People will forget how to read English

BANGALORE: If you are thinking that English language is dominating your mother tongue, take this; If the present trend of not writing English continues, people will forget how to read the language, says Prof  S Ramaswamy, senior academician and formerly Professor of English at Bangalore  UniversitySpeaking at the all India seminar on “Second Language teacher education: Issues and challenges” organised by Regional Institute of English, South India on Tuesday in Bangalore, Prof Ramaswamy said that these days the trend of writing letters has considerably come down. This has been replaced with oral communication, where people speak over cell phones. “If this continues, we will forget reading English,” he said. He also said that though e-mail writing is in practice, people often use short cuts like “U” for “You”, and many other single or  two letters replacing the real words.Former Professor of Linguistics, University of Delhi, Prof Ramakant Agnihotri said that often Asians including Indians are made to feel that we must understand Received Pronunciation (RP), (that means accent). He further said that English Language Teaching (ELT) has become an industry. “If you tell them (Americans or any other country) that you want to learn the language, they will send ten teachers along with software and books that are not  read by their own people,” he added.Answering queries by English teachers who raised the issue of teaching English to student in rural schools,  Prof Agnihotri said that there is a need to understand the nature of the language and                  also understand the potential of the child.