AUTO-LEARNING STRATEGIES TO TAME THE KILLER LANGUAGE

The English language has gained the status of a modern living world language. It is hailed as the multi-billion dollars language and the language of the Nobel-laureates. The Information Technology boom has made it a mighty generator of millions of job opportunities. Foreign jobs are now available in India itself. Nevertheless, English remains a killer language in India, and the teaching and learning of it has not gained momentum to meet the demand made by the MNCs. The great problem here is to bring world class quality in teaching and learning of it

Indian students are not industry-ready and employable due to their poor communication skills. Today Spoken English and fluency in English are absolutely necessary for professional and academic growth. Auto learning strategies will help the students to improve their fluency in English. Fluency of any foreign language depends on the following linguistic skills. 1.Phonology 2.Morphology 3.Syntax.and 4.Semantics

The first problem making English a killer language is the teaching of it like a subject neglecting the linguistic inputs. The second problem is the overemphasis on the skills of reading and writing ignoring the basic skills of listening and speaking. The third problem is not using the electronic gadgets and language laboratories properly in the teaching and learning of English. The fourth problem is the lack of native speaker’s model and the mother tongue influence. The fifth problem is not teaching the auto learning strategies to the students

These are a few of the problems besetting the present English Education system in India. There should be a paradigm shift in the teaching and learning of it.

Language –based job opportunities

Language –based job opportunities are also increasing very fast. The following are some of them

· English language Teachers

· BPO English Trainers

· Actors

· News readers

· Translators

· Editors

· Journalists

· Technical Writers

· Speakers

In all these fields, there is a heavy demand for learning of English. Indian education system does not cater to the needs of the above posts. Further the teaching and learning of it pulls down the quality of higher education system in India. Hence the pedagogy of teaching of English should be thoroughly changed.

Learning of the Trillion Dollar Language.

Modern world languages grow fast and English stands first among them. Owing to MNCS, foreign job opportunities are available in India itself. These MNCS expect their employees to possess excellent communication skills. Further learning of other subjects also heavily depends upon the learning of English. Further English language –based jobs are also increasing throughout the globe. Business, trade, and commerce across the world are carried out using English. After the utilization of nanotechnology, the business would be carried out in trillion dollars. The economic development of all countries depends on the teaching and learning of English. The future of Indian economy, the quality of Indian education and the job opportunities of the Indian youths are centering around the English language. Hence it is time to think seriously about strengthening of the quality of teaching and learning of the trillion dollar language.

Greeting:

Hi, Hello, Nice to see you/

GM,GA,GE,GN

Good to see you.

How are things with you?

How is life?

What is new?

What’s the latest?

I trust you’re keeping well.

I hope all goes well with you.

Introducing yourself, others

GM I’m ….

Excuse me, I am …..

This is ….

Do you know…

Have you met…

Please meet Mr…

Please meet my friend …

Let me introduce…..

May I introduce …

Making Requests:

Can/could I/ you …… ?

Would you mind ….., please?

Do you think you could ….. please?

Please do me a favour by ……?

Do you think it would be possible……?

I hope you don’t mind my asking, but……

I am sorry to trouble you, but ……?

I’d be grateful if you could …..

Inviting/accepting/rejecting an invitation

Would you like to …. ?

I’d like you to ……

I’d like to invite you to ……

What about/ How about you …..?

Like to ….

Care to …

Would you be interested in attending ….

We would/should be very much pleased/delighted if you …..

Thank you Id like to very much.

That’d be very nice.

Yes, please.

That sounds a nice idea.

With pleasure…..

O.K. / Alright.

I won’t say no.

We’d very much like ….

What a splendid idea!

Thank you very much.

That ‘d give us the greatest pleasure.

It’s kind of you.

Thank you very much, but…

Thank you for asking me, but….

I’m sorry. At present I …..

I’d like to, but ….

I wish I could , but …

I’m afraid I’ve already promised to …..

Sorry, I can’t. /No, thank you.

I regret that I shall not be able to accept …..

Unfortunately, I ….

That’s very kind of you, but ….

Offering help:

May I help you?

May I be of any assistance?

Could I help you?

Would you like me to help you?

Do you want my help?

Do you like any help?

What can I do for you?

Is there anything I can do for you?

Let me do …..

Can I help you?

Shall I do ….?

Accepting help:

I’d be delighted.

That’s very kind of you.

If it is of no trouble to you, …

If you don’t mind, …..

Thank you.

