English Teaching: need for a paradigm shift

I studied English for ten long years in school, and spoke no English, wrote no English, read no English and understood no English. 'Alarming'... you might say. 'What the hell have you been doing?' Wait let me tell you that what is more alarming is that millions of students in India sit through English classes every day of their student life, spend hours memorising what they do not understand, clear English examinations, but when it comes to using this language to communicate, they appear to be aliens to the language.

To my mind, English is taught in all Indian schools, but do the students learn? Not really. If you leave apart the English medium schools, I must tell you that English teaching even today is a futile exercise in most schools. Based on my experience, it is more of a waste of time.

I believe with the resources available we can improve English language teaching in our country significantly by altering our approach to teaching this language. First of all let's stop insisting that English (or any language for that matter) must be taught the same way as other subjects. Let's understand that a language is learnt through use, and mastered through continuous use. 

We need to redefine our purpose of language teaching to something that is SMART. SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE , ACHIEVABLE, REPRODUCABLE , and TIMEBOUND. At each grade level, clearly defined SMART learning/teaching objectives should be provided to the schools and teachers. 

A paradigm shift is required in the evaluation method as well. The most used means of communication is speaking, yet in non-English medium schools, speaking is given the least importance (quite to the contrary, many English medium schools do not even allow students to converse in their mother tongue which too is crossing the limit I believe). Should we not assess students' speaking skills with equal or more vigour as that of the writing skills? In any case my school education and the progress I made (or that of the hundreds of students who studied with me) is proof enough that this system does not work.

A suggestion that I have is (as I believe the draft policy does not address this issue adequately) is to align English language teaching in line with the syllabus of Cambridge English assessment (exams like KET, PET, FCE, CAE etc.). At least, it would ensure that all skills are given equal importance, and that teachers/schools are more accountable.