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C. TEACHERS

The teachers' opinion were also ascertained on the following points :

1. Number of languages the teachers prefer to be taught
2. Motivation for learning of languages
3. Difficulties faced by the students in learning of languages
4. Difficulties faced by the teachers in the teaching of languages

As in the case of parents here area-wise analysis of data was done, classifying the teachers into categories-first, rural and semiurban, and the second, urban. Since little variation was found in the responses of teachers from the two areas-rural and semiurban - they were combined together for the purposes of analysis and interpretation. We are now going to discuss, one by one, each of the above mentioned points on which the opinions of the teachers were sought.

1. Preferred number of languages

The percentage distribution of the responses of the teachers to the question as to how many languages the students should be taught is presented below in Table 9.

Table 9

Percentage Distribution of Teachers' opinion regarding
the Number of Language to be taught in the school

	Category I	Category II	Category III	Category IV
Preferred No. of Languages   à  AREA â	2	3	4 & above	Total of categories
OVERALL Rural - Semi-urban Urban	9.7 -- 13.0	53.2  81.3 43.5	37.1  18.7   43.5	90.3 100.0   87.0

From the perusal of the above table the following trends emerge.
It appears that a larger percentage of teachers (53.2%) prefer the teaching of three languages only. A smaller percentage (37.1%) prefers the teaching of four and more languages. This is just the opposite of the responses of the parents and the students where a larger percentage preferred four and more languages, and a smaller one only three languages (eg. Table 1 and 5). This trend is also reflected in the area-wise analysis. This shows that while the teachers are in favour of teaching several languages (90.3% of them prefer the teaching of three and more languages), the majority of them would like to stick to the present policy of teaching of three languages only. The teachers, unlike parents and students, have to share the major thrust of language teaching programme and, therefore, they are cautious and realistic than getting overswayed by enthusiasm without considering the condition and realizing the consequences.

The above trend is fully supported by the rural-semi urban teachers from whom 81.3% prefer to stick to the teaching of only three languages. It appears that the rural teachers are overwhelmingly in favour of teaching of three languages (none of them want only two) as they have in mind first the aspirations of the rural and semiurban society to compete with the fast moving urban society, and secondly, the needs of the nation. However, they are extremely cautious at the same time, when it comes to exceed the limits of three languages. They are aware of the teaching conditions and are, therefore, very realistic in their preference. The urban teachers do not present a very clear picture since they are evenly divided (43.5% each) over the question of teaching only three languages and four and more languages. Even 13% of them would like the teaching of two languages only. Even 13% of them would like the teaching of two languages only. Though such teachers are in a small minority yet it shows that there are in our schools, particularly the urban ones, some teachers who, for whatever be the reason, do not favour the three language formula and would like teaching of two languages to be sufficient for the needs of the society. Over the question of teaching of several languages there are equally strong two shades of opinion. The first is a conformist one supporting the teaching of three languages to be sufficient as part of our national language policy. The second set of opinion does not consider three languages to be enough considering the needs of a modern child. They probably have in mind the teaching of mother-tongue, English, Hindi, a classical language and an international language. They also consider the urban atmosphere and the teaching conditions conducive to learning of four and more languages.

2. Motivation for learning of languages
In order to investigate the extent of motivation present in the teachers for the teaching of languages, eight advantages of language learning, teaching, serving as incentives for motivating the teachers, were suggested to them. They were expected to show either their agreements or disagreements to each advantage. The statements were as follows:

1. It is interesting to teach languages
2. It helps in studying different schools subjects
3. It helps in scoring overall good marks
4. It helps in higher studies
5. It helps in getting jobs
6. It helps in talking to people speaking different languages
7. It helps in travelling to different parts of the country
8. It helps in enjoying cinema, magazines, radio programmes etc.

