By Abdul Khaleque Khandker

Millions of students and people of other professions in our country are trying to be able to speak English the English way. But frankly to say most of them fail to achieve their desired goals. Why?

Spoken English and written English are obviously different things.

Writing consist of letters or marks in books or on papers which can make no sound and are taken in by the eye, whilst speaking is organized sounds, taken in by the ear. How can a book, which is nothing but marks on paper, help anyone to make their English or any other language to sound better or at least, like that language perfectly?

Language starts with the ear. When a baby starts to talk, he does it by hearing the sound his mother makes or imitating them. English being a foreign language, a student starts learning it from his teacher at schools.

Unfortunately to say our teachers, whether know or not, English language consist of two basic elements. English Alphabet and Phonetic Alphabet. From A to Z all the 26 letters are called English Alphabet and to pronounce English letters some 44 symbols are used, -  all these 44 symbols are called Phonetic Alphabet.

English Alphabet is used for writing English. But Phonetic Alphabet is used for speaking English.

For example : ‘A’ is an English letter. We pronounce it ‘এ’ as we learn from our teachers. But there is no ‘এ’ in English Alphabet.  The pronunciation of ‘A’ is  eɪ=এই।  Letter টি ‘এ’ নয়।

We have learnt to speak only in strong form of English but the use of weak forms is an essential part of English speaking. We must learn to use the weak forms of 35 English words if we want our English to sound English, hence while speaking we must keep half of some words within our mouths as the native speakers do.

" ə pi:s əv  peɪpə(r)/য়া ফীস য়াভ ফেইপা"? অর্থাৎ pepper, pepə(r)/ফেপা(র) = মরিচ;  and  paper, peɪpə(r) ফেইপা(র) অর্থ কাগজ।  The reason why the symbol ‘p’ becomes ‘ফ’ is also to be known. P symbol টি ‘ফ’ হওয়ারও কারন আছে। জানতে হবে।

In this way, due to lack of the knowledge of phonetics our English teachers in the primary and secondary schools teach the students totally in wrong pronunciation and in only strong form. But speaking in strong form only will never sound English like the English. There are 35 words in English that have to be pronounced the half and half will be within the mouth as the native English speaker do.

Why is this writing of mine? It is that, in the name of Communicative English in our national curricula, we are trying to present the young students of our schools conversational English but, in my opinion, it is ending in fiasco.

As remedy I may say, we must prepare phonetically trained English teachers for primary schools so that the students of tender ages learn correct pronunciation of English words just like the ‘Noorani’ teachers teach Arabic in Madrashas.

English is an international language and the medium of higher studies. To teach our students good English means to develop human resources.  Therefore,  we cannot belittle the importance of learning English the English way.