Just what I needed

Declining an offer:

No. Please don’t bother

Thanks a lot, but ….

I’m very grateful, but ..

Thanks a lot, yet …

No. Thank you.

-Taken from the Net

Good Communication Skills

The way one communicates does not only have an impact on their own profession and personal relations, but also an effect on others. Those who do not have appropriate communication skills are usually ignored or simply kept at bay. Where are those with good communication skills are looked upon and well respected. After all a good listener and a good orator are popular in their groups - professional and personal.

Teaching communication skills can be a rather daunting task, considering that almost every individual feels that they are very good communicators. In fact, most trainers prefer to be regarded as facilitators, who are able to bring to light the nuances that occur while communicating ineffectively, rather than pointing a direct finger and saying - You all cannot communicate well'. and when this occurs the participants are ready to delve deeper within and bring out the negative aspects of their communications and replace it with the corrective measures.

Based on the communication skills training programs conducted by known experts in the field, here are some tips to good communication skills :

Maintain eye contact with the audience : This is vital as it keeps all those present involved in the conversation. It keeps them interested and on the alert, during the course of the conversation.

Body awareness : One needs to be aware of all that their body is conveying to them, as well as others. For instance, if there is anxiety rising during the course of a conversation then one feels thirsty and there maybe a slight body tremor. At that point one needs to pause and let someone else speak. A few deep breaths and some water works as the magic portion at this point.

Gestures and expressions : One needs to be aware of how to effectively use hand gestures and the way they need to posture their body to convey their messages effectively. Sometimes it may happen that they verbally convey something, but their gestures and facial expressions have another story to tell.

Convey one's thoughts : It is important for one to courageously convey what they think. This is because when things are left unsaid, then what is being spoken is not as convincing as it should be. Then a lack of confidence develops.

Practice effective communication skills : One should practice speaking and listening skills as often as possible.

In order to practice effective speaking skills one cane read passages from a book aloud, in front of a mirror, or simply perform a free speech in front of the mirror. And where listening is concerned, one can try transcribing from the radio or television, etc. this helps in honing sharper listening skills

Courtesy to: Mind Tools Community

Memorize a Few Dialogues

THE HINDU, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR COLUMN

2. English speakers

Sir, For self learning, speed learning, and stress-free super learning, fluency in English, especially Spoken English, has become a must for college and university students. Spoken English has often been talked of as a school subject and a strong foundation has to be laid in the communicative use of English at the school level itself.

Unfortunately the present “English Readers” (the textbook series) from the preliminary to the plus two level aid the learners to read and write English without taking care of their listening and speaking skills.

For the instant improvement of these practical life skills, the current textbooks (English Readers) should be completely changed and the new textbooks should be entitled as “English Speakers” which are full of model dialogues fro listening, practicing and speaking. Even the students may be encouraged to memorize a few dialogues and they will surely find it interesting, enjoyable and useful in their life situations.

This will drive away heir fear and hatred towards the English language. This is the most urgent need of the hour to improve Spoken English at the school level. Will the English textbook writers consider this idea and introduce the new type “English Speakers” immediately

By S.MALAIKKANI - Courtesy – THE HINDU.

Need for American English

Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) are based on the skills of listening and speaking of American English. BPO services like call centres and medical transcription services are also dependent upon the American accent. Unfortunately Indians are accustomed to British English. There is a lot of difference between the British English and the American English. The Indian learners have to concentrate on American English to get job opportunities.

Integration of Learning Skills

With the emergence of internet and software technology, the demand for oral communication in English has been increasing very fast. The traditional methods of teaching could not provide proper guidance for students to learn English properly. Only integrated approaches can help them to acquire the language skills quickly. There are three types of integrated skills.

1) Integration of senses

2) Integration of study skills

3) Integration of different types of learning

Advice of English People

R.K. Bansal, the father of Indian English pronunciation observes that

“The incorrect word accentuation by Indian speakers has been found to be one of the most frequent causes of their being unintelligible to other speakers of English”.

The advice of English people to non-native speakers is that the English words should be learnt with stress. They find it very difficult to understand English spoken with wrong stress.

