ELT and Caste, for example

ELT and Caste, for example

Some questions

The gamut of research on ELT looks at language learning and teaching in isolation which adversely affects the objective of ELT. No discipline can afford to operate itself cut off from the rest which is why there has to be an agreement among the educationists from all the other spheres as well on what they call language learning. Otherwise, no matter what efforts ELT practitioners lend their hands to, the desired result is likely to be an early morning dream; you pull yourself to catch it and there you wake up amusingly building castles in the air. Take a look at the following questions:

1. What is the relationship between students' existing worldview with your language teaching strategies?

2. Do various caste-practices affect students language learning capacities?

3. Does the current political system support your ideals of language teaching?

4. Is there a clash between the cultural expectations and what you teach under the pretext of English?

5. Have you ever questioned the promises that technology has made about ELT?

6. Have your ever tried to measure the increasing decline in the overall curiosity among the language learners?

7. Do you think the number of hours you spend with your language learners affects their language learning capacity?

8. Where does ELT stand in the list of institutional priority?

9. Do you contemplate on your own teaching impact? 

10. What if some day you realize that all the theories, methods and approaches of language teaching are not working at all? 

 

A boy got annoyed with theory and he said,

A boy got annoyed with theory and he said,

(Excerpt from Valentine Cunningham’s Theory, What theory? )

vishal bhadani

 [Here is a selection from Valentine Cunningham’s “Theory, What theory discussing the ambiguous state of theory and how it has come to the academic world (read literature teaching departments, English departments in particular) as big show for keeping the ball rolling to run the university departments. I believe that on one hand when people are uncritically obsessed with theory, such discourses provide us with a new perspective of looking at theory. However, I am also skeptical about the birth of a new theory – Theory against Theory. A solid read.]  

“Theorists don’t like the charge of untheoretical messiness, and work hard to disprove it. Some have tried to lean on etymology for the strict meaning of their work, and invoke the originating Greek word theoros, spectator. So theory becomes spectator work, what onlookers and audiences do.

What’s embraced by the label theory, what I mean by Theory, is what you expect to find and indeed do find in those proliferating university courses  called “Theory” or “Introductions to Theory”; what you find in the exploding field of handy student handbooks and textbooks. The scope is, of course, Structuralism and Feminism and Marxism and Reader-Response and Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction and Poststructuralism and Postmodernism and New Historicism and Postcolonialism—the concerns of the various sections of Julian Wolfreys’ volume, Literary Theories: A Reader and Guide (1999), in the order in which they appear. The modem gurus of Theory on these lines are, of course, the likes of Mikhail Bakhtin,Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Michel Foucault, non-anglophone thinkers all, but most notably French-speakers, the French men and women who poured the Word from Paris (as John Sturrock has aptly put it)3 into eager anglophone ears from the 1960s onwards.

For Theorists have indeed managed to pull off what is, by any standards, an astounding coup, or trick; have managed to wedge together a great many various subjects, concerns, directions, impulses, persuasions, and activities that are going on in and around literature, and squeeze them all under the one large sheltering canopy of “Theory.” They have managed to compel so many divergent wings of what they call Theory under the one roof, persuaded so many sectional variants of interpretative work to sink their possible differences around a common conference table, in the one seminar with the sign Theory on its door. So while setting their faces, usually, against Grand Narratives and Keys to All Mythologies, as delusive and imperialist, and all that, Theorists have managed to erect the Grandest Narrative of all—Theory—the greatest intellectual colonizer of all time.How this wheeze was pulled off, how you can have the political and the personal subjects of literature—representations of selfhood and class and gender and race: the outside-concerns, the outward look of writing, the descriptive and documentary, the reformist intentions, and the ideological instrumentality of writing—envisioned and envisionable as part and parcel of the often quite opposite and contradictory functions of writing—the merely formal, or the technically linguistic, or (as often) a deeply inward, world-denying, aporetic writing activity—rather defies ordinary logic. Foundationalism and anti-foundationalism, shall we say roughly the Marxist reading on the one hand, and the deconstructionist on the other, make awkward bed-partners, you might think. But Theory deftly marries them off, or at least has them more or less cheerfully all registered as guests in the same hotel room.

For all that, theorizing about literature is always a palimpsest. Below the latest lines you can always still read the older inscribings. Theoretical memory is always stronger than Theory’s would-be revolutionaries hope. The present trend of Theory is always a simultaneously present archeology or paleography. Theory’s archive is perpetually open. As with the media of communication. We move from script to print to IT, but I still start writing this with a pen and pencil. Now I fly, now I drive my car, now I ride my bike, now I go on foot.”

Source: Valentine Cunningham’s “Theory, What theory?” Published in ‘Theory’s Empire: An Anthology of Dissent’ edited by Daphne Patai and Will H. Corral, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005.

