An undergraduate spells college as collage.
A postgraduate writes importance as importence.
A doctoral scholar struggles with basic grammar and writes "The candidate do not realize the consequences."
And yet — most of them have A+ in English.
This is not about students alone.
This is about a system that produces degrees without competence.
and calls it success.
This blog asks an uncomfortable question:
What really ails English language learning today?
When Language Fails the Classroom: On English, Illusion, and Institutional Silence
There are certain truths in academia that everyone knows.
But no one speaks about them.
Not because they are insignificant —
but because they are uncomfortable.
And perhaps also because calling them out would demand that we rethink the very foundations of our teaching-learning practices.
This is one such intervention.
Not as a final word.
But as a provocation.
Disturbing Familiarity
Let me begin with a few instances.
An undergraduate student of English spelling college as collage.
A postgraduate student writing importance as importence.
A doctoral scholar struggling with basic subject–verb agreement.
These are not isolated errors.
They are recurring patterns — visible the moment students are asked to write independently, without the silent assistance of Google or ChatGPT.
Pause here.
What does it mean for a student of English — at advanced levels — to falter at the level of basic language?
The Illusion of Competence
The immediate response is often to blame students.
Their lack of seriousness.
Their casual approach.
Their over-dependence on digital tools.
But that is only half the story.
Because when asked about their prior academic performance, a striking pattern emerges:
A significant majority of these students have scored A or A+ in English during their higher secondary education.
What, then, are these grades measuring?
Competence?
Or compliance with a flawed system?
The Crisis of Assessment
What we are witnessing is not merely a problem of language.
It is a problem of evaluation.
When grades cease to reflect actual competence, they produce what might be called an illusion of mastery.
Students are made to believe that they are proficient —
until they encounter spaces where that illusion collapses.
This is not just pedagogical failure.
It is epistemic violence.
Because the system does not merely fail to teach.
It actively misinforms.
A degree in English without command over the language is not just a gap — it is a looming crisis that threatens both employability and the very possibility of a meaningful career.
The Vicious Circuit
The consequences are not contained within one generation.
They circulate.
Students with weak language skills:
graduate
pursue B.Ed programmes
re-enter the system as teachers
And the cycle continues.
A system obsessed with pass percentages produces not excellence,
but reproducible mediocrity.
Where Does the Problem Begin?
If we trace this backward, the most critical stage is clear:
School education.
By the time students reach Class 10, they are expected to have internalised the basics of English.
But when students with minimal proficiency are awarded top grades,
the system does something deeply problematic:
it confuses certification with competence.
And this confusion travels upward —
into undergraduate and postgraduate classrooms.
The Shock of Higher Education
When such students enter universities, they encounter a rupture.
They are told:
their writing is flawed
their grammar is weak
their expression lacks clarity
This produces confusion.
Because the system had already told them a different story.
English and the Politics of Knowledge
At this point, a familiar counterargument emerges:
Why privilege English at all, especially when a student is enrolled in disciplines other than English?
Is this not elitism?
Colonial mindset?
Dismissive of the mother tongue?
Let me be clear.
This is not an argument against regional languages.
It is an argument about access to knowledge.
We inhabit a world where a vast proportion of academic discourse — across disciplines — is mediated through English.
The question is not ideological.
It is practical:
How do we engage with global knowledge formations without the linguistic tools to access them?
The Limits of the “Mother Tongue Only” Argument
Examples such as China and France are often cited.
But these contexts reveal something crucial.
In China, the enforcement of Mandarin as a standard language is not merely pedagogical—it is political, tied to questions of control and national identity.
In France, while linguistic protectionism exists, academic spaces increasingly recognise the necessity of English proficiency—evident in programmes like TAPIF.
The lesson is not that English must replace other languages.
But that language policy is always entangled with power, access, and control.
Inequality Reproduced Through Language
Here lies the most troubling implication.
If institutional spaces weaken English language acquisition,
who suffers?
Not everyone equally.
Students from homes where English is already present—
through education, class privilege, or exposure—
will continue to thrive.
Others will fall behind.
Thus, sidelining English does not democratise education.
It risks deepening social hierarchies.
A Story from Another Time
Let me share a memory with you.
My father studied in a government school in a remote village.
He later graduated in Chemistry and went on to become an advocate in the High Court of Kerala — where English is the language of practice.
Despite limited exposure in everyday life, he had remarkable fluency in English.
What made this possible?
A system that still believed in the discipline of learning a language. A generation that did not reduce English to a colonial residue, but engaged with it as a tool—of thought, of access, of possibility.
And yet, his love for English never came at the cost of Malayalam. He inhabited both worlds with ease. For that generation, language was not a battlefield of choice — it was a continuum of experience.
The Irony of the Present
Today, Gen Z students have unprecedented access:
digital platforms
global media
AI tools
And yet, we confront a paradox:
increased access, diminished competence.
The Silence of the Classroom
Let me leave you with one final incident.
An English teacher, while appreciating an art performance held in honour of a deceased scholar, remarked that the programme would have had the scholar “stirring in the grave.” The intention, of course, was to convey admiration — how deeply the scholar would have appreciated the event.
But when a few in the audience couldn’t suppress their laughter, she quickly realised that the phrase might not mean what she thought it meant.
To her credit, she corrected herself immediately:
“I meant it in a positive way.”
Because, clearly, meanings in English are flexible — especially when confidence outweighs competence.
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines the phrase clearly:
“If you say that a dead person would turn in their grave, you mean that they would be very angry or upset about something.”
What is more striking than the error itself
is the silence that followed.
No one challenged it.
No one intervened.
Mediocrity and Sycophancy
Not in mistakes. But in the normalisation of mistakes.
Not in ignorance.
But in the refusal to confront it.
A culture of silence, coupled with a desire to maintain appearances, produces what we might call:
institutionalised mediocrity.
A Final Question
So we return to the question:
What ails English language acquisition in Kerala?
Is it the students?
The teachers?
The system?
Or is it something more insidious:
a collective unwillingness to acknowledge that something is broken?
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