present study is an attempt to study the learning difficulties among grade
secondary school students, in lieu of the trends observed in research, in English language
reading and writing in relation to their attitude towards English. Research being sparse in
both western and Indian settings this study would add to understanding of the child‟s
difficulties in achieving academic success. There has been a standing need to the present
33
situation that learning difficulties related to English language reading and writing be
investigated and suitable materials be prepared to meet their particular needs in Indian
context. Thus, current study therefore is an attempt to study assessment of difficulties in
English reading comprehension and expressive writing among secondary school students in
relation to their attitude towards English.

1.12 Statement of the Problem

ASSESSMENT OF DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION
AND EXPRESSIVE WRITING AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN
RELATION TO THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARDS ENGLISH

1.13 Operational Definition

Hereby the workable definition of concepts used in the thesis is provided

Difficulties in English Reading Comprehension: Difficulties faced by an individual in

reading the text or the passage. The comprehension of the passage would involve its language
to be at par with the student of a particular class in which he is studying and not to provide
them with readings or passages beyond their coverage or context. The definition would also
encompass the environment in which the study is conducted, particularly keeping in mind the
fact that some students are more conducive when in silence or without speaking out aloud.
Also, the factor of accessing the text passage by choice of the student could be handy in order
to get better response from the students. It is an active and complex process that involves:
 Understanding written text
 Developing and interpreting meaning
Understanding written text: Readers attend to ideas and contents in a text by locating and
recalling information and by making inferences needed for literal comprehension of the text.
While doing so, readers draw on their fundamental skills for decoding printed words and
assessing their vocabulary knowledge.
Developing and interpreting meaning: Readers integrate the sense they have made of the text
with their knowledge of other texts and with their outside experience. They use increasingly
more complex inference skills to comprehend information implied by the text. English
reading comprehension will be assessed by a tool developed by the investigator.

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Learning Difficulties in Expressive Writing in English: Difficulties faced by an individual
in expression of his/her thoughts, ideas and feelings, correctly and meaningfully in a
systematically organized manner through writing. It is a complex, multifaceted and
purposeful act of communication applicable to those children who have significantly greater
difficulty in English writing and commit errors of punctuations, spelling, reversals, additions,
omissions, substitutions, wrong capitals, etc., assessed through a writing test to be developed
by the investigator.

Attitude towards English: Attitude towards English refers to the tendency to react
favourably and unfavourably towards English. Students will be classified into (favourable &
unfavourable) attitude groups on the basis of the scores obtained on attitude scale.

1.14 Objectives
1. To study the difficulties faced by secondary school students in English reading
comprehension.
2. To study the difficulties faced by secondary school students in expressive writing in
English
3. To study the difficulties faced by secondary school students in English reading
comprehension in relation to their attitude towards English.
4. To study the difficulties faced by secondary school students in expressive writing in
English in relation to their attitude towards English.
5. To study the difficulties faced by Secondary School students in English reading
comprehension and expressive writing in English in relation to their attitude towards
English.

1.15 Hypothesis
1. There exists no significant relationship between difficulties faced by secondary school
students in English reading comprehension and attitude towards English.
2. There exists no significant relationship between difficulties faced by secondary school
students in expressive writing in English and attitude towards English.
3. There exists no significant relationship between difficulties faced by secondary school
students in English reading comprehension and expressive writing in English and
attitude towards English.
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1.16 Research Questions
1. What is the nature and prevalence of difficulties faced by secondary school students
in English reading comprehension?
2. What is the nature and prevalence of difficulties faced by secondary school students
in expressive writing in English?
3. How does attitude affect reading comprehension in English?
4. How does attitude affect expressive writing in English?

1.17 Delimitations of the Study

1. The study was restricted to Government secondary schools affiliated to Haryana
School Education Board.
2. Learning difficulties were measured through written and oral mode.
3. School factors were not taken into consideration.

1.18 Sample of the Study

The population of the study was students of 9th class studying in Government secondary
schools of Haryana. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select the sample of
200 students studying in the Government secondary schools of Kaithal District of Haryana.
The sample was selected from 6 different schools.

