Constructs of Indian English in language ‘guidebooks’

This study follows the approach developed in Dendrinos (1992) for EFL textbook analysis, and presents a content analysis of 11 Indian ‘Common Errors in English’ (CEIE) guidebooks to illustrate how access to English is institutionally withheld from large parts of the Indian population. The paper examines seven features: organization, quality and extent of grammatical explanation, reliability of error lists, the pedagogical goals of the authors, how the materials are meant to supplement English language instruction, the variety of English being taught, and the fluency of the authors in the variety being taught. The study also compares the Indian CEIE books to five comparable works published in the United States and Great Britain. The comparative analysis illustrates how concern with standardized examinations encourages the use of memorization as a language learning strategy; this strategy shapes the pedagogy employed in the CEIE guidebooks. The employment of outdated teaching methods and the poor grasp of English exhibited by the authors of the guidebooks, serve to disadvantage students who rely on these books. While the elite agree that English is necessary for social advancement in India, the tools provided to some students for the mastery of English do not encourage fluency. To these students it must seem that the dominant ideology which values English for Indians does not do so for all Indians.