The percentage distribution of the responses of the teachers to each of the above statements is presented below in Table10

Table 10
Percentage Distribution of Teachers' Opinion regarding
Motivation for Learning of Languages

Motivation--> Area	Interesting to teach language	Helps in studying different school subjects	Helps in scoring over-all good marks	Help in getting jobs	Helps in higher studies	Helps in talking to people	Helps in travelling to different parts of the country	Helps in enjoying cinema,magzine etc.
OVER ALL	100.0	77.4	82.3	88.7	75.8	87.1	75.8	88.7
Rural and Semi Urban	100.0	78.9	89.5	100.0	84.2	94.7	84.2	89.5
Urban	100.0	76.7	79.1	83.7	72.1	83.7	72.1	88.4

The following trends seem to emerge from the above table.
The overall percentages show that the teachers, like the students, and their parents, are highly motivated. A very high percentage of them, irrespective of the area to which they belong, consider learning of several languages to be advantageous. However, the range of variation in preferences in the case of teachers is very high ranging between 100 percent to 75.8 percent. This only shows that they have responded on the merits of each advantage. Both the students and the teachers are directly connected with the situation yet the former have more experience to assess realistically each advantage of learning several languages.

The overall percentage shows that all the teachers (100% have agreed with the statement that it is interesting to teach languages. This is exactly the case with the rural semiurban and urban teachers also. This is only expected and a welcome feature that our language teachers consider their work to be interesting. At least they say so. The four statements, over which agreements are high, are in order 'help in higher studies' and 'help in enjoying cinema, magazines etc. (88.7% each), 'help in talking to people' (87.1%) and 'help in scoring overall good marks' (82.3%). It will appear that these four advantages have been selected both from the integrative and non-formal educational incentives. Similar is the trend with the statements of comparatively lower agreements, which in order are 'help in getting jobs, and help in travelling to different parts of the country' (75.8% each). As a result of their experience the teachers, as a professional expert body, have picked up those advantages or incentives which are immediate as well as long range, instrumental as well as integrative and academic as well as non-academic. The long range help which language renders in higher studies, both in one's country and abroad, is considered to be the most advantageous feature of learning several languages. Equally advantageous if considered the immediate one like enjoying cinema, magazine etc. This is closely followed by the advantage, 'talking to people speaking different languages'. Similar is the case with the incentive scoring of overall good marks. However, preference is lower for the advantage 'help in studying different school subjects, which is not surprising in view of the fact that the medium of instruction or the text books are in regional languages which the students know very well by the time they reach the secondary stage. Similarly 'help in travelling to different parts of the country' is considered to be a very remote advantage since not many students or teachers get the opportunity or travelling to far of places. If at all they get, it is very infrequent. To conclude the teachers have picked up those incentives which on the basis of their experience they consider to be more practical and realistic, and hence more advantageous.

The above trend is supported both by the rural-semiurban and the urban teachers. One striking feature of area wise analysis is that a higher percentage of rural-semiurban teachers, in comparison to the urban ones, have given their preferences for all the statements listed as advantages of learning several languages. It appears that these teachers are guided by the needs and aspirations of a growing rural semiurban society, whose children, for their upward mobility, have now to interact more and more with people and situation much different and far away from the confines of the environment in which they presently live. This interpretation will be evident if we examine those statements, which have evoked a very big difference in the response percentages of the urban and rural-semiurban teachers. These statements, on the one hand, include advantages like talking to different people and travelling widely to far corners of the country and, on the other also include those like getting good marks and securing high positions in life. The specific advantages which are given below show how the rural-semiurban teachers imagine for their pupils, who are being taught several languages an indeed wide spectrum for communication, interaction and growth.

1. 'Helps in higher studies' (Rural-semiurban-100% and urban 83.7%)
2. 'Helps in getting jobs' (Rural-semiurban 84.2% and urban 72.1%)
3. 'Helps in talking to people' (Rural-semiurban 94.7% and urban 83.7%)
4. 'Helps in travelling to different parts of the country' (Rural-semiurban 84.2% and urban 72.1%)

5. 'Helps in scoring overall good marks' (Rural-semiurban 89.5% and urban 79.1%)
Both the urban and rural-semiurban teachers have given comparatively lower preference for the advantage 'help in studying different school subjects' (urban 76.7% and rural-semiurban 78.9%). The reason for it has already been discussed. The students also have given their lowest preference for this advantage of learning several languages (cf. Table 2).

