Constructive Approach and English Language Teaching

Abstract

In 21st century, learning English language is need of the hour and has a vast horizon touching each and every field of academia. The Constitution of India (1950) suggested Hindi as the official language for the first time in India and it went supported by Official Language Act (1963).This brought a clash to continue or abolish English language for official purposes. India being a multi- lingual country, English plays a role of „link-language‟. Various approaches like Structural approach, Situational Approach and Communicative Approach has introduced different teaching methods to make learning of English language easy and effective. But paradigm shift from traditional teaching methods to constructivism can make teaching and learning process easier, interesting and more retainable. Constructive approach is historically based on Socratic Method of Dialogue (470-399 BC) in which student herself constructs knowledge connecting it with her previous knowledge. In such processes teacher‟s role is shifted from a teacher to a facilitator. Learning process is performed through students‟ active participation, interests, attitudes, aspirations and motivations. It encourages students to learn through personal experiences along with other‟s help and suitable learning material. The whole process of constructivism not only develops new concepts by altering their previous knowledge but also facilitates them in developing language and enriching their vocabulary. A country like India where dominance of rural area is still suffering from language issues, English teaching demands much more. A prosaic way of serving grammatical rules, translating literature and evaluation on the basis of it is futile. They can only get marks but so far as the applicability of this language is concerned they need to be naturally interested in it. Constructive approach serves this purpose by creating a fascination towards the language.