Teaching Language Through 4f Approach
Amit Joshi Research Scholar Teaching Language through 4F Approach Following more than sixty years of independence, the status of English language in rural India, predominantly in Rajasthan, is poor. Even after a decade’s learning in school, students are not able to bring into play English aptly to meet up their requirements. Various reasons can be accommodated for this apologetic state however my concern stretches out with the discovery of best possible way out which serves as a step forward for its eradication.
Since we are living in a fast globalizing multicultural era, where English has emerged as a dominant language, it’s time to minimize the distance existing between English and an individual to meet the diverse demands of the day in creative way. The innovations and improvements in effective teaching and learning strategy for Language is a foremost concern, not only in India but throughout the world and for this reason a number of practices are employed together with the ongoing incessant efforts to make it more interesting and comprehensive.
At random, while reading Hadley’s1 book on Language Teaching I came about a citation of four common approaches on culture teaching, propounded by Galloway, are (1) the Frankenstein approach which provides information from everywhere i. e. small pieces of several cultures are spoken in the classroom 2) the 4F approach is related to culture teaching focusing on folk dance, fairs, festivals and food (3) in Tour Guide approach, learners are expected to identify the monuments, rivers, and cities shown to them, and (4) ‘By The Way’ approach in which sporadic lectures or bits of behaviour selected indiscriminately to emphasize sharp differences.
Since Rajasthan’s prosperous cultural heritage, recognized for its traditional colorful art makes it a paradise of a variety of folk art forms which punctuate its barren lands into a prolific basin of vibrant colours and creativity. The second, i. e. 4F approach, Folk dance, Festivals, Food & Fair, seemed to me of much interest for my experiment with English Language Teaching as it operates on common & shared socio-political backdrop making students feel at home.
Though, learning of language and the learning of culture are apparently two different things, and at the same time, they are closely inter-dependent, as Finocchiaro2 and Francis3 holds, that the linguistic system is part of the social system, neither can be learned without the other. It’s difficult for a language to survive without culture. Language and culture are so consistent that it is complex to describe the strictures of language and culture, and whether language impacts culture or vice-versa.
Man is a social being where culture dominates its life in almost every aspect including the major accomplishments of a given civilization such as religion, art, philosophy, music, literature, geography, folklore, sociology, political system, and history. Since, language engrave culture, the English teacher becomes an increasingly influential mediator of both language and culture. Currently the knowledge of culture can be one of the major skill categories to acquire in English language teaching not only in our concern but nationwide.
Students can be assisted to understand language better by encouraging them to share the stories, rituals, and traditions that they gather from their family, grandparents, older neighbours, religious or spiritual leaders, or community centres as long as they feel comfortable sharing with their classmates. Hence, present paper attempts to integrate common cultural teaching approach F4, into language teaching method showing significance of culture in the teaching and learning process of English language.
Restricting to be much theoretical, I take opportunity to introduce my own experiment and experience with English Language Teaching using 4F approach. Keeping the fact in mind that culture is learned and shared; a child begins to learn, consciously or unconsciously, in early life through the process of socialization or enculturation and this factor leads to a better understanding of language using cultural elements like, art, folk tales, myths, and proverbs. ‘4F’ approach interests me as it focuses on a very familiar and shared experience, making it suitable to be implemented in the classroom teaching.
My classroom is in a way represents diversity of familial backgrounds. For the sake of experiment with language teaching, through the inspiration of ‘4F’ approach, the class is categorized in three groups A, B, & C on the basis of their lingual familial backgrounds. The first group ‘A’ which constitute almost 10% of the class, consist of the students who are right from their birth are in Anglo-Indian homes, and English is their natural medium for communication. 0 % of the class constitutes the second group B, where the students are bringing up from their very childhood, in educated Christian, Muslim and Hindu homes their chosen medium for communication is English as their elders know that given today’s environment for future growth and prospects, their children will have a definite edge over others. However, the third group C, of students who’s interaction with English is minimal, neither they speak nor they get chance to hear English consists almost 50 %.
In the case of group A, learning English is through the natural engagement process of uninterrupted bombardment of sounds, words, sentences to comprehend and convey content with the help of family, friends, relatives, teachers, course books, print media, visual media that supply content dressed in daily use of lexis and structure which the children’s minds [the subconscious and the conscious] receive, evaluate, and store and retrieve before and during schooling. This practice goes on with the unvarying interaction between content and English, and they nurture as competent English users.
