In India, a country of many languages, English has come to be the language of power, social mobility and aspiration thanks to its historical, political and economic status. In such a scenario, we acknowledge the right of people to have access English, and the academic need for English given its market demand and its place as an international language of knowledge exchange. However, the dominance of English in trade, commerce, science, technology, communication and the electronic media has cast a long shadow on languages defined by their regions (Kannada or Gujarati, for example), creating a tendency for monolingualism. 

Those without adequate levels of English suffer from social exclusion and isolation from the mainstream. There is a need to problematise the relationship between English and local languages and create a neutral view of English as another second language. The profession of English Language Training needs to ​‘de-elitise’ English by creating universal access and making students aware of the politics around the language. It is our belief that there needs to a culturally sensitive, multilingual paradigm for language learning and we will explore this in this course. You will be taken through an overview of seminal theories of language learning, current practices of teaching English and introduced to methods to plan and implement lessons using different principles for contexts, levels and topics. 

In this course you will locate English in the Indian postcolonial context and educational setting with an overview of national and state policies on English, the psychological and sociological aspects of teaching and learning it, and the role of the mother tongue in this process. This course involves a practicum in which you will study a specific class within the elementary education system of Karnataka.