Demand-Supply Deficit in the Indian English Classroom: An Analysis

Abstract

The tertiary English classroom in India is full of challenges, but it is an irony that the English classroom is also the least challenging class for English teachers. English teachers are so liberal and magnanimous that they never problematize it. They fail to perceive that there is a huge deficit between demand and supply and this deficit causes frustration in both teachers and the taught. Since students do not get what they need, the class becomes unchallenging and docile. and students are satisfied with the mandatory pass in English. The classroom lacks vibrancy and vigour because students lose interest and remain unmotivated and teachers continue to be complacent and uncomplaining. The English classroom at the tertiary level in India is challenging for many reasons: its large size and heterogeneity, students’ favourable attitude but with little effort, teachers’ cavalier attitude and their limited competencies, institutions’ commercial outlook and lack of adequate, basic infrastructure, common textbooks and uniform testing, lang-lit dichotomy and langue-parole confusion, lack of teacher training and indigenous teaching methodology, privileging speech over writing, junior vs. senior controversy in allocation of language classes and so on. The present study concentrates on the actual and potential reasons behind the huge demand-supply deficit between students’ needs and delivery mechanism of such needs in the class.