We love to speak
English in India and we have a thriving industry which asks for English as a
skill. We use English in our education, jobs, communication, retail
transactions and the list goes on. We also use English for communication with
our fellow Indians because that is the only common language in India instead of
its official language, Hindi. That is both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate
because the huge range of languages shows diversity in our culture and
unfortunate because we need English, an alien language to run this country. I
don’t think Spain or Germany or even developing countries like Brazil or Mexico
needs English to communicate among their fellow citizens. Anyways, we also
fancy to go overseas, especially English speaking developed countries to study
and work which makes it imperative to have good understanding of English. Lot
of us also fancy speaking English. It’s no secret that youngsters use English
language to impress their opposite sex as well. All these needs to use English
as a mode of day to day communication makes it very important in our routine
life. That makes me think about the
number of people employed in India in teaching English. I am sure the number
has to be way over than in the United States. I strongly believe, India has
more English teachers than teachers for any of its own language. And we still
end up speaking Hinglish like those folks on “Coffee with Karan”.
I remember my days when English was
not one of my best skills and I used to love using big words which were so
effective in writing skills. I was not bad at speaking either, however
somewhere or other, I knew I am not at the level, I should be. I had couple
good English teachers in school and teachers from college is not worth
mentioning. Not because they were not educated or good, it’s because our
college system hardly values English as an important subject. Anyways, so these
teachers from school taught me Vocabulary, grammar and everything needed to
make my English national standard. I indeed got some good learning but honestly
I got no idea, why and what I learned. I just learnt it. And then came the
phase when I saw the boom of BPO.
Hope
you liked the word “Boom”. It was often associated in early 2000s with the rise
of BPO industry or as we call it “Call Centers”. I was once part of this
magnificent industry of graveyard shifts and variety of new concepts. I tried
my luck with my mediocre English in multiple interviews and I indeed finally
got through after umpteen attempts. I was racing like rabbits to get into this
industry which pays good to speak responsible English. It was not easy. I was
advised to work on my grammar, listen to BBC news, and communicate with mirror
in English and few tricks I am not so comfortable to mention here either. And
then I put forward my 1st step in this industry with my selection at
IBM Daksh in 2005. The voice and accent training was superb. I was all set to
hit the floor and when I hit it, I bounced back harder than I hit it. I could
not understand those native English speakers on phone from England or even
America. I was confused and I took few days to settle down. I felt I am in a
competition where those customers of ours are trying to show me that I can
never win this competition of English. They did not speak the way we speak English,
at all. That questioned me my learning, the learning process and the people out
there who train you in English speaking skill. That also made me question their
methods of teaching. I left the BPO industry within a quarter. I realized that
it’s not my cup of tea. It needs a lot of focused work and hats off to people
working there. Hours of travelling and then hours of focused listening and
solving issues on each and every call for 9hrs is just stupendous. However, I
strongly believe their tasks could be made easier by training them rather than
overwhelming them.
After
I left BPO, my search for gaining expertise in English communication continued
for years until I met my wife. She is a native English speaker from overseas
and her communication is quiet beautiful, however her writing are claimed as
elementary by many Indians. And I don’t doubt anyone because I am sure her
English as a native speaker is as simple and elementary as is our Hindi or our
regional language. I started sharpening my English skills without paying her a
dime. I am sure one can understand the side effects of love, however there are
multiple advantages which come with love as well. Mine was learning and
enjoying English communication with her. It was somewhere around 2007 and there
were very limited modes of communication with people overseas. Whats app, Viber
etc. had not even born by then. The expensive text and calls were the primary
mode of communication along with online chatting websites such as Gmail/ Gtalk,
yahoo messenger and Orkut to name few.
Our
initial conversations were shocker for me because I could not understand her
many a times and her jokes were as new as mine for her. My quest to understand
her better took me to a new journey of understanding the people and the culture
of her country and the other countries which speak English. In this time
consuming but effective process, I realized that English is not just a language
which could be learnt and mastered the way we have been taught in India, it is
like any other language which is culturally attached and their usage varies
geographically and socially. Finally, I learnt to enjoy their humor. And humor
is one substance which varies drastically from one region to another, all over
the world, even right in India a lot of times. I got to know that this language
is about simple communication and not at all about big words which we love to
fit here and there in our communication.
Let me give you an example to
explain a bit. Decade ago, when I was in India, I was a big fan of using big
words and sometimes I used to feel so proud to be distinct that I had no idea
that all I was doing was a giant blabbering like many of us. Then this dialogue
from a movie with Tom Hanks as protagonist changed my perception towards
learning English. The line was” Even a broken clock shows correct time twice a
day”. And if you noticed, there are no big words in the line and it is as
effective and meaningful like truth. The old fashioned method used by mighty
teachers of English looked pretty dull at that moment. Years after that movie,
one day I was checking out Rediff website to check out review of a movie and I
could not understand half of the reviewer’s review. I felt limited. I wondered
if he wants his readers to enjoy and learn the review or get frustrated and
join an English vocab class. I doubt he ever was trained on the basic
relationship of writer and reader. And that is just one example. It’s just
amazing how talk shows could help us to understand the level of English and is
equally effective to help us learn the English language based on behavior. That
is one of the new and effective methodology to learn and enjoy English. The
behavior and culture based learning of a language can only, help us to enjoy
the very sweet language of English.
When I work with people trying to
clear IELTS or TOEFL tests, their previous scores amuse me. They have
qualifying score in listening and reading, however Speaking and writing scream
a different set of scores. All these four aspects change their spots quiet
often on results. I wonder, if a person can write, what makes him speak the
same sentence or if he can listen and comprehend so well, why he can’t speak or
write on a very basic topic such as “My favourite vacation spot”. I took some
time to understand that, however I finally nailed it. It is because we don’t
write how we speak and vice versa. It is time, we understand this beautiful
language of English rather than mug it up, because no matter how much we crib
or don’t accept that this very language plays a major role in our life, it is
time we find someone right to sharpen our communication skills right away. Else
we will be part of those headless chicken speaking English, just for the sake of
it and not for the fun of it.