Samvad – A Faculty Forum

A Presentation in Research Pursuit

A session under

Samvad – A Faculty Forum

Preamble:

In the knowledge century, discourse is the defining aspect of creation, dissemination and celebration of knowledge. In the case of education, discourse assumes even deeper significance because education is primarily and fundamentally the site for knowledge exchange. The quality of the knowledge exchange rests on the dialogue and discourse of the teachers engage in and inspire in their students. In the 21st century, teachers need to engage in discourse over the key issues of the domain unlike ever before. A faculty forum is an expression of a systematic platform for discourse of the teachers and researchers. Samvad organizes dialogue sessions in two categories i.e. 1) session on pedagogical practices and 2) session on research being pursued.

Research Pursuit:

Pursuit of knowledge can be better materialized by research. Research is one of the foremost goals of higher education. But for a researcher, it is essential to share with and receive ideas from others. Through dialogue, a researcher may get better depth of one’s field. But for that one needs to have a systematic platform for it and A Presentation in Research Pursuit, a session under Samvad – A Faculty Forum provides the platform to the researcher.

Theme: Ph.D. Topic:

Romantic Literary Influences on the Rise of Indian Poetry in English

Indian Poetry in English rose during the nineteenth century when India was a colonised country. Forgotten for a century, today, this poetry has generated new interests with stimulating questions as: what could be reasons and sources that gave birth to completely a new realm of poetry which did not have any predecessors? What could be influences that had positively impacted and enriched the art of poetry writing in a foreign tongue?

With hypotheses to the questions, the present research commences with three major discussions: firstly, discussing the birth of Indian Writing in English, its historical development and its nomenclature. Secondly, by drawing contemporary parallels between India and Europe. Lastly by exploring theoretical aspects of Influence Studies of Comparative Literature. After such prefatory discussions, it closely and critically studies three major Indian poets and their poetry in English in detail. These poets are Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Toru Dutt. Each of these poets has completely been studied with the contextual approach leading to highlight English literary influence of Romanticism in individual chapters. The major Romantic perceptions/elements that are highlighted in the Indian poetry are Nature, Supernaturalism, Mysticism, Love, Separation, Medieval and Hellenism, Nationalism, Humanism and Freedom along with the stylistic features of the Romantic poets.

The first generation Indian poets were successful in expressing their passions in a foreign language but they were largely under the dominative spell of English Romanticism. English Romanticism supplemented the rise of Indian poetry in English with their themes and narrative techniques and thus aided it to achieve the poetic excellence.

Speaker:

Dr. Bhavdip Chavda

Department of Communication Skills,

Marwadi Education Foundation’s Group of Institutions - Rajkot

Schedule:

Research Presentation:

The speaker will present the research pursuit for 40 minutes.

Open Defense

Presentation will be followed by 20 minutes of Q&A session with the Audience.

Date:

18th December, 2015

Time:

11:00 am to 12.00 pm

Venue:

Board Room, MC 301

We shall look forward to having you among us.

                                                                                                Department of Communication Skills

                                                                                                                 MEFGI - Rajkot

Call for Papers - ‘Innovative ELT Practices in Technical Education’

International Journal of Humanities in Technical Education

ijhte.marwadieducation.edu.in

Vol. 2, Issue 1

January 2016

Invites papers on

‘Innovative ELT Practices in Technical Education’

Sub-themes for the January Issue of IJHTE are as follow:

Communicative Language Teaching in Technical Education: papers based on practicing CLT in technical education.

Innovative integration of ICT with ELT: papers based on use of innovative ICT tools (e.g. social networking sites) in enhancing the ELT practices in technical education.

Using Literature/Music: papers studying approaches, techniques and methods of using literature/music to develop language proficiency of technical graduates.

Action research and teacher reflections: papers based on the classroom teaching or teacher's reflections of his/her innovative teaching. These can be case studies of a particular experiment or innovation effectively implemented in the classroom.

Theatre in ELT: papers dealing with the effective use of drama for the students of tertiary education. 

Developing Indigenous Teaching Contents: papers highlighting experiences and insights on designing indigenous teaching contents which can support ELT practitioners in technical education.

Designing Innovative Tasks: paper exploring creative tasks supporting the prescribed syllabus on one hand, opening new vistas of language learning on the other.

Practices of Blended-learning: papers dealing with blended learning exclusively for technical education.

Post-method Pedagogies: papers introducing the pedagogies that are emerging as a result of method-fatigue in ELT.

Book reviews: review of recently published ELT books that are relevant for teachers of English, particularly in technical education. Reviews should consist of a brief introduction of the author and the relevance of the book along with a short summary of contents. It should also contain comments on its significance to the researchers and practitioners. Reviews should not exceed 1,500 words including references.

Format: As per the Author Guidelines given on https://ijhte.marwadieducation.edu.in/

Kindly send your paper/s at: ijhte2014@gmail.com

The last date for sending the papers is December 31^st, 2015.