Social cohesion and reconciliation through Language Speaking Clubs (LSC) in National Colleges of Education
For a nation to have the unity, thereshould be a good communication among each other. In communication there are various ways and means to communicate among each other as human beings than the other animals. Language is the main tool that humans use to communicate among individuals.
As a person we use four ways of language skills to have a better communication. Listening, Reading speaking and writing is the four ways of skills that a person should develop to maintain a good communication ability. If a person fail in any skill he or she is having a poor communicative ability.
To avoid that problem, improving the Second National Language ability among the citizens is very much important. As a strategy to this 2nd National Language (2NL) development programme have been implemented in National Colleges of Education. This effort has been launched with a wide vision and prospective teachers in the colleges are expected to learn 2NL in order to perform effectively for the benefit of the entire nation as they are suggested to improve the language ability of the students when they go to the schools.
In addition to that it will act as a special programme for promoting social cohesion concept through their learning teaching process. As a result prospective teachers are produced to promote peace and harmony through social cohesion and reconciliation. To be good professionals as well as good human beings it has already been implemented this special language development program as Language speaking clubs ( LSC) programme in National Colleges of Education.
Language speaking club is a place for language learners to use the target language in a stress free environment.
Establishing a language speaking club ( Tamil / Sinhala) is the best way, to improve the spoken target language.
Language learners get chances to prac- tice their language skills in a setting that is more similar to their real life experience.
In addition to that it is a good way to make new friendships among the members of the club. Learners get a chance to have good native language friends which motivate the learner confidence and they may feel more comfortable of using the target language with more trust and fun.
Actually, Language club is a matter to be more fun when they are multi generational and multicultural. When members have various target language abilities it is easy to learn the target language by focusing different language skills.
National colleges of Education (NCoEs) were established on 1985 as a concept of Prime Minister Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe with the objective of offering teaching qualifications through 3 year, full time, preservice teacher education programme with utmost aim to improve the quality of the education system by molding up quality teachers. In this effort developing language competency of the prospective teachers is very much important as the communicative ability is the main factor of a successful personal.
Therefore language ability is an important matter for a person to be successful and through this language speaking club program it is intended to achieve the targets of the Education by developing a peaceful nation with good communication.
This programme is conducted in all the National Colleges of Education as a col- laborat ive ef fort of Ministry of Education - National Colleges of Education branch, National Institute of Education, University of Colombo and Goethe Institute with the financial and technical support of GIZ. ( Deutsche Gesellchaft for I n t e r n at i o n a l Zusammenarbeit)
The utmost aim of the Deutsche Gesellchaft for International Zusammenar beit( GIZ ) through the Education for Social Cohesion ( ESC) programme which is implemented by the Federal Republic of Germany is to enable school children to live together peacefully in a multiethnic and multilingual society.
In this manner GIZ - ESC programme focuses mainly on Second National language development of the individuals in order to achieve the communicative ability which directly leads for a peaceful nationespecially in a country like Sri Lanka with multi linguicism.
Therefore the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Federal Republic of Germany together make a gigantic effort to have conflict free environment in Sri Lanka as a result of good communication. B. G. I. Kalani Hemalie Deputy Director of Education National Colleges of Education Branch Ministry of Education Isurupaya Battaramulla.