Problems in teaching and learning English

Abstract
Teaching of English as a foreign language is a difficult task.A five year old
child acquires mastery of speaking the native language.With respect to a foreign
language like English, the mastery is achieved very very late.For free flow of
language the vocabulary in store and the correct usage help one.listening comes
first and speaking comes next.mother tongue plays a dominant role in learning any
language.languages differ in their structures.In amny languages there is one to
correspondence between the letters and pronounciation.In English it is not so and
hence the difficulty in learning the language.The wordbut is pronounced as/b^t/
whereas the word put is pronounced as/put.
When we read the words know,dept,psyche and walk we omit the letters
k,t,p and l. A teacher has to teach and a student has to learn the nuances of
English. A European and an umbrella are correct.prepositions can change the
meaning.Example He set fire to me.He set fire for me.Bread and butter is my bread
fast and Bread and butter are sold here- stand examples for concord.

Problems can be over come through skillful teaching and sincere learning.
Full paper
English is accepted as a universal language.it is spoken all over the world. It
is named as the window of the world.if an individual knows English he/she can go
round the world without any language problem. For many of the people English is
the mother tongue.many talented persons learn English and have competence in
using the languages.Some gifted scholars are branded as silver tongued orators and
they even surpass the native speakers. English is a growing language.It enjoys the
pride of having more than 50,000 words to its credit. English has a hand in all fields
where the human beings tread on. It has borrowed words from almost all languages
of the world and has enriched its vocabulary.
Now a days English has become a must in many walks of life.The necessity of
learning English has become more and more important. A native speaker of English
is at a privilege of getting masters over the language with in five years. He or she
becomes competent in using the language either in the spoken form or in the
written form. Those who dont have English as their mother tongue try very hard to
learn the same to attain the level of the native speakers. While learning the new
language a student has to know the structure of the language . language structures
differ from language to language. Anyhow mother tongue plays a dominant role in
learning a foreign language.
The Sentence pattern can be taken first,
Tamil sentence (in tamil)
I eat a fruit.
S

In Tamil object precedes the verb. In English verb precedes the object.
Tamil sentence (in tamil)
He went there.
S

We notice the change.

When we say (tamil sentence) .we get
Birds fly. Here no change in the order.
S

Let us take another sentence. I have never seen such a beautiful flower. When the
sentence is re written beginning with never, we have Never have I seen such a
beautiful flower. But in tamil no such change taken place.
Subject verb agreement is an another area where the students come across
problem.
1. Bread and butter is my breakfast.
2. Bread and butter are sold here.
The same subject takes a different verbs because of the usage.
To spell a word rightly is a problem for many . For example the words
believe, relieve, deceive, protein have the sound /I:/ in the middle. But the spelling
is different,
In the word gaol, the pronounciation (jail) doesnt agree with the spelling. In
the word lieutentant there is no f sound in spelling we have to note the
difference in but /b^t/ and put /put/.
Silent letters are another problem we have to omit the k sound on the words
know, knife, knowledge, and the t sound in dept,often. The sound p finds no
place in psyche,psychology.
Some peculiar words like vendezvous never fail to confuse the students. The
pronounciation is /rondeivu:/ .
The past tense and past participle of some verbs misguide the students.
Reach - reached - reached , Preach preached preached
But Catch caught caught, teach taught taught, sing sang sung. But
bring brought brought, live lived lived. But give gave given. Do these help
our students really?
Degrees of comparison is yet another problem to our students.
Long longer- longest

short shorter- shortest

Beautiful more beautiful- most beautiful

most intelligent
Good/well better best
much/many more most
Old older oldest
lesser of the two evils.

intelligent more intelligent

bad/ill worse worst

little less least. Some times we use the

The wrong use of prepositions may change the meaning of a sentence

totally.For example let us see these two sentences.
He set fire to me. He set fire for me.
He is up stairs is enough.we not write He is in upstairs.
Idioms and phrasal verbs have to be taught and learnt with great care.
It rains cats and dogs means it rains heavily.
Carry on means continue and put on means to wear.put by means to save.
The problems in teaching and learning English will be succeeded following Bacons
words- Conference makes a ready man and writing makes an exact man.