It will appear from the above discussion that the teachers find multifold advantages emerging from the learning and teaching of several languages. On the whole, they are very realistic and practical in their assessment. More of rural semiurban teachers comparison to urban ones, find learning of languages to be advantageous from different angles.

3. Difficulties faced by the students in language learning

The two components of language teaching programme, the students and teachers are exposed to continuous bi-directional interjection. The teachers are, therefore, in a position to appreciate and pinpoint the possible difficulties faced by the students in the task of learning several languages. Hence, seven statements related to the possible difficulties faced by the students were put before the teachers, who were expected to show either their agreements or disagreements to them. These statements which represented three areas - pedagogic, environmental and curricular were as follows :

1) Pedagogic

a. Language learning is difficult because learning of grammars for different languages, at the same time, create confusion.

b. It is difficult because learning of different scripts, at the same time, create confusion.

2) Environmental

a. It is difficult because there is no occasion to use the language for practice.
b. It is difficult because no extra coaching at home is available.

3) Curricular

a. It is difficult because there are many other subjects to learn.
b. It is difficult because there are too many text-books to study in each language.
c. It is difficult because lessons are not interesting.

The percentage distribution of teachers' responses to each of the statements is presented in Table 11.

Table 11
Percentages Distribution of Teachers' opinion regarding
Difficulties faced by their students in language learning

Nature of Difficulty	AREA
	OVERALL	Rural-semiurban	Urban
A.PEDAGOGIC 1. Confusion in learning different grammars 2.  Confusion in scripts of different languages B.  ENVIRONMENTAL 1)  No occasion to use the language for practice 2)  No extra coaching at home C.  CURRICULAR 1)  Many other subjects to learn 2)  Too many textbooks to study in each language 3)  Lessons not interesting	38.7 30.7   59.7 74.2   43.6 33.9 41.9	63.2 52.6   68.4 94.76   52.6 31.6 42.1	27.9 20.9   55.8 5.1   39.5 34.9 41.9

The following trends emerge from the above table. It appears from the overall results that quite a sizable percentage of teachers (above 30% in all the cases) consider learning of languages to be difficult for the students from all the seven aspects. However, percentage wise, the first four items of difficulty show that the teachers consider environment followed by curriculum to be the major sources of difficulty. The four items are as follows:

i) 'No extra coaching at home' (Environmental-74.2%)
ii) 'No occasion to use the language for practice ' (Environmental-59.7%)
iii) 'Many other subjects to learn (Curricular-43.6%)
iv) Lessons not interesting (Curricular 41.9%)

The other three items for which the percentages are comparatively lower include both the statements form the pedagogic area (Confusion in learning different grammars-38.6% and 'Confusion in scripts of different languages-30.7%) and one from the curricular area ('too many textbooks to study in each language-33.9).

The most striking feature of the data is that the pedagogic area is considered to be the source of least difficulty. The environmental and curricular sources are received as major handicaps. Though both parents and parents also consider environment to be a major source of difficulty, quite a large percentage among them have selected items of difficulty from other areas also (cf Table 3 and 8). In fact for the largest percentage of the student the maximum difficulty is confronted in the pedagogic area (different grammars create confusion 50.5% cf Table 3). Secondly, though lack of environmental and familial reinforcements have been considered to be a major handicap by the students and parents, the percentages in the case of teachers so is much higher than those of the parents and students. Similarly, out of the two environmental handicaps 'no occasion to use the language for practice and 'no extra-coaching at home', the latter has been stressed by a very high percentage of teachers and the former by the students. Thirdly the curricular difficulties have been relatively more emphasized by the teachers than the students and their parents. Besides the difficulty, many other subjects to learn which has been stressed by parents and students also, though by a lesser percentage, the Item lessons not interesting has been emphasized by a sizable percentage of teachers.

