Rama Mathew In this article, I will share some of my experiences and ideas on assessment, especially language assessment. As I write it, what I want to convey seems to vacillate between utter frustration and disillusionment on the one hand Read More …
Month: June 2012
“Yes” means “No,” isn’t it?
T Sriraman Teachers and syllabus makers always come up against the problem of selection while designing remedial courses, or “bridge courses” as they were once called. While there is general agreement about the problem areas for Indian learners of English Read More …
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Malini Seshadri You are a teacher of English and you are visiting another school. The students are strangers to you. You have just asked a senior class to write out their answers to this question: How is the sex of Read More …
Poetry: Soul food for learners
Ananthajyothi A few weeks ago a student came up to me and asked: “Do we need to study poetry?” This was no existential question; he just wanted to know if he could skip poetry for the forthcoming exams. While younger Read More …
Questioning literature in school
Bubla Basu “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings,” (Act I, Scene ii, Julius Caesar). Even as we make a ritual of blaming the syllabus and the powers that be, every Read More …
To master a language
Sheel English occupies a special place in India: a language that came to us from a different land, it is one that began to be taught in our country even before it became a subject of study in the country Read More …
Soft-footing into poetry
Venkatesh Onkar
Poetry helps a child’s imagination blossom. And the best way to teach young kids poetry is to allow them to intepret a poem and discover its richness for themsleves with the teacher intefering only if necessary.
The many paths to language
Kavita Anand
The teacher of English has at her disposal several different methods to teach the language. However, in a country like India, her methodologies also have to take in to account the multilingual nature of this country and use that to her advantage.
Valuing our multilingual heritage
Geetha Durairajan
In a language rich country like India, forcing children to speak only in English is definitely not the way to go about teaching them the language. Teachers need to have an open mind and understand that English is only one of several langauges in this country.
What ails the teaching of English language in school?
Bubla Basu
More and more we find children using informal English to express themselves. While this is fine on casual occasions, it has to be impressed upon them speaking and writing proper English is also necessary and matters a lot.