English Syllabus Is Less Significant?

D

on’t rush while teaching. Plus, as an English teacher, I have no reason to do so. Do you? This might probably sound rather inapplicable for other subjects. I don’t know. Yet, for the subject of English, I firmly believe that there’s nothing to rush.

Teaching all topics in the English textbook isn’t supposed to be what I aim at – but I don’t mean the topics aren’t good enough and, actually, there’re loads of general knowledge as well as information a school student can acquire from. Undeniable.

Teachers could be the happiest persons whether they’ve managed to finish the syllabus earlier while their students themselves feel all scared, troubled for failing to comprehend the topic pretty well. What a pity! The students will be the exam candidates, remember? Not the teachers. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Finishing the syllabus isn’t a must. Even, to my mind, this is utterly absurd. Because neither am I teaching facts like Science nor formulae like Mathematics. And, the truth is, I am an English teacher. Teaching English should be a little bit different. It must be.

At the end of every lesson, my students are expected to have acquired something. Something called knowledge. The main focus, anyhow, must be a lot more upon the English mastery itself. Yeah, I’d love to highlight the mastery here. Because, after all, we want the students to master the language, don’t we?

There’re four learning skills i.e. reading, listening, speaking, writing + grammar. If reading, the students should be able to pronounce words accurately (Should they pronounce words as accurately as Mat Salleh? Of course not!) and read more fluently.

If listening, they’d be able to understand what I talk about. If speaking, they’re expected to be able to speak a little English. If writing + grammar, they’re hoped to be able to construct a few sentences in the foreign language correctly.

Have all the teachers got the right mindset that nothing to rush in teaching the language, I’m pretty sure that the teaching objectives of the English Language in school will successfully be achieved in the end, Insha-ALLAH (God willing).

Anything will work out when one does it the right way!