While reacting to these statements the teachers were expected to put themselves in the situation of students and perceive from their point of view the possible difficulties faced by them in learning of several languages. However, perception, to a great extent, depends upon personal factors and one's own past experience. One theory of perception has suggested that, 'we perceive thing as we are not as the things are'. The famous psychologist Charles Osgood perceived a shop number '400 d as food' when he was hungry. Similarly one psychologist remarked that he did not know what Mr. X perceived in his mother but so far as he himself was concerned he saw the lady either as an old ugly woman as a beautiful one fit to be a night's companion. What we want to emphasize is the fact the perception is a highly tricky affair and what others perceive about him. Therefore, it is not surprising to find differences in the three ways of perceiving the same situation by the direct consumers students, either parents and the teachers. The defence system of teachers may also possibly work to influence their perception of students' problems. As a result they throw the major share of the blame on the homes of the students which do not provide extra coaching, and to the curriculum itself. The pedagogic problems are comparatively underestimated. However, this is the one way of viewing the data.

There are other possible reasons also. As a mature professional body with large asset of teaching experience, the teachers are in a much better position than the students themselves or the indirectly concerned parents, to critically assess the curriculum. They, therefore, consider the language lessons to be not interesting enough to sustain the interest of the students. They also feel that the student have many other subjects to learn and hence, they cannot devote themselves adequately to the study of the language subjects. Secondly, the students are in a better position than the teachers to assess the pedagogic problems. They are directly concerned with them since they are the recipients of the system. Teachers as givers are in a less advantageous position to make the difficulty. Thirdly, the role of environment in the learning of several languages, which has already been discussed earlier, is well supported by the teachers' responses also. The environmental factor, 'no extra coaching at home' may have been stressed most because the teachers have to face in the class room students coming from different socio-economic, cultural and educational backgrounds with varying opportunities for coaching at home. May be what the teachers are attempting to do is undone by the lack of academic climate in the home and also because of the neglect of the students whose needs are hardly appreciated.

The students discussed above are particularly supported by the urban teachers. They stress most the environmental factors followed by the curricular. They perceive the pedagogic area as offering the least obstacle to learning of several languages. The first five items of difficulty according to them are as follows :

:i) 'No extra coaching at home' (Environmental-65.1%)
ii) 'No occasion to use the language for practice' (Environmental 55.8%)
iii) 'Lessons not interesting' (Curriclar-41.9%)
iv) 'Many other subjects to learn' (Curricular 39.5%)
v) 'Too many textbooks to study in each language' (Curricular-34.9%)
The two pedagogic problems ('Confusion in learning in different grammars 1-27.9% and confusion in learning scripts of different languages-20.9%) have been considered to be the source of difficulty by a very low percentage of urban teachers. However, things are different with the rural-semiurban teachers, who emphasize most the environmental factors followed by the pedagogic and curricular. The first five items of difficulty according to them are as follows:

i) 'No extra coaching at home' (Environmental 94.7%)
ii) 'No occasion to use the language in practice' (Environmental-68.4%)
iii) 'Confusion in learning different grammars' (Pedagogic-63.2%)
iv) 'Confusion in script, of different languages'(Pedagogic-52.6%)
v) 'Many other subjects to learn' (Curricular-52.6%)

The other two items which have been slightly less emphasized are from the curricular area. They are 'lessons not interesting' (42.1%) and 'too many text book to study in each language' (31.6%). It appears that a larger percentage of rural-semiurban teachers, in comparison to the urban ones, have stressed all the seven items of difficulties. It is understandable since the rural-semiurban conditions differ greatly from the urban conditions. The facilities for the learning of several languages are much better in the cosmopolitan urban society. More parents are also educated there to help their wards. The urban schools, on the whole, are better equipped for the purpose. Therefore, the urban teachers do not see the difficulties faced by the rural-semiurban students in the same perspective as their own teachers do. It is, therefore, not surprising that almost all the semiurban teachers emphasize the environmental factor, 'no extra coaching at home' (94.7%) and a very large percentage of them, the item 'no occasion to use the language for practice' (68.4%).