1.19 Design of the Study

A descriptive survey method was adopted to study the assessment of difficulties in
English reading comprehension and expressive writing among secondary school students in
relation to their attitude towards English. Factorial design of 2×2 analyses of variance was
employed in the present investigation. The study covered two types of variables:
Independent variable: Attitude towards English
Dependent variable: Difficulties in English reading comprehension and expressive writing
in English.
English Reading Comprehension
 Oral Mode
 Language comprehension (verbally read by the teacher)
 Oral narration of story by student based on situation given

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  Story reading and answering questions based on the story.
 One word substitution.
 Linguistic knowledge (Phonology, Morphology and Intonation)
 Idioms
 Written mode
 Answering questions based on the passage given.
 Sentence writing
 Precis writing
 Answering the multiple-choice questions based on passage.
Expressive writing in English
 PPDT (Picture Perception Description Test)
 Essay writing
 Letter writing
 Letter word alignment
 Sentence rewriting
 Word space between sentences
 Comparative and superlative degree
 Fill in the blanks by using correct forms of verbs
 Mechanics (Handwriting, Spelling, Punctuation)
Attitude towards English
Students were classified into two groups (favourable and unfavourable group) on the basis of
attitude scale administered to them and subsequently the test in English reading
comprehension and expressive writing in English was administered to them. Both of the
groups were compared to know that which group possessed better English reading
comprehension and expressive writing in English.

1.20 Procedure of Data Collection

A descriptive survey approach was followed to conduct the present study. The
accessible population of the study consisted of Government School students studying in all
the secondary schools Haryana.
Data was collected in four steps as follows:
Step I: Selection of the Government Schools from the randomly selected one district of
Haryana.

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Step II: Administration of the following self-responding tools:
 Reading comprehension test in English
 Expressive writing test in English
 Attitude scale in English
Step III: Collection of the tools
Step IV: Administration of the suitable statistical techniques to analyze the scores obtained.

1.21 Statistical Techniques to be used

To analyze the data various statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics (mean,
standard deviation) were used to find the nature and distribution of variables. ANOVA was
employed to see the main and interaction effect of independent variables on dependents. „t‟-
ratio and coefficient of correlation was used to find out the difference and relationship
between dependent and independent variables.

1.22 Need for the Study

As is being recognized that English language is an ever more persistent reality that
can be ignored only at your own peril. The focus then turns towards studying, controlling and
working on the causes and processes of English language. With the onset of globalization, the
proliferation of English in all walks of life is the most discussed case among the normal
students as also the differently abled ones. „Children with learning difficulties‟ have not been
subject to same level of scholarly debate but have provoked passionate interest amongst
emerging arenas directly related to proficiency in English language and also among the
policy makers. The absence of proficiency in English language, on the one hand has deprived
the country of its human capital and on the other hand the possibility of the erosion of the
base for further development cannot be neglected. The education system, which forms the
base of the development of a country, English has emerged as an important input. It has
become the fulcrum around which several economic activities revolve. The link between
quality of education in English learning imparted and the overall growth of the personality of
the country is undisputed and well established.
India is the second most populous country on the face of earth and is among the
leading countries that supply highly skilled workers in the international labour market to the
developed countries. However, while there have been studies on imparting of language
effectively among the average healthy and the differently abled children, the „children with

38
learning difficulties‟ have not been researched significantly, particularly in India. There has
been a significant rise in numbers of those who can speak and write in English in India as
also world over. A simple search on Google or any other engine regarding news and
advertisement for knowledge of English as must, would establish the rising importance of the
English. Considering the present situation of the rising worldwide significance of English and
knowing the fact that children with learning difficulties constitutes a sizable population of the
country that can make a huge difference, the study becomes all the more important. It
becomes necessary to study the patterns of these children and also to intervene in constructive
manner so as to recognize its causes and possible measures of its eradication. That is the only
way to ensure the enough human resources for the ever-growing knowledge economy and the
development of the nation.
The focus of the present study is on the assessing of difficulties in English reading
comprehension and expressive writing among secondary school students. It aims to study the
reasons, process and experiences of the students of the said standard. The study is evermore
necessitated due to the lack of adequate literature and data on the subject and also its ever-
growing need in the society. There is not enough data with regards to the immensity of the
problem and hence the present study also aims at collecting first hand primary data. The
study focuses on analysis and interpretation of the data collected and finally analyses the
findings in the light of the available literature and researches in the conclusion.

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