Learning English At British Lingua

In his classroom, Jha provides his students spoken English and accent training sessions for two hours a day from morning till late in the evening. With interactive classes and audio-visual aides, students get to interact with their teacher to hone their English-speaking skills.Jha’s popularity is an indication of the increasing interest in India to speak English immaculately for career advancement. In turn, this desire to speak English well has led to the emergence of a new tribe of teachers and instructors busy conducting spoken English classes across the city.With the boom in call centre jobs and emerging knowledge-intensive sectors, Delhi is catering to a global market, thus making it imperative for all to know English.“In a global city like Delhi, knowledge of spoken English is a must for everyone. Otherwise no amount of degrees or diplomas is going to help a job hunter. Even those who are employed have to speak proper English to rise in their career ladder,†said Dr SC Mishra, professor of political science in Delhi University. Echoing Mishra, Jha said: "When I started giving classes in spoken English from a one-room tenement in Patna some 13 years back, I had no inkling that one day I would take it up as a full-fledged career. The demand to learn English is on rise among all in Delhi and other places in India. Thus, many convent- educated people with a good command in the language have opened up institutes where they are providing short-term courses in spoken English."Along with teaching thousands of students at various study centres of British Lingua in Delhi, Bihar, UP and Jharkhand, Jha has numerous students enrolled for his correspondence course.There is no official figure for the number of such teachers, but unofficial estimates put it at over 3,000, both part-time and full time. There are also a number of commercially run English teaching centres and academies.The duration of the courses vary from two to five months and the fees range from Rs. 2,500 to Rs.10,000.The profile of the students too is varied - right from a tenth grader who wrote his exams in the Hindi medium and is in search of a job as a housekeeper to an BPO professional who wants to hone his English to deal with his foreign clientele.Thus, the course modules have been designed to meet the varied needs, with most of the institutes and individual teachers focussing on teaching the nuances of spoken English, along with basic grammar. Further, accent training is given to students who have a mother tongue influence (MTI) while pronouncing English words.Jha also teach students to write and construct correct sentences in English to help them speak English easily. Reading and writing skills are also taught to students to improve their command over the language, said Jha.Jha, who founded British Lingua in 1993, added, “Ours id an organisation which aims at training more and more people to speak proper English and also to become self learners even after the formal training is over.Learning the language from experts helps to hone our skills in speaking English without any inhibition. I have recently completed my spoken English course at British Lingua and am planning to join a call centre. With my strong hold over the language and a wide vocabulary, I am confident of getting a job, said 22-year-old Shruti Sharma.It is not just students and professionals who are queuing up in these institutes. Even housewives  and elderly women are enrolling themselves in these institutes to learn English.Kavita Jain, a homemaker and mother of three sons, is also planning to get herself admitted to one of these institutes to brush up on her English.I want to speak the language impeccably as at times I find myself embarrassed in front of people due to my lack of fluency in English, she said.The rush for the right accent looks set to grow in the city as it continues its rapid pace of growth fuelled not by just BPO and IT but also by the realty and retail sectors.Deepak Kumar Singh, Freelance Journalist, Delhi, India