Secondly, there is a very big differences between the two groups of teachers in the assessment of pedagogic difficulties which have been considered to be obstacles to the learning of several languages by a, comparatively, a very large percentage of rural-semiurban teachers of the fact that they are not enough equipped with the modern methodology of language teaching, particularly with those of the second and third languages, to handle effectively its nuances and problems. Urban teachers who are, perhaps, better equipped do not consider pedagogy of language teaching to be an obstacle in the way of learning of language teaching by the students. However, there may be one more interpretation of this wide gap between the two groups of teachers. It is possible that urban sophistication comes in the way of correct assessment of the pedagogic difficulties in which, in a sense, the teachers have to assess themselves also since they are directly involved. It is not the case with the environmental and the curricular areas which are not their creation. Since quite a high percentage of urban students including those from Central schools find difficulty with the pedagogy of language teaching, one cannot completely rule out this interpretation.

Thirdly the curricular area has not only been comparatively more emphasized by the urban teachers but there is difference also in the choice of specific items from this area. The rural - semiurban teachers emphasize most 'many other subjects to learn' (52.6%) but the urban teachers stress the item 'Lessons are not interesting' (41.9%). It is not that the rural-semiurban teachers have not done s, but in the intra-group emphasis the urban teachers emphasize the three items from the curricular area more than the pedagogic one, which is the vice-versa with rural-semiurban teachers. The only possible reasons seems to be the better opportunity that is available to the urban teachers for academic interaction and training which make them a little more conscious and critical about the curriculum.

To conclude the language teachers are aware of the difficulties faced by the students in learning of several languages. On the whole they consider the environment to be the biggest source of obstacle followed by the curricular and pedagogic areas.

4. Difficulties faced in language teaching
Seven statements, which included different types of problems related to the teaching of languages, were presented to the teachers in order to investigate the difficulties that may might be facing in course of language teaching. They were asked to react to each of the following statements by way of showing agreement or disagreement.
1. Lack of modern aids.
2. Lack of training in modern techniques of language teaching
3. Sufficient time is not allotted to language teaching
4. Work load of language teacher does not permit sufficient time for language teaching
5. Language teaching requires more preparation than the teaching of other subjects
6. Language teaching is a burden because a lot of time has to be devoted to correction
7. Mixed mother-tongue groups are in the same class.
The percentage distributions of the teachers' responses to each of these statements is presented below in Table 12.

The following trends emerge from the perusal of the above table.

A sizable percentage of teachers, ranging between the maximum of 77.4 percent to the minimum of 41.9 percent state hat they have to face all the seven difficulties in course of teaching of languages. The same trend is found when the data are analyzed area-wise. This shows the alround impediments which these teachers have to face in discharge of their duties as language teachers. Indirectly it reflects the state of language teaching in our schools.

Lack of modern teaching aids and lack of training in modern techniques of language teaching are first the two difficulties which have been highlighted by the largest percentage of the teachers (77.4% and 66.1% respectively). Language teaching has now developed as a highly sophisticated and complex discipline. The techniques for teaching of mother tongue and the second and third languages are very different and each require not only advanced training but also different types of audio-visual aids to assist in teaching. The responses of the teacher show that our schools lack modern teaching equipment and the teachers themselves feel their deficiencies. We have already discussed in chapter 1 the gap found between teachers' competence and curricular demands in teaching of mother-tongue right from the lower and upper primary to the secondary stages. We have also discussed how in India no awareness has been shown in distinguishing between teaching a language, learning about a language and learning through a language. These observations are fully supported by the responses of the teachers, who also find that as language teachers they have to face several difficulties, the most important among them being thenon-availability of modern teacing aids and lack of training and facilities in modern language teaching techniques. Both these are problems are related to the pedagogy of language teaching which have been highlighted by the students also. The largest percentage of the students find learning of several languages to be difficult because of the confusion created by the grammars of different languages (50.5%; cf. Table 3).