Correct Pronunciation

The learners should concentrate on the correct pronunciation of the following words very carefully. J.D.O. Connor (1980) in his book “Better English Pronunciation” suggests to memorize the forty four sound symbols. He advocates the use of the weak forms of some thirty five English words to make their English sound English.

and am some

as are at

but be for

that is from

than was of

he to

has have had

him his her

them us do

does can shall

will would must

a an the

Electronic Dictionaries

A new generation of talking electronic dictionaries in the form of CDs is available in the market. There is an urgent need for this type of Virtual Dictionaries. These dictionaries are capable of bridging the wide gap between the language skills taught in the classroom and the actual professional skills needed to undertake any job. An attempt is made here to describe the concept of a virtual dictionary, the need for it to develop the skills of listening and speaking in English, the content of it and the ways to explore it for maximum learning in minimum time.

Language Labs

The traditional translation method of teaching has been proved fruitless. “Hi-tech learning has become the fashion of learning the modern multi-billion dollar language like English. As a result schools and colleges have started establishing language laboratories in their institutions. This concept of language lab is not new but more than thirty years old. In many colleges they remain closed or used occasionally. Nonetheless these language labs can be utilized to train the students for better listening and speaking. Individualized instruction is the idea behind the language labs.

The Radio and T.V. News Readers

The radio and T.V. news readers are well-trained in English and they use not more than five thousand words (basic voc). The English language is spoken with the speed of five to six syllables a second. Mother tongue like Tamil is spoken with the speed of two to three syllables a second. By listening to radio news the students learn the correct pronunciation, use of words, sentence structure and grammar unconsciously. Another important feature of these news bulletins is the constant repetition of certain words, phrases and sentences. If the students learn these words and sentences previously, they will eagerly listen to English news and this will promote self-learning and joyful learning.

Need for a New Bridge Course in English

The English Teachers at the colleges are troubled by the poor language acquisition of students at the school level. In one of the viva voce exam an English lecturer expressed her inability to remedy some basic errors of students such as “Thanking God” instead of saying “Thank God”. The English text books at the level of under graduate courses do not cater to the needs of these students. As a result the students continue their poor communication skill throughout their life. They are very much afraid of being criticized by others. Neither do they know how to rectify these errors. The remedial course materials published by CIEFL, Hyderabad deals with only the grammatical aspect of Spoken English. Hence, there is a need for a new bridge course in English to improve the Spoken English of students to enable them to cope with the Spoken English syllabus of college and undergraduate students.

Make an Effort

Whatever may be the masked complexities of English, the learners should strive hard to learn it with effort. The following is the suggestion of the English Language teachers of Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad regarding the learning of the English language.

“If you want to improve your English, you must make an effort yourself…. If you work, if you attend regularly, your knowledge of English must improve”.

Native Speaker’s Model

Lack of native speaker’s model has become yet another problem to learn the language. This problem can be solved easily if the learners know how to listen to Radio and Television English news. By listening to Radio and television news, the learners may improve their own pronunciation. If they could not listen and comprehend the news, they may record it and take practice by imitating it. Listening to slow speed news bulletins with ear phones will surely improve the listening skill of the learners. Anyone can obtain national and international intelligibility by this process of simplification by carefully listening and imitating the news readers.

The Linguistic sum mum bonum

English, the language of the Nobel Laureates, has become the most prestigious modern language. A few words of great authorities cited below will motivate the foreign learners and provide a lot of enthusiasm to learn the language with speed.Randolph Quirk’s words “English is a language on which the sun does not set, whose users never sleep“ have been proved beyond doubt. As far as English is concerned “The native speaker is dead”.

Otto Jesperson praised the language as “the Linguistic sum mum bonum”. He portrayed it as “methodical, energetic, business like, sober, noble, rich, pliant, expressive, interesting, masculine, the language of the grown up man with very little childish or feminine about it. Monosyllabism and onomatopoeic words provide it much richness and good sense”.

Small Words

The English language has become the multi-billion dollar language and the best job generating language. Though it remains a twenty-six letter language, it is a complex language. Complicated pronunciation, rich vocabulary and complex grammar are the language – based difficulties. Though it contains more than ten lakh vocabulary only a few hundred words are employed in day-to-day speech. What worries the learners are the small words or the grammatical words. The eager learner has to master the art of framing questions quickly and to listen to radio and TV news bulletins.

LSRW

“Learn the words; learn the language” is an old saying. How do the students learn words? They learn words by Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (LSRW). Teachers of English should not undermine the skills of listening and speaking. Students can easily build their vocabulary and use them only by these two skills. The teachers should encourage the students to listen to their speech in the class and also to radio and T.V. news bulletins and ask them to imitate. This practice of listening will help the students to learn pronunciation and grammar unconsciously and speak with confidence. The students should be given training to learn the meaning of unknown words through wise guess.

Intelligibility in English.

