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English language training centres (ETCs) have become increasingly ubiquitous in urban India over the last two decades. Such centres promise individuals not just fluency in the language but also professional 'success' in the urban job market, particularly in the retail and service sectors. ETCs seek to reconceptualise the English language as a workplace 'skill' and primarily target individuals who did not have access to an education in English. However, the refashioning of English as a skill intersects with the power of English as socio-cultural capital, just as the work of such centres intersects with the aspirations of its learners and the expectations of employers. Teaching English as a 'skill' is therefore embedded both in the wider discourse of urban skill-training that aims to produce a desirable labour force, and in the dynamics of language power, cultural capital, class mobility and ideas of desirable personhood. The present ethnographic case study of an ETC in Delhi analyses this convergence and examines whether the reconceptualisation of English as skill democratises access to the language or, conversely, engenders newer registers of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological inquiries on parental involvement seldom consider the investments parents make in themselves to realise educational advantages in their children's schooling. This gap hides the processes underlying class-making and class-produced privileges. To address this gap, this article investigates middle-class mothers' participation in tutoring and coaching for spoken English in Dehradun, India, focusing on their reasons for soliciting such paid tutoring support. It shows that mothers subscribe to these services to facilitate home-teaching, productive communication with their children, and effective home-school partnerships. Mothers' subscription to private tuition emerges in this context as a source of cultural capital that parents use to unlock their middle-class identity and privilege in the educational landscape. The article argues that English private tutoring is a case of a capital exchange – economic for cultural and social forms of capital – which parents may use to accumulate key resources and produce, maintain, and intergenerationally sustain their middle-classness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive work on the description of Indian English(es), only limited attention has been paid to attitudes towards the variety among its speakers. This paper reports on semi‐structured interviews eliciting language attitudes with 32 educated young students and professionals in Hyderabad, India. Results reveal that Indian English is occupying an increasingly legitimate position within the popular consciousness, and that there is an increasing sense of ownership of a supra‐local or pan‐dialectal 'Indian English'. There is an expressed desire for Indian English to continue to expand, and to be accepted as one of the authentic languages of India. The participants exhibited relatively high levels of linguistic security, and while a certain 'nostalgia' for British English was retained by some, Indian English appears to be emerging as an authentic carrier of Indian identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English is a global language and of wider communication. It is needed in the fields of science and technology, medicine, law and administration of the country and with the speakers of other languages across the globe. English is the international language and means of communication than any other language in the world. Developing communication skills may give scope to the talented students to express their ideas to the world. Access to spoken English enables to transform our ideas, views, opinions, thoughts, emotions, to obtain information from others and to solve problems and issues. Spoken English is a gateway to improve and achieve success in career of the students. Hence English occupies a prominent place in the education system too. It is taught compulsorily in almost all the states of India so that it can be means of communication of people belonging to different states as well as countries. The present study is an attempt to study the needs of the students to use English as the medium of communication and explore the ways of helping the students to speak fluently and confidently which is useful for them in seeking employment and achieve success in their career. The use of correct pronunciation and intonation, speaking coherently on a topic are the objectives of this study. Method: The study was conducted in two phases – Pre intervention stage and Intervention stage. In Pre-intervention stage students voices were recorded to know whether their pronunciation is well and later the students' questionnaire, teachers' questionnaire were administered and analysed. Finally information about the selection process and the expectations were collected from the employers. Learners need to be fluent and accurate in speech production. The fear of being inaccurate is a barrier which hinders fluent speech in the learners. Data was collected about students' and their problems related to spoken English. The teachers' and students' opinion prescribed textbook and the teaching methodology was collected. The gathered information was used to develop the materials keeping in mind the students' needs required for employment. Tasks have been widely used to elicit language production, negotiation of meaning, processing of input and focus on form, all of which are believed to foster the second language. The supplementary materials were designed in which undergraduate level students were exposed to different tasks and activities to practice communication skills in English in real life settings. The students participated in