The letter to the editor entitled ‘Learn Bad English’ written by a reader Mr K.D.Jayasinghe of Ratmalana appearing in the ‘Island’ of June 29th is in somewhat poor taste. The letter gives expression to a series of inaccuracies, falsities and absurdities hurriedly laced together with the intent perhaps of ‘throwing mud’ at the Presidential Initiative on English as a Life Skill, the Presidential Secretariat, the Presidential Advisor coordinating the Initiative and also on the country that is helping the President to take Spoken English skills to the youth, namely India.

The writer refers to this laudable initiative of our President as a ‘mere eye-wash’. But once we dismantle the falsehoods and inaccuracies in his letter systematically as we will now do, the writer may need a cure for his myopic view of this subject.

1. The writer says "why should the President’s office run a national programme like this, when the Ministry of Education with all its resources can do it much better?" The answer to this was given by none other than H.E the President himself. In reply to a question raised at the launch of the ‘18 month Road Map to Promote Spoken English Skills in Sri Lanka’ on Monday the 22nd June at ‘Temple Trees’ His Excellency said it was because the Ministry of Education and relevant institutions such as the National Institute of Education (NIE) had not done their job to promote English Skills in the country that the Presidential Secretariat had to take the initiative for a national drive for English. The record speaks for itself -today we have 21, 984 English teachers for 9714 schools. All children learn English for 10 consecutive years but most of them leave school without the ability to converse in English. After such a colossal failure in English teaching in the school system despite the vast resources expended over the last several decades, does the writer seriously suggest that the task of English teaching in our country should be kept for some more time solely in the hands of the Education Ministry?

2. The writer says "What we need is not more tuition classes with teachers from India but a proper action programme led by the Ministry of Education. I believe the President’s Office is not equipped to run such programmes at all". The fact is that not a single teacher is being brought down from India and tuition classes are not at all a part of the Presidential Programme. On the contrary Sri Lankan English teachers are going to India, 40 per year, to be trained to return as Master Trainers in Spoken English. It is also the fact that the ‘18 Month Road Map’ launched on the 22nd at ‘Temple Trees’ is an 18 Month Action Plan composed of 16 clearly defined activities, all of which, except for the 200 Module Distance Learning TV Programme, are to be implemented by the Education Ministry. The role of the President’s Office is to provide the much needed Drive, Motivation and Resources and be responsible for the coordination and monitoring of the entire initiative so that it conforms with the letter and spirit of ‘Mahinda Chintana’ and the vision of H.E the President. The Presidential Secretariat as we all know is not and will never be an implementing agency of any programme.

3. Referring in a disparaging manner to me, the writer asks "is somebody trying to create a small sphere of influence for himself by creating an ad hoc system of teaching English using that office?" While this statement is both unprofessional and discourteous, I leave it to those who have interacted with me officially and personally to conclude whether his invective conforms to my conduct and demeanour.

4. The writer also asks "Who were the educationists and specialist teachers of English behind this programme? From the newspapers we gather that a gentleman by the name Mr. Sunimal Fernando is behind the programme. But according to Mr. Fernando himself, he is a sociologist, not an English specialist". I function as the Coordinator (English) of the Presidential Task Force on English and IT which has among its members a number of English language specialists and educationists. Furthermore, the 19 page trilingual programme document distributed at the Presidential launch of the 18 month Action Plan as well as the ‘Teacher Guide on Curriculum and Teacher Material for Teaching Spoken English’ also launched by His Excellency on the same day state very clearly that the entire Presidential Programme on English as a Life Skill was crafted by a team of 40 rural and small town English teachers (educationists) from Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes with the cooperation of the English Unit of the Education Ministry and the regional and zonal educationists in charge of English Language Training in all 9 provinces. This dispels any doubts about the participation of English Language Specialists and Educationists in the design of the Presidential Programme.

5. The writer says "Mr. Fernando has said we should learn what he terms ‘South Asian English’ as opposed to English the rest of the world speaks". The writer seems to believe that while South Asians speak one kind of English, the rest of the world speaks another (correct) kind of English. The reality however is that different countries and even different regions of the same country when speaking English differ in pronunciation and diction. American diction and pronunciation differs from that of England, Wales, Scotland, Australia, West Africa, East Africa, West Indies, South Asia, South East Asia and Japan. It therefore shows ignorance to think that the whole world speaks one kind of English and that we South Asians too should speak that kind of English. Our position is not what the writer suggests. In the Foreword to the Teacher Guide also launched by the President on June 22nd I have stated as follows: "Teachers should encourage their students to speak Sri Lankan English the Sri Lankan way and encourage a neutral accent as is the case in India for which we must purge our system of the Anglo-centric elocution culture which perpetuates an approach to English speaking that is socio-psychologically most damaging for a Sinhala and Tamil speaking country. The sacred cow of Anglo-centric pronunciation and diction has been the scourge of the English teaching enterprise of our country, rooted in the narrow self interest of the old urban English speaking elites and the greed of the elocution industry". Our stand therefore is something like this - ‘Don’t ape the British, speak naturally, and speak in a South Asian manner like other South Asians do. Don’t be Anglo-centric in your diction and pronunciation. Be Asia-centric instead which is more natural to us Sri Lankans’.