The English language has become the richest and the most powerful language among world languages. Owing to Information Technology and Internet Revolution, English has assumed the role of a mighty employer, generating new job opportunities for all youngsters in the world. The IT boom has become a boon to India and as a result our youngsters can get job opportunities in India itself. Nevertheless the lack of quality English education pulls them down and they remain jobless in spite of thousands of opportunities around them. Today, Indian students get three types of intelligibility in English. They should be taught to acquire International Level of Intelligibility in English (ILIE) for better learning. This can be achieved by teaching them the life skills of listening, speaking and correct English pronunciation.

Quality of Higher Education

The future of Indian Education depends on the quality of higher education and the growth of Information Technology. Quality of education depends to a larger extent on the quality of teaching. The teachers should come forward to equip themselves with self-in-service training. If the subject teachers teach in English in the classrooms for the students to imitate, the students will learn both their subjects as well as English.

Using a Dictionary

Using a Dictionary

Dictionaries have become resource books rather than reference books. Usually students and teachers use bilingual dictionaries. Today they have to learn to use advanced learners dictionaries like Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD), Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD), Macmillan Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (MALD) and Longman Contemporary Dictionary (LCD).

The following points are important while looking up a word in the dictionaries:

v Pronunciation

v Syllable division

v Parts of Speech

v Spelling

v Meaning

v Root and Different usages of the word

Laugh and be Merry

Laugh and be Merry

Illiterates

Once, Albert Einstein was traveling on a train. At one station he got down to buy a newspaper. After buying the newspaper he realized that he had forgotten to put on his glasses. So he asked the shopkeeper to read the headlines to him. The shopkeeper replied, ‘I also like you. I am an illiterate and can’t read’.

Indians:

Once, an American, Japanese and an Indian were discussing the technological developments in their respective countries. The American said that his country was so advanced, showing a fine wire. The Japanese took it and demonstrated that his country could improve it and he drilled a hole through the wire. The Indian took the wire and the next day he brought it back and showed it to the other two. They could not make out anything. The Indian then handed them a microscope; they found the words ‘Made in India’ inscribed on the wire.

Interview

A: “For this job, we require someone who is responsible”

B: That would be me, Sir. At every place I worked, whenever something went wrong, they said I was responsible.

LEARNING OF ENGLISH- A GLOBAL PROBLEM

LEARNING OF ENGLISH- A GLOBAL PROBLEM

The English language has been growing rapidly and it has attained the stage of a trillion dollar status. It provides foreign job opportunities in India itself. Nevertheless its significance has not been understood by the Indian teachers and students. It is very poorly taught and learnt and tested by the authorities and this haphazard system of teaching and testing pulls down the quality of Indian education to its lowest level. It continues to be a global problem and all the developing countries are affected by the poor teaching and testing of it. Hence English language has become a killer –language and every year more than 2000 students attempt suicide as soon as the results are published.

“Cabbage in; cabbage out” is the modern saying about the computer. In the same way “Like the teacher, like the student” is true in teaching and testing of English in India. Testing the testers should be done by the educators to improve the overall improvement of the testing of English in India.

Kendriya Vidhyalaya and NavothayaVidhyalaya students do well in their competitive exams and even Matric and other English medium students could not compete with them. Why do the central school students thrive and other local first-generation students fail even in their English tests?

The rural learners of English fail miserably in their English and their lives become doomed forever. They develop a psychic fear towards the language and it dwells with them till they live. If this problem is not solved in the school itself our entire higher education system would be spoiled. There should be a change of mind among the English teachers and they should come forward to teach English with new zeal, new material, new methods and new testing system.

The English language is a survival skill and a practical life tool and it is not taught and tested like a skill but a knowledge subject. Here setting the question paper based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives would not hold good. The English question paper should be set based on the four skills of the language, Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing (LSRW).

The English question paper at the school level at present contains the following items.

1. Short Answer questions

2. Objective type questions

3. Filling up the blanks and

4. Essay type questions

These questions need blind memory-based learning and are soon forgotten as soon as the exams are over. These questions are based on the skills of reading and writing. The basic skills of listening and speaking are completely ignored in the testing of English.

The fluency and proficiency of English of students are not tested and they have not got anything to test. When those students go to foreign countries especially English speaking countries, the universities expect the students to get a pass certificate in any one of the English as a foreign language testing system conducted by Cambridge University

E.g

International English Language Testing system (IELTS)

The Multi-National Companies (MNCS) test their candidates’ knowledge of English by personal interviews, debates, group discussion etc. Most of our students fail in these tests because of their lack of exposure to the skills of listening and speaking in their school and college lives

R.K. Bansal, the Father of Indian English pronunciation observes that

“We must try to improve our students’ proficiency in Spoken English by developing their skills in listening and speaking along with their knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and usage.”

