There are no arguments that numerous complications can be nipped in the bud if we could overcome, arguably, the mother of all problems—miscommunication. This world will perhaps turn into at least something very close to, if not a perfect reflection of, Utopia if mankind discovers the ideal way to discern every human being’s level of comprehension and make them fathom facts in their true essence.

It goes without saying that generally, the entire world will welcome any such strategy with open arms. But this is specifically for those associated with the profession of pedagogy. They are after all in a vocation which directly involves challenges rather than one’s capability to make pupils of all ages and levels of intelligence grasp such pieces of information and knowledge that they are completely unbeknownst to.

The struggle to determine a perfect pedagogic methodology is an age-old and extensive one. Stalwarts like Noam Chomsky, B.F. Skinner and some other giants of linguistics dedicated their entire lives as well as intellects to this and yet there are ambiguities. However, it is not these grey areas that matter as internationally several grammarians, pedagogy experts and linguists are working to improve the current teaching methodologies.

The matter of concern is the apathy found in certain teachers and educationists here towards the significance of the efficacy of their teaching ways, which is essential to have the students on the same wavelength.

It is saddening that most educational institutions here, with a few exceptions, have based their manners of instruction on the methodology—the grammar-translation method—that has been tried and tested over and over again following which it was finally discarded, globally, due to its ineffectiveness.

Let “grammar-translation” not confuse you. Granted, it is mainly used to teach English as a subject, the traits of this method are such that it can be applied to several other theory-based subjects, too. It is the easiest way to adopt since it is highly teacher-oriented and solely relies on dry explanation followed by student-practice as opposed to the contemporary communicative methodologies which are more interactive, student-oriented and where the pedagogue’s role is more of a facilitator than some lecture-delivering dummy.

Asjad Khan, an MBA student at Iqra University, opines, “The teacher’s explanation should be aligned with the student’s imagination. The student should be able to picture, vividly, what is being expounded. Teachers should not be rigid in their approach and should incorporate a lot of opportunities of discussion in their sessions. Somehow, discussion-based classes are more productive as compared to the ones that are based on monologues. Simple explanation followed by questions or practice is a big ‘NO’ for me. If I’d ever teach, it would be in an extremely interactive way.”

Even some of the teachers, who have been in this profession for a while and know the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of it, are against monologues. “I integrate a lot of role plays, simulations and presentations in my sessions as I believe in cooperative learning strategies. Students learn better cognitively. One of the strategies that I adopt while teaching is ‘think-pair-share’ where the students are given a question and they think, share and discuss their opinions with their respective partners, formulate an answer and respond eventually. That said, we can’t rule out the importance of lectures completely but to rely on them only would be unfair to the students,” reflects Maliha Rafi, a senior teacher of literature at a private school.

Mohammad Owais Zahoor, an A-Level student, shared something which can easily be termed as the last nail in the coffin of rigid teaching methodologies. “Initially, my friends and I used to find literature classes boring. Later, we realised that it was all because of our previous teacher. Our new teacher has a completely different way of teaching. While teaching about any novel, he acts and speaks like the different characters and makes us do the same. This makes the same text, which seemed boring earlier, not just easy to understand but fun, too. Earlier, it was just reading which became extremely tiring for all of us,” he sums it up.

Conclusively, based on the comments of the teachers and students above, one can safely infer that teachers need to act like facilitators who can gel with the students, rather than becoming orators or public speakers out to make an impression on their awestricken audiences.