JABBAR FAREEN (PDPM INDIAN INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, DESIGN & MANUFACTURING, JABALPUR)

THE NEED TO PROMOTE BILINGUAL COMMUNICATION IN ESL CLASSROOM: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY : MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Bilingual communication has been widely used in ESL classroom today. In technical institutions, most students face the problems in communicating in English and hence prefer to use their vernacular languages for their communication in the classrooms. As technical students need to communicate in English to face their job interviews, it is expected that students are liable to fluently communicate in English. As the job aspirants are liable to be confident while speaking English without code switching to their vernacular languages in recruitment drives, it has been a mandate that all the students need to have sufficient practice to learn and communicate in English. Hence, Students with Limited English Proficiency (SLEP) fluctuate between adopting English only and bilingual communication in the English classes. In light to address this concern, qualitative research is undertaken to explore the educational needs of the tertiary level technical students and their preferences in adopting bilingual communication in the classroom. Semi-structured and unstructured interviews are conducted with both teachers and students hailing from various disciplines to analyze their compatibility and interest in adopting bilingual communication. It is observed that both the teachers and students have their mixed interpretations on adopting bilingual communication in the classroom. It is also found that most students possess Mother Tongue Influences (MTI) and vernacular impulse while interacting with teachers and their peers, and hence they prefer bilingual communication for their classroom discussions.

Dr. Jabbar Al Muzzamil Fareen teaches English and Communication at PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design & Manufacturing, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India. She researches developing academic and workplace competency-based courses for helping students and professionals sustain their jobs in the long run of their professional growth and career advancements. Her research interests include communication skills, ESP, curriculum development & syllabus design, needs analysis, genre, skills and task-based pedagogy and classroom-based research. She has published papers related to ESL and ESP in both national and international refereed journals.