The above statement is true and in all the International testing systems of English, the first test will be on the skill of listening and then follow the other skills like speaking, reading, and writing.

E.g. TOEFL (Testing of English as a foreign language)

The English Teachers in schools should come forward to enrich their English. Learning a language is a skill and a habit. The easiest way to learn English and teach it to their students is to listening to radio news and take motes repeatedly. Thus the teachers can self-test their own English

In the class rooms audio-visual instruments like radio, television and tech should be used to improve their skill of listening and speaking. These electronic gadgets are very useful to improve the students’ skill of listening and speaking. The testing and assessment of English should be continuous. Class tests, weekly tests, and term tests should be conducted without fail. This will help both the teachers and students to improve their English. The language skill should become a part of the students’ life. They should be encouraged and guided to listen to news readers’ English throughout their lives and test their English

WORD POWER

WORD POWER

Word Power empowers students and they should know the true value of improving their vocabulary. Students at the college level should have a minimum of ten thousand words for their active use. It is surprising to know that in speaking English, not more than a hundred words are used daily by any speaker in the world. In all the language activities like Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (LSRW) not more than a thousand content words or meaningful words are used daily. All the other words are called passive words or words which are useful to understand messages and, these “Other words” are scarcely used words. Nevertheless they do the function of activating the cognitive abilities of students. Learn a few new words like the following and try to enrich yourselves.

Logistics – The careful organization of a complicated activity so that it happens in a successful and effective way – CALD

- The flow of goods, information, and other resources, including energy and people, between the point of origin and the point of consumption, is defined as logistics. -The New Indian Express.

Amalgamate - (V) Combine, merge, unite, join, fuse, blend, meld, mix, incorporate-

(opp) separate

Blueprint - (N) Plan, design, diagram, drawing, sketch, layout, model, template,

pattern, example, guide, prototype, pilot

Cache - (N) Hoard, store, stockpile, stock, supply, reserve, arsenal

Diagnose - (V) Identify, determine, distinguish, recognize, interpret, detect,

Pinpoint.

Excel - (V) Shine, be excellent, be outstanding, be skilful, be talented, stand

out, be second to none

The short cut to improve your word power is the judicious use of thesaurus i.e. Book of synonyms. Try to learn minimum a hundred words a day.

FAME IN NAME

FAME IN NAME

A Welsh girl called Gwyeth visited Japan recently. There, people had problems pronouncing her name. So she became “Gwyniss”.

Everywhere she went, she was greeted with tremendous respect. At a farewell reception her host said, we’ve been so excited to have a famous author in our midst.

“What am I supposed to have written?” She asked, baffled.

“Why – The Gwyniss Book of records”.

-Courtesy, Reader’s Digest

GRAPHOLOGY

GRAPHOLOGY

“Written words are the symbols of Spoken words.” – Aristotle

Today in many companies, the handwriting of employees is used as lie detectors and it is called polygraph. Calligraphy is the art of producing beautiful handwriting. “Graphology” is the study of handwriting and in particular in order to reveal character and personality traits. It was in 19^th Century a monk by name Michon collected and studied thousands of handwriting samples, eventually publishing an account of his system of analyses. It has become a part of Psychology courses. Psychologists use graphology and for studying human behavior.

Graphologists try to predict the character of an individual and say whether they are “aggressive, ambitious, artistic, cultured, dishonest, honest, imaginative, independent, loyal, quarrelsome, reserved talkative etc”

Mind -Hand-Coordination is an important trait to be followed by all students. While writing, they should face the paper and write. This will facilitate them to read and write. If they make it a habit, they can correct their own careless errors in their writing. By correcting their own errors in their test papers, they can expect five to ten marks extra in every test paper.

Hand Writing has been considered as a life time companion. It is a skill and a habit. It has great values for Indian students. There is a good relationship between their handwriting and scoring of marks. Good handwriting tempts the examiners and they become biased towards it and provide good marks. Further the student’s thinking is also depends a lot on their writing. The Students with poor Hand writing hesitate to read their own writing. They think that it is their fate and their writing habit cannot be changed.

Poor writing can be completely changed provided the writers think over it and ready to change it. They should not forget that good handwriting gives pleasure to the readