Empowering Rural Students to learn English through ...



Advertisements – An ‘In’spiring Teaching Method for Beginners in ELT

Beena Anil

Assistant Professor of English

SDNB Vaishnav College for Women

Chrompet

Chennai - 44

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

- William A. Ward

Children, who are exposed to a language, would learn the language quickly. Even adults learn a language without studying it, but providing a good exposure will make the learner to learn like a child. Most adults have different opinions on learning a language, some consider it as a complex act and some do not find it essential for their life. Children of 0-5 years learn any number of languages whereas adults can learn a language if they have these three highlighting points. Firstly, they should be exposed to the language. Secondly, they should be motivated to learn the language and finally, they should be given opportunities to use the language. Adults learn a foreign language when they have endless exposure to it at various levels and the language-users around them every time.

Learning for any child or adult implies that there is assimilation that leads to some change. The child, by interacting with the world around her, builds her intellectual capacities, her emotional and social persona and her personality. The child is born with a potential but how much is realized depends on the experiences offered to her by society, the most crucial elements of it being the family and the school. In the last 100 years or so, educationists, psychologists, behavior scientists have discovered that we actually learn only when we act, when we engage with something, when we interact. This is the reason why serious attempts are made to make even for computer and TV programmes [advertisement] as interactive as possible. The learner needs to act, interact, and thereby construct his own backpack of learning. For learning to happen, the child cannot merely listen, receive, repeat and copy what is said or read. The child may, in the process, pick up information, acquire some knowledge and find out some things for herself.

Second language acquisition is nothing but acquiring a language other than one’s mother tongue or first language. Learning a language is different from acquiring a language. Learning is a conscious process whereas acquiring is an unconscious process with more dependent on the quantity of exposure to language and interaction.

In the classroom second language is not acquired but learnt. Students are less exposed to second language comparing to first language acquisition. As a result many students fail to pick up the second language due to fear of making mistakes, lack of motivation and lack of exposure.

Selection of vocabulary is essential to improvise the communication skills of students. Proper attention should be taken in selecting the words and the methods to be followed in the classroom. Popular and useful words should be given prime preference. Teacher, especially English teacher, can come up with many ideas to make students to communicate in English effectively. Teacher can make students to come with newspaper to the class and the write-ups can be discussed with the aid of dictionary in the class. Conducting games for learning is always an interesting method.

In a process of learning a language, learners should be interested and determined, then they develop something and demonstrate it by putting it into production. A learner watches advertisements and observe words like whirlpool, vim, aerial, surf, rin, boost, splendor. The learner learns the words though not the meaning, when the teacher explains the meaning of each word [the student already knows the pronunciation, spelling], the learner quickly co-relates the meaning and started to use the words in its conversation.

Teaching grammar is always a difficult task for teachers, because many learners feel that it will lead them to boredom. This attitude among learners should be changed and it could happen only through an effective and interesting way of teaching grammar. Many learners have a wrong notion that grammar is of two types, one for writing that comprises forms and rules and another one for speaking that has their own tailor made grammar. Many English teachers teach grammar as a theory and drill the students to write the grammar exercises correctly for the examination but could not make it when it comes to expressing orally.

As many studies are underway on explaining the grammar acquisition of one’s first language, linguists expect learners to learn second language grammar in the same way. Many convent-educated students speak English very well but when it comes to writing they commit many grave grammatical errors. Grammar should be learnt like a formula. According to the situation, the ‘experienced’ speaker should adopt grammar with ease.

The purpose of teaching grammar is to bring confidence among speakers. In my opinion, a beginner should know a little grammar to communicate his ideas otherwise he will be at bay owing to the battle of his grammatical brains. Teacher should note that instant correction of grammar would recede the motivation level of learners.

Too much of anything is good for nothing, teaching grammar for a full period will lead to boredom, so teach them with different learning styles like including games, power point presentation, advertisements etc., teachers should explain grammar with relevant and living examples which should be filled with information and vocabulary.

Grammar is always for communication. Many a time grammar becomes a tonic for many when they feel that they know ‘sufficient’ grammar to speak the language. So English teacher should always chalk out many new methods to make the grammar classes alive.

This paper describes and illustrates the use of English words in advertisements by giving many a chance to use English words in their daily conversation.. It has been found in the Indian scenario that fusion takes place between the mother tongue and English. The examples referred to in this paper are from print and audio-visual advertisements.

The data for the study were collected from the print and visual media such as local regional newspapers, Sun TV, Asianet TV, Surya TV, Kiran TV, etc., The data covered nearly 200 advertisements which had been regularly watched on TV by 20 students of I B.A History of a rural college. The language part of the advertisements was used for analysis. The analysis was undertaken to develop grammar and vocabulary of students. Some of the advertisements were used to teach verbs, present tense, past tense, future tense, adjective etc to students at college level.