In the case of group B, the English learning process and growth is analogous to that of the first group. But for the considerable figure of group C [students from small towns and villages which abound in Rajasthan], interaction with English set in motion at least five years after the others and begins and ends within the limitations of just 40-50 minutes of learning a day when they learn it as just one of the subjects even though they also have the teachers and books as models.
They have no contents, no thoughts other than what they have in English class, they have no opportunity, no occasion, and no immediate reason to strengthen classroom learning and become proficient in the use of English for pursuit of higher learning, and nowhere else do they hear or speak English. It is awfully nominal interaction with the English language that prevents them from budding into proficient users of English yet they do possess communicative aptitude like other Indian children, which of course they do demonstrate while using their indigenous languages.
With the observance of these categories in mind especially group C, one exercise based on ‘4F’ approach was made, for the class using multimedia applications, and incorporating cultural elements which were familiar to the students. This exercise was not aimed at to impart a knowledgeable lecture but to ignite and keep their interest in English. Step 1: An image of folk dance performed by an artist and food was projected and the students were asked to identify. Image 1 Image 2 [pic] [pic]
Step 2: Vocabulary of 10-15 words related to the image was provided on the screen for the composition of few sentences on these picture. And aiming to assist them in sentence formation a questionnaire was also provided like, what activity is being performed in first image? To which area do this activity belongs? What do you know more about this region? Describe clothing of the performers? What is shown in the second image? What does it represents? Name the different constituents present in this image? Name the ingredients used to prepare it? Etc. Vocabulary Image 1: Folk Dance (Kalbeliya) |Image 2: Food (Daal-Baati-Churma) | |Nouns |Verb |Adjective |Nouns |Verb |Adjective | |People |Dance |Orange |Flour |Prepare |Spicy | |Folk |Perform |Yellow |Vegetables |Make |Oily | |Men |Sing |Black |Pulses |Serve |Sweet | |Women |Laugh |Blue |Spices |Eat |Traditional | |Turban |Clap |Long |Oil |Gather | | |Snake -Charmer |Entertain |Circular |Dough | | | |Music | | |Ghee | | | |Instruments | | |Sugar | | | |Mud Pot | | |Utensils | | | |Hut | | |Daal | | | Group | | |Baati | | | |Ornaments | | |Churma | | | |Kalbeliya Tribe | | | | | | |Dholak | | | | | | |Jhanjhar | | | | | | |Saarangi | | | | | | Step 3: Students were asked to share their composition one by one loudly. Students took active participation in this exercise. As we know that Pictures/ images communicate information by itself and they also leave space for the students’ imagination and creativity. Almost immediately as the picture shown 80 % of the students identified it, following the instruction for 2nd step they composed few lines using words provided to them. Students from group A & B were fast enough but response from the focused C group was appreciable.
Last step was structured to help students in removing their hesitation by giving them an exposure in familiar class environment together with this providing them a chance to know more about indigenous culture. The same approach was exploited in Group Discussions, Debates, Role Plays and in Crossword puzzles also. Similar kind of exercises were repeated using Food, Festivals, Fairs and Folk Dance, giving opportunities to the students to share their experiences, in terms of culture and content, and to participate in cooperative learning tasks. This experiment received a warm and hearty welcome by student and amazingly it increased the falling strength of students in English classroom.
As Hinkel puts it, With pragmatic instruction, where language is taught in cultural contexts, the learners acquire the knowledge of socially appropriate uses of that language. This human dimension of language enables the learners to communicate in real-life situations4. Apart from the other language teaching methods like grammar translation, direct method, audio-lingual method, Communicative language teaching (CLT), which were employed in lectures and seems to be exhausted for invoking interest, motivation, enthusiasm and encouragement among the first generation language learners, F4 approach proved to be a successful medium for the purpose.
Because not only the students of third group but students from first and second group also took active part and showed their keen interest in this interesting, interactive, and quite informative activity, which was not foreign or alien but something inherent with which they could associate themselves. The incorporation of indigenous artefacts and cultural components into language teaching in the classroom not only attempts to preserve it but makes lessons interesting and relevant also. References 1. Hadley, Alice Omaggio. Teaching Language in Context. 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001. (p. 349) 2. Jiang, Decheng. A Study of the Teaching of Culture in College English. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 1, No. 5, pp. 735-737, September 2010. Academy Publisher, Finland. 2010. 3. Lop Cit. 4. Hinkel, E. Culture in second language teaching and learning. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
