ANUPAMA VOHRA (UNIVERSITY OF JAMMU)

REASSESSING THE ROLE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES : TEACHER EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

English Language Learning is an important component for survival and progression in today’s competitive era of globalization. In the context of Second Language Learners (SLL), English Language Learning(ELL) occupies a crucial place as English is not the mother tongue, and at times exposure to English in terms of situation, meaning and context/relation is also limited. Here the role of English Language Teachers becomes important both in the context of their learning of English and teaching of English to SLL. The English Language teacher has to perform multiple roles, within the inherent possibilities for personal and professional conflicts, time pressure, syllabus and autonomy, etc. Against this background the present paper makes an in-depth study of the issues and challenges of EL teachers in two important sectors of education, that is private and government institutions to show how the role and performance of teachers vary in the teaching of EL with a conclusion of the suggestive expectations both from EL Teachers and innovation from ‘top-down’ authorities for action learning. For the sample survey, two primary schools each from private and government sectors from Jammu are selected. The target students are from English class one to class five. The data has been collected from sample answer sheets and interviews with the English Language Teachers.

Dr. Anupama Vohra is a Professor of English in the Directorate of Distance & Online Education, University of Jammu. She is a member of Asia TEFL Her research areas are: ELT and Gender Studies. She is actively engaged in the teaching of communicative skills to students across all disciplines both at the school and college levels She has published three books and 40 papers in reputed journals.