performing the tasks and activities individually and in a group. Conclusions: The study has catered to enhance the language skills required for academic and employment purposes. The primary concern was to enable the students able to communicate confidently and fluently in English. The gap between the prescribed textbook and present competence of the students was found by the research. The research has bought a friendly and relaxed atmosphere in the language classroom. The focus was on two-way communication and students felt they are part of the group and need to work together to reach higher outcomes, while the teacher was encouraged to facilitate and monitor her teaching making to reduce her talk time and allow students to practice the activities such as role-play, problem-solving, brain-storming, information gathering, opinion sharing, information transfer, reasoning gap. With the introduction of these activities the students' tend to learn fluently and accurately in the language classroom. The study allowed the students' to speak fluently with proper pronunciation and intonation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Policy makers are investing heavily in skill development programs. • Participation and completion rates in many of these programs remains low. • Investigates factors that prevent individuals from acquiring spoken English. • English is an important skill with potentially high returns in the labor market. • Multidimensional policy solutions are required to overcome the barriers to skill development. Abstract Skill development is viewed as an escape from the low education – high unemployment trap in developing countries. Despite investments in skill development programs, participation and completion rates in many programs remain low. We investigate factors that prevent individuals from acquiring spoken English, a skill with potentially high returns in the labour market. Using data from a field experiment in India, we find that offering subsidies increases the probability of participating in a spoken English training program. Simultaneously, distance to the training center, pre-existing knowledge of spoken English, and past enrolment in a similar course act as significant barriers to take-up. These findings suggest that multidimensional policy solutions are required to overcome barriers to skill development in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the performance of secondary level learners from ten schools affiliated to Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in district Barnala, Punjab with regard to speaking in English was examined and compared. 200 participants (100 each from schools affiliated to PSEB and CBSE) of grade 10 from ten schools (5 each from the two boards, and 20 students per school) were selected through random sampling procedure. The data, in the form of audio-recordings, was collected by administering a variety of questions to them regarding their day-to-day life. The analysis of the data was done on the basis of five components- Pronunciation, Grammar, Vocabulary, Fluency, and Comprehension. A significant difference in the performance of learners from the schools affiliated to the two boards was observed when 't-test' was applied to the data. Furthermore, the performance of the students from the two boards in five sub-skills of speaking was analysed by comparing their average scores against each skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Courses in Spoken English (SE) are yet to be acceptable in Indian universities because conducting session-end tests in SE is assumed to be logistically difficult and academically problematic. This article argues that it need not necessarily be so; session-end tests can be conducted just as in other courses. With voice recording, preferably a computer network in a local area, this can be done relatively easily, meeting all the demands of a standard test with respect to validity, reliability and ease of administration and evaluation. The article begins with a description of some reasons behind the unpopularity of SE tests, particularly at universities, and then talks about the features of a standard academic test. Finally, it reports the results and organization of a session-end test for a credit course in SE at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. This article also defines the items to be tested in a course in SE, and argues that there is greater need to test the features of continuous speech than those of the sounds in isolation. Tempo, phrasal pause, and word-stress deserve greater attention than segmental features. Recorded speech, particularly on the computer, can be as easily evaluated and stored for verification as a written text. Use of headphones can facilitate mass recording without compromising privacy, as required in an academic test. Testers can use more than one set of questions to test the predetermined aspects of SE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency of the passive in English has attracted the attention of many grammarians. Most analyses of the passive in English are based on Svartvik's study (1966) of the same. He finds out the frequency of the passive in various registers in his analysis and one of his main findings is the centrality of the agentless passive type in English. After applying his model to data collected from the two corpora of Indian English, it is found that the overall frequency of the passive in Indian English is almost the same as in British English. It is also found that the agentless passive type is the central passive type in Indian English, too. Another finding is that the frequency of the passive depends more on the formality scale and less on the medium (spoken or written). More formal types of register contain more passive clauses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]