On the 29th day of last month, I got one of the finest moment in my life. On this day I saw myself in the company of many distinguished scholars, poets and other well-known personalities who have made their marks in the profession of teaching English language and Literature in the schools and colleges of Manipur and Manipur Central University.

On this day there was a discussion on TS Eliot and his ‘The Waste Land’. This study circle was organised by English Teachers’ Association (ETAM) on the eve of its foundation day that falls on the 30th April, the next day.

ETAM is an association which exclusively aims for the upliftment of the standard of teaching English language and literature in Manipur.

It was established on the 16th October 1995 with Professor N Khagendra Singh as the President. Respected and well-known teachers of English, Shri L Raghumani Singh, K Kalidas Singh, L Kamakhyakumar, Dr M Mani Singh, Dr K Manimohan Singh, W Ibempishak Devi, Dr RK Indira Devi and many others are the pillars of ETAM. There are many new faces also (I am also one of the new faces).

The simple but important function was held in a room of the information centre of GP Women College, Imphal. As the standing rays of the April evening peeped through the windows and as its soft radiance got reflected from all the corners of the room with all its grandeur, there was the luxurious atmosphere where all eyes shone and all faces animated.

After Prof N Khagendra singh and L Raghumani graced the chairs of the chief guest and the President respectively, the rich atmosphere and the serene mood present there is again made richer by the sweet, melodious voice of Miss L Sarju, a Research Scholar, welcoming all those present there in her fluent English. Then, Shri P Birachandra gave a short key-note address of the function.

The study circle with TS Eliot reciting his own poem ‘The Waste Land’ (thanks to modern technology, Eliot is still with us). Then Prof Khagendra leads us in revisiting Eliot’s Waste Land.

Prof N Khagendra is the living treasure house of English Literature in Manipur at present. (I was also one of his students while in Manipur University). Though age has shown it presence on his body, he is still young in his visage.

He is still active and energetic in treading ‘The Waste Land’ which Eliot had discovered for the lovers of English Literature. His speech on Eliot mesmerized the audience and we, the whole listeners were deported to the Waste Land for a while.

Now coming to the standard of usage of English in Manipur, in our State it is seemed that every Jack or Jill who is in the profession of teaching English language has his or her own pride of being a master in the language which sometimes leads to confusion.

It is widely talked as a joke among the teacher community of our State that whenever there is a meeting of the Teachers’ Association or Union, it is very easy to come to a consensus about the agenda, but it is very hard to draft a resolution to each and every teachers’ satisfaction.

The dissension is not on the body or the content of the draft resolution but on the grammatical construction of the sentences.

When the resolutions have been read out, one teacher from a corner would stand up and make his suggestion or opinion to omit some words and put some words instead. Then another teacher from another corner would raise his objection in the use of ‘be verb’ or ‘article’ and the whole hall will explode into arguments and the meeting is compelled to end without any resolution.

In fact English has ceased to be the language of its native speakers only. It has already attained the stature of a world language. No accurate figure for the total number of people knowing and speaking English are available but in a rough estimation it is the mother tongue of more than 320 million people and another 200 million use it as their second language.

English therefore occupies the unique position of being a language used by the largest number of people in the world. As it is used by a large number of educated people in different parts of the world, there is a wide variety of foreign dialects of English resulting from the pull of the mother tongue.

These different dialects are spoken by such large number of people that those dialects have to be given due recognition in the form of ‘African English’, commonwealth English, Indian English etc.

In our State, it has to be accepted that suitable model teachers affluent in British RP are not available to the vast majority of the students. The students have to rely on local teachers who are more inclined to traditional grammar than the modern method of teaching English through phonetics, lingua-phones etc on the spoken aspect of the language.

As a result of this, we have seen many students affluent in English Grammar but can’t utter even an English sentence with correct pronunciation in times of viva-voce or personality test.

Now the situation gets better than it was two or three decades ago. More English teachers have come out specially trained in phonetics.

Then the method of teaching and imparting this language has to undergo a change. The students of today demand something new not in the form of old wine in new bottle but new wine in new bottle.

Our English teachers need a full knowledge in spoken English, literacy interpretation and method of teaching. In this particular area ETAM aims:
i) to promote and maintain high standard of English language and literature in Manipur,
ii) to promote high teaching and learning standard of English in the schools, colleges and the universities of Manipur,
iii) to translate works from English to Manipuri and vice-versa and publish periodicals, books etc.

So, there is an ideal platform for the English Teachers of Manipur. In the words of L Loken, General Secretary ETAM in his article ‘Venture - The Voice of ETAM’ Vol-I published in March 2007, he says: ‘All the teachers teaching English in Manipur may the members of ETAM.

It is therefore the only common platform of all teachers of English in Manipur.

From the oldest to the youngest, irrespective of caste, creed or mode of service or retired, English teachers of Manipur can assemble together and enjoy the togetherness as it itself in the creation of the basic necessity- an English speaking society in Manipur that will result in improving the language and its use ‘The Venture of ETAM’ will not go in vain.