These students had no English background at home but studied English as a subject till higher secondary level.

The teacher used English as a medium of communication in the classroom.

The observer learnt that the students frequently used some English words in their regional language conversation. The observer gave some words to test their vocabulary and all the words were taken from advertisements. The words were:

➢ Fragrance

➢ Sharper

➢ Effective

➢ Dangerous

➢ Non-sticky

➢ Pronunciation

But the students could not understand but when the observer used the words with special mention about the relevant advertisements on TV and newspaper the respondents reacted effectively.

|Advertisement [product] |English words |

|Horlicks |Taller, stronger, sharper |

|Clearsil |. |

| |Pimples, great, effective, close-up |

|Parachute hair gel |Non-sticky |

|Air wick |fragrance |

|Tata sky |Pronunciation |

|ICCI Prudential, life insurance |Very dangerous, business news, education, retirement. |

The study shows that the receptive process of language acquisition is merely based on exposure, interest, observation, and stimulus. “Exposure language is usable when the learner can make sense of it [...] and makes an effort to process it.” (Van Lier, 1996:45) Unlike Krashen, Van Lier defines the term exposure rather from the learner’s point of view, thus he speaks of “language engagement” (van Lier, 1996:48) instead of “comprehensible input”. The teachers or anyone else can cultivate interest in language so that students would show interest in acquiring the language. The above study shows that students show more interest in speaking rather than writing. Taking this as a cue, learners could be exposed more to listening and speaking as a result interest in acquiring as well as learning could happen easily. Students learn much in situations that do not involve a direct conversation with the teacher – they learn from observing events, natural or contrived, they learn from reading books, examine picture and animated pictures and they learn from their own self-generated mental operations.

In the higher level students [source medium] are much attracted by the punch lines of several products. Teachers can make use of such advertisements to teach grammar in an interesting way.

➢ Using advertisements, Teachers can make use of advertisements to teach students grammar in an interesting way.

For example:

|Advertisement [product] |Punch line |

|BPL |Believe in the best |

|Airtel voice sms |It hurts. |

|Alto car |Let’s go |

|Reid & Taylor |Bond with the best |

|Boost |Boost is the secret of my/ our energy |

|Complan |I am a complan boy |

|Airtel |Express yourself |

|Cannon -camera |You can make a powerful statement |

|Malabar gold |Beauty meets quality |

|Idea Mobile |What an idea, Get an idea |

Such advertisements help students to learn the structure of sentence.

Advertising language helps many especially students to learn as many words as possible

unintentionally. Teacher can teach the irregular and regular verbs to students with the help of advertisements.

For example:

A student can be taught adjective by using the punch line ‘ I am a complan boy’ - I am a tall boy, I am a clever boy etc.,

A receptive model of learning English with the aid of advertisements

New information prior knowledge

Connecting language

Elaboration construction of knowledge

Retrieval of

Learning knowledge

[ New+ prior knowledge]

While watching an advertisement children [ for eg. Horlicks taller, stronger, sharper], start at the first word and sequentially move towards the last word, by this time they predict what the advertisement is all about. Translation plays a important role in connecting the cognitive memory of prior knowledge [tall, strong, sharp] and the strategies that can be utilized for observing new words.

For instance, a glace at a ‘Boost’ advertisement with the punch line ‘Boost is the secret of my energy’ will indicate a learner to remember the content of the ad and understand the meaning of the punch line without any assistance

Information becomes comprehensible only to learners who can combine the new information with organized existing knowledge (a knowledge network) on the subject matter.

Advertising language helps many especially students to learn as many words possible unintentionally. Being able to express the same thought in words and action [in audio-visual advertisements] and more than one language [in print] will enable a child to compare and contrast two languages which allow a greater cognitive – metalinguistic awareness.

REFERENCES

Annamalai, E. (2001). Managing Multilingualism in India- Political and Linguistic manifestations, Sage publications: New Delhi. 2001.

Barthes, Roland (1972). Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers. New York: Hill & Wang. Originally published by Editions du Seuil, Paris 1957.

Bhatia, Tej K. (1992). “Discourse functions and pragmatics of mixing: advertising across cultures”. World Englishes, 11(2), 195–215.

----. (2000). “Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing Communication, and Consumerism”, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Tokyo Press: Japan 62-68

Hayakawa, S. I. (1990). Language in Thought and Action . 5th edn. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Kachru, Braj B. (1978). “Toward structuring code mixing: an Indian perspective”. International Journal of the Sociology of language, 1627-1646.

----. (1983). The English language in India. Indianization of Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Martin, E. (2002). “Mixing English in French advertising”. World Englishes, 21(3), 375– 401.

----. (2007). “‘Frenglish’ for sale: multilingual discourses for addressing today’s global consumer”. World Englishes, 26(2), 170–188.

Quirk, R, Greenbaum, S, Leech, G, and Svartvik, J. (1972). A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman.

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