English Language Teaching in its Social Context

224 A. SURESH CANAGARAJAHthe interests they serve because minority culturcs are steeped in traditions of dominationas well as resistance. Without delving too much into how this favored pedagogy ofTamilstraditionally bolstered their caste structure and religious hierarchy, we can proceed to itscontemporary implications for the students discussed in this study. We must remember thatsuch a pedagogy encourages a teacher-controlled, nondialogic, “banking” style of learningthat is known to reproduce the dominant values and social relations of an oppressivelystratified society (see Freire, 1970; Giroux, 1983).Furthermore, though a formalistic approach to the abstract rules of “standard English”might appear to preserve students from the more obvious cultural content associated withthe communicative orientation of the course, it in no way saves them from other forms ofdomination: It disconfirms the Englishes students bring with them; it prevents students frominterrogating their own culture and socicty through literacy; it fails to alter the unfavorablesubject positions belonging to monolingual and English-incompetent Lankans. Nor doesthe formalistic approach enable students to effectively internalize the rules of the languageor progress rapidly in fluent language use. In the in-course assessments carried out tomonitor their progress, the majority of the students continued to score below the passinggrade. They remained with the smattering of “marked” English they brought with them.What all this implies is that these students will continue to occupy the marginalizcd positionaccorded to the monolingual, poorly educated, rural poor in a social system dominated bythe English-speaking, bilingual, urban middle class (see Kantliah, 1984). Ironically, the desirefor grammar-oriented learning only influences students to accept these limitations moreuncritically and give in to social reproduction.Hence, although on one level the grammatical approach ~ which is a culturallymandated, indigenous form of learning ~ enables students to somewhat resist the ideologicalthrusts of the foreign language and textbook, it is doubtful whether we can glorify this as aform of radical “resistance” as Kandiah (1984) implies. This is not to deny that the studysympathizes with Kandiah’s explanation of lack of motivation in ESOL students as beinga result of the sociopolitical implications of English in Sri Lanka; the study also refutesthe alternative explanations of Goonetilleke (1983) and Hanson-Smith (1984) that this issimply a consequence of the educational policy which makes students give more time torival subjects even though students are convinced of the benefits of English. Yet Kandiahfails to grapple with the complexity of students’ opposition which has to be qualified by theirbelief in the benefits of English, resulting in examination-oriented motivation. This tensionresults eventually in their giving in to social and ideological reproduction through English.It becomes important therefore to unravel the ambiguous strands of students’ behaviorwith the help of Giroux (I 983) who warns that the concept of resistance must not be allowedto become a category indiscriminately hung over every expression of “oppositional behavior”(p. 109). Thus, Giroux distinguishes between resistance, which he sees as displayingideological clarity and commitmcnt to collective action for social transformation from mereopposition, which is unclear, ambivalent, and passive. Having analyzed the effects of classroombehavior in the larger historical and social contexts, we can say that the responses andattitudes of the students do not fall untlcr Giroux’s definition of radical resistance. Studentsfail to sustain consciousness-raising or collective critical action. Theirs is largely a vague,instinctive oppositional behavior which, due to its lack of ideological clarity, ironicallyaccommodates to their reproductive forces. It is perhaps in Supendran we see any signs ofconscious resistance that display potential for the development of a radical pedagogy for theLankan context.The behavior of most other students in the class is an ambivalent state whichcontains elements of accommodation as well as opposition in response to the conflictingpulls of socioeconomic mobility, on the one hand, and cultural integrity on the other.