Tjia, Gleen Theresia

Applicant of Exchange Competition 2020

How to Improve English Education in Sri Lanka

There is this Chinese Proverb saying “Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner

everywhere.” We will definitely use the knowledge we have learned in the future. It’s the

same for language. Roger Bacon once stated “The conquest of learning is achieved through

the knowledge of languages.” By learning another language, especially English. We will be

able to open up more opportunities to education, develop ourselves, job opportunities,

network, and etcetera. Why English? With just being able to speak English, we can instantly

communicate with many people from different countries and continents. In fact, English is

the most used language around the world. It is used in education, international business,

international trade, work environment, and many more. By having high proficiency in

English many countries have a better condition in country’s average income, economic

competitiveness, education, life quality, social and innovative development, and other fields

compare to countries with low proficiency in English. This was proven by Sri Lanka that

have low proficiency in English. Sri Lanka is a developing country in South Asia with

income per Capita $ 3,852 (2019), which belongs to lower-middle income economy.

Therefore, it is important for Sri Lanka to improve their English education. Thus, I will

discuss a few things that Sri Lanka needs to improve their English education in this paper,

which are “Awareness”, “Interaction”, and “Consistency.”

To improve English education in Sri Lanka, people need to be aware and accept that

English is important. If they cannot accept English and they even think thatPedang, hrs sadar

nek ing penting, sadar klu ing is naikin hidup mereka. Bukan nge ban. Tak kenal maka tk

saying. Mereka phobia ing. Org yang sudah sadar menggalakkan penting nya ing. Jadi kyk
buat penyuluhan. . menghilangkan stereotype anak yg blajar tu terpengaruh western culture.

Bukan penghianat nek ajar ing ki.

Now that people are aware that English is important, they need to learn the language.

The key is “Interaction.” How do people learn English? Or if we take it deeper, how do

people learn their first language? According to linguisticsociety.org we learn our language

through interaction. As a child, we had a lot of interaction with our parents and people around

us. And naturally we will start to understand, copy, and eventually acquire the language that

people around us used regularly. Again, interaction is the key. According to tessais.org

children can learn language faster. It is because of the brain’s elasticity and rapid neural

formation. Therefore since babies and young children can acquire language quickly compare

to adults, I think children should be the target. There is this one Korean variety show called

“The Return of Superman.” This program was about a celebrity father that will take care of

his children for 48 hours without their mom. There is this one family that caught my

attention. Which is Park Jooho’s family. He is a Korean soccer player, and his wife is Swiss.

Their daughter, amazingly able to speak 4 language when she was just three. She speak

Korean, German, English, and Spanish. Her parents confirms that they didn’t really push her,

they didn’t really try to teach her the language, but they let her to learn naturally with their

daily lives instead. With his dad she only speaks in Korean, with her mom she speaks in

German and English, and she only speaks Spanish with her grandmother from her mother’s

side. If we analyze it she only speaks a certain language with a certain person, and she was

able to communicate fluently with all of that language. What if we implement this method to

the education system in Sri Lanka? Starting from preschool (3 years old), we can have at least

one homeroom teacher as a third person to speak completely in English and interact with

their student regularly everyday while the other teachers speak in their local language. This
one teacher need to greet them, play with them, talk to them, but he or she can only speak in

English. This way, the student will get used to the language that the teacher used, understand

it, then they will copy it, and they will think that “since the teacher is talking to me in

English, I’d better reply in English as well”, this way they can try to communicate in English

naturally. This interaction should be balanced with some light English lesson every day, for

example games, having fun activity, singing English nursery rhymes, and other activity. This

way children will slowly and gradually start to caught a few vocabulary and understand the

language, also they will be able to communicate in English. As long as they have the

environment where they can immerse and absorb the language, they will be able to naturally

use the language. When they get older, we can take it to another step like for example having

them speak in front of the class to introduce themselves, do story-telling, or even singing.

This way they will be able to practice speaking and build up their confidence in using

English. Giving them reward when they speak in English might as well build enthusiasm to

use English.

The third and final things that is important is consistency. Every people that learns

something must be consistence in learning that things, especially language. If they just learn

the language very hard then suddenly stop for a long period, they tends to forget the language

they have learned which means that all their hard work to learn that language will be wasted.

Language learning needs to be balanced with a consistence learning. It doesn’t have to be

every day, but regularly. As long as there is a source where learners can at least listen or use

the language like television program, song, other people, or any available source, they won’t

forget the language. For example, this student had been learning English since preschool, he

was as good as a native, but suddenly he moved to another school. This new school have a

different curriculum where they don’t really teach English. On account of that, the student

don’t have any opportunities yet any source to learn more; so he forget about how to speak in
English. When there is something coming, and it requires him to use English, for example

national exam, He wouldn’t be able to do the test or he have to re-study English again. This

will take a lot of time and effort. Therefore, to avoid this unnecessary time-taking things, it is

important to be consistence in learning the language. Better if they can use the language

every day. This way, people can keep their ability to speak in English longer, and they can

also improve the language to another level. Therefore, school should include English learning

in their curriculum, and encourage English education.

All in all, the question of “how to improve English education in Sri Lanka” can be

answered by doing some important and necessary approaches. Being a country that is still

have low proficiency in English, Sri Lanka should start to realize and aware that English is

important. It can help them to improve their economy condition and their life as well. By

having children interact with someone who only speak in English to them can help children

to understand English faster. If they’re consistent in learning the language, they can keep on

remembering the language and eventually improve the language. By doing this, we can

improve English education in Sri Lanka.