Class 5 English: the class that says 'Yes' to everything
Class 5 English (second language) in a rural school has 34 children and four 40-minute periods a week. The children can recite the alphabet, sing 'Twinkle, Twinkle', and read aloud 'The cat sat on the mat' with accurate pronunciation. When the teacher says 'Open the window, please' nothing happens; when she asks 'Is this a pen?' the class choruses 'Yes' whether she is holding a pen or a shoe. The textbook's Unit 4 is a twelve-line dialogue using 'is/are' and 'this/that'. The teacher's current practice is to read the dialogue, translate each line into Hindi, write the new words with Hindi meanings, and set copy-writing. The half-yearly test will be a written paper with fill-in-the-blanks and matching. The head teacher has asked for 'spoken English' to be visible in the results.
1. Explain why the children's fluent reading aloud is not evidence of English proficiency, using the specific behaviours in the setup.
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Reading aloud a memorised line and reciting a rhyme can run on phonological memory alone; neither requires the child to attach meaning to unfamiliar input. The setup shows exactly this gap.
- 'Open the window, please' is a command that must be decoded and acted on. Nothing happens, so the words are not yet carrying meaning.
- 'Is this a pen?' gets 'Yes' whatever the object. The children are responding to the teacher's intonation and to a classroom ritual, not to the referent. A chorus 'Yes' is a cued response, not comprehension.
- Accurate pronunciation of a familiar sentence is a rehearsal effect; it does not transfer to unheard language.
In Cummins' terms this is surface fluency in a rehearsed register with no underlying academic language proficiency; in Krashen's terms the children are not receiving comprehensible input. None of this is a child deficit - it is a sequence problem. English has been taught as a text to reproduce, not as a language to use, so spoken English cannot appear in the results until children have had many low-threat chances to hear and do before they are asked to speak.
2. Redesign one week (four periods) using comprehension-based, oral-first activities, and state the evidence you would accept that it worked.
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Period 1 - TPR. Classroom commands: stand up, open the door, touch the window, give me the pen. No translation; teacher models, children do. Three new commands added each day.
Period 2 - real objects and pictures. This/that with near and far objects; children point and say one word. Then 'Is this a pen?' with a pen in one hand and a pencil in the other, answer 'Yes, it is' or 'No, it isn't' with the object actually in hand so the answer cannot be guessed from the tone.
Period 3 - the dialogue, books closed. Hear it twice, then act it in pairs with props, substituting their own objects. Print arrives after the meaning.
Period 4 - listening task. Teacher gives six short instructions; children number pictures. Then two children give instructions to the class.
Evidence I would accept: children act correctly on commands they have not heard before; answers change when the object changes; children volunteer to speak rather than waiting for the chorus cue. Keep a checklist - who responds correctly to five of five commands by Friday - and compare with Monday rather than with a mark.
3. Design a 10-mark oral component that is feasible for 34 children in a 40-minute period and defensible to a head teacher who wants written marks.
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Feasible only if it is short and sampled, not a conversation with each child.
Format: four tasks, tested in groups of six at the back of the room while the class does silent picture work.
- 3 marks: responds correctly to three commands (touch your ear; show me the red one).
- 3 marks: answers three questions about a picture (Is this a cat? What colour? How many?).
- 2 marks: names four objects from a picture card.
- 2 marks: one rhyme or greeting, marked for intelligibility, not accent.
Two minutes per child, twelve minutes per group, recorded on a checklist during the task. Defensible because the tasks are identical for all children, the criteria are public, and the marks measure listening and spoken response rather than handwriting speed. For the head teacher: show the checklist, play one recorded sample, and report the oral mark separately from the written paper so the written paper keeps its meaning. If she wants one total, weight the oral at 20 per cent and print the weighting on the report card.