6. The writer says "Mr. Fernando says for South Asian English, grammar and pronunciation are unimportant. He recommends a kind of sign language in which we try to crudely and weakly to express ourselves and calls it English". The writer’s imagination seems to have taken the better of him. I have never said anything of this sort. Ideas should not be distorted whether purposefully or otherwise. What we have been suggesting is something like this – ‘Don’t ape the British in pronunciation and diction; speak naturally with your natural Asian accent because 20 years from now the world’s largest number of English speakers will be from South Asia and English will then largely be a South Asian language, and South Asian pronunciation and diction will dominate the English speaking enterprise of the world: So let Sri Lanka link its English speaking enterprise with a proud Asia-centric future and not shamelessly with a colonial Anglo-centric past’. And as for Grammar, what I have said is very different to the writer’s brash distortion of our position. The main document distributed at the June 22nd launch, states as follows: "Students should be allowed to make mistakes in pronunciation and grammar when speaking, while the teaching strategy should be to quietly and gently guide them to progressively make less and less mistakes and to do so without disturbing the learner’s self confidence and belief in his / her ability to speak the language".

7. The writer asks "Can we properly learn a language when we are encouraged to learn bad English at the outset? ………..Can anyone learn our own language Sinhala for instance if he or she is told that rules of grammar and pronunciation do not matter at all?" Nowhere have we suggested anything of this sort. Our position quite simply is that a person must be first taught to speak English and thereby gain confidence in ‘using’ the language before he / she is taught the rules of the language, namely its structure and grammar which are important for ‘constructing’ the language. After all as children we all learnt first to speak Sinhala or Tamil before we learnt the rules of our own language. Hence the emphasis in our schools should be on Spoken English first and then on grammar and structure.

In my interview with ‘Business Today’ (March 2009) I have stated as follows: "First and foremost, the learner should be taught the skill of speaking English, and while this skill is being acquired the teaching of reading and writing skills which include grammar and structure should remain on the back burner. Learn first to speak English with confidence. Reading and writing, grammar and structure will follow. Today in our schools we do the opposite"….. I would add, with disastrous effect.

8. The writer says "We must be the only nation in the world to attempt to learn English from Indians for whom it is a second language. When the governments of the UK, the US, Australia and even Canada were more than pleased to teach English here, why did Mr. Fernando decide on India as his resource base". The writer is quite clearly out of touch with the changing world of English and the changing contours of the English speaking world. Or perhaps he is happier to see us learn at the feet of the former white masters and their sister nations than to find us relate with pride and dignity with a sister Asian country. Professionally speaking, the English teaching methodologies developed in the UK, the US, Australia and Canada are appropriate for teaching English to children in English speaking countries whose home language is English. These were and unfortunately still remain the mainstream methodologies of English teaching in Sri Lanka. They lie at the very heart of the English teaching problem in our country where the home language of the vast majority of our children is not English but either Sinhala or Tamil. These teaching methodologies are the cause of our problem and not the recipe for its solution. And in any case, the 4 countries mentioned by RDJ never came forward to offer any teaching assistance in English to the Presidential Initiative. Though the writer seems unaware, the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad has rapidly grown in recent years to be the world’s Centre of Excellence for the teaching of English to non-English speaking people. "Nowadays thousands of people come to India from the former Soviet Republics or CIS countries, from South-east Asia, Latin America, East Europe, from Russia and China and so on to learn English and also to pick up the latest state-of-the-art English teaching methods that fit the needs of non-English speaking countries" (Sunimal Fernando: Interview with Business Today; March 2009). Hence we are just one of a large number of non-English speaking countries that are now accessing English language skills from India which has spawned out the best, cutting-edge English teaching methods for non English speaking countries such as ours.

9. The writer says "It is time the Ministry of Education stated its policy with regard to various programmes run by people of all shades and shapes in the name of teaching English". Yes, the Policy, Strategy and Action Plan of ‘English as a Life Skill’ is in fact now the official policy, strategy and action plan of the Education Ministry and the Government, and reflects the vision of H.E the President. That is evident from the fact that the pertinent policy document with action plan was officially launched on the 22nd June by none other than H.E the President himself together with the Minister of Education and Hon. Dr Sarath Amunugama (Chairman of the Presidential Task Force) in the presence of more than 1600 officials of the Central and Provincial Ministries of Education.

I am sorry that someone has perhaps tried to mislead readers of your esteemed newspaper by distorting facts relating to an important and far-sighted Initiative of a person none other than the country’s Chief Executive himself and its far-reaching programme that has been meticulously thought through by the Presidential Secretariat, the Presidential Task Force on English and IT and the country’s Education Ministry.