Language and Language Teaching, Issue 2 - Azim Premji Foundation

show equal respect and importance forthem.6. Nationalities, if necessary, should bedepicted in a manner that promotes mutualrespect, rather than animosity.7. All textual materials should be subject topeer review for detection and eliminationof instances of bias. This may significantlydiminish instances which would otherwiseescape the eyes of a single editor.Clearly, these checks and balances can go along way in decreasing instances of bias in ourEnglish textbooks for children. However, in spiteof a number of such precautions, our teachersoften encounter instances of bias in textualmaterials. Significantly enough, Tickoo (2003,p. 265),,stresses on the need for assessing atextual material on the basis of its ideology, since,admittedly, most biases that creep into a textare a manifestation of a flawed ideology.Dealing with bias in actual classroomsituationEnglish language teachers wanting to use atextbook in a particular class are likely to gothrough the textual matter in some depth.Examples of bias, if any, are likely to be detectedat this stage of evaluating a language material –well before the text is used in the classroom.Mcdonough and Shaw (2003, p. 65) clearlyhighlight the examination of cultural bias as oneof the nine important evaluative parameters ofa coursebook. Once a bias is detected, a specificworkplan dedicated to neutralizing the biasedmaterial has to be chalked out by the teacher.In such an instance, a teacher ought to keep thegolden rule of teaching English texts in mind,which is, “English teaching materials are notmeant to be taught in the exact way they havebeen produced” (Ramadevi, 2002, p. 207). Sucha plan may take the following sequential steps:Step 1. Look out for bias.Step 2. If bias detected, note the nature of thebias, whether linguistic, cultural, religious, social,gender or racial.Step 3. Devise alternative paradigms, usuallythrough extraneous examples, to neutralize thebias in the classroom.Step 4. Involve the students in discussions onwhy the matter is biased, and why it is notsupported by facts from real life.IllustrationA textual material in the form of a journalisticreport describes how local villagers enter aprotected forest without permission, and collectlogs of wood in darkness. In the absence of logsand twigs post-autumn, they cut branches fromtrees. Trees have been destroyed for yearsthrough such a practice.In fact most children, in actual practice,go beyond the meanings of words andphrases and generate their own worldview on the basis of a text. In fact,according to Davison and Dawson (2003,p. 276), says that ‘knowing thespecification’ is an essential parameter ofa successful detection and neutralizationof a text-based bias in English languageclassrooms, ‘specification’ referring to thelayers of meaning that a text can generatein the course of an in-depth study.Areas where bias is generated in the youngreaders:1. Villagers are insensitive when it comes tofollowing the laws of the land and concernfor environment.2. In the absence of reasons for cutting thelogs of wood, a learner may not know thatLanguage and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 36