The modern developments in the techniques of language teaching put a great pressure on the teachers' time, who have to use their imaginatives and make a lot of preparations for the teaching. A very high percentage of teachers (68.1%) find language teaching difficult of other subjects. It does not appear that the teachers want to shirk away from their legitimate duty of making preparations and, therefore, find language teaching difficult. In the case such a large percentage would not have so candidly confessed so. The fact is that they lack the necessary competence and training for making the preparations and since they have to struggle hard to compensate, as far as possible, for these difficulties they find the very task of making preparations to be difficult. They may not also have sufficient time at their disposal because of the teaching load 62.9 percent of the teachers have stated that the work load of language teachers is more. It is not an uncommon phenomenon to find the schools running short of teachers and the language teachers being forced to teach other subjects as well, thus increasing their teaching load. Quite a large percentage of teachers (56.5%) feel that time allotted to language in the curriculum is not sufficient. However, a very small percentage of students find language learning to be difficult because of it. We have discussed earlier (cf. chapter 2) that 12½% of the total instructional hours is allotted to each first and the second language, though only 7½% of the total time is devoted to the teaching of the third language, which is, ofcourse, taught with limited objections. The other subjects also are more or less allotted the same time. May be by suggesting these difficulties the teachers are giving vent to their feeling that sufficient important has to be given to the language teachers and language teaching and that they should be give more time and freedom to organize the language teaching programmes. It also suggests, though in a remote way, that since these facilities are not there in many schools language teaching becomes a difficult exercise.

Quite a high percentage of teachers (56.5%) find difficulty due to the presence in the language class of mixed mother tongue groups. This difficulty the teachers must be finding mostly with the second and third language teaching. This certainly cannot be helped, particularly in urban areas since it would be neither feasible nor desirable to have language separated on the basis of mother tongue for the second and third language teaching, has to take care of this difficulty. Had the teacher been trained with the modern techniques of the second and third language teaching, they would not have felt the difficulty. The lowest percentage of teachers (41.9%) find language teaching to be difficult because a lot of time has to be devoted to correction of exercises. This difficulty may be related to the facts that as language teachers they are burdened with more work load, as also with the long teaching preparation they have to do for teaching the languages. It is also a fact that language exercises are longer in length in comparison to those of science and mathematics. They have to be meticulously checked for mistakes in grammar and the improvement of expressions.

The area-wise analysis fully supports what has been discussed throughout, in the section. One string feature is that far more rural teachers, in comparison to the urban ones, find language teaching to be difficult from all the suggested six of the seven angles. This is due to the fact that rural teaching conditions are different and less conducive to the teaching of languages. Urban conditions seem to be better so that comparatively lesser percentage of teacher experience these difficulties. The only difficulty which is felt more by the urban teachers (urban 66.9% and rural 43.8%) is the presence of mixed mother-tongue groups in the same class. This is understandable as this is essentially an urban problem where the presence of diverse cultural and linguistic groups does create difficulty in terms of existence of linguistic diversity in the urban classroom. Except for the two difficulties in presence of mixed mother tongue groups in the same class (43.8%) and lot of time has to be devoted to correction of exercises (56.3%) there is not much of diversity in the rural semiurban data since more than 75 percent or more teachers experience the rest of the suggested difficulties. Among these, largest percentage of teachers emphasizes the two difficulties-lack of modern teaching aids (87.5%) and lack of training in modern techniques of language teaching (81.3%). Considering the conditions of the rural schools and the less difficulties for teachers' training available there, these, difficulties are only expected. Even the urban teachers, though in lesser percentage (lack of modern teaching aids 73.9% and lack of training in modern techniques of language teaching 60.9%) feel these difficulties.

The above discussion will show that by and large language teacher are well conscious of the difficulties facing their task either in the form of their own inadequacies or in the form of lack of teaching facilities and appreciation of the importance of their work. The difficulties and the constraints under which the language teachers have to function may possibly affect the quality of teaching of languages, which may lead the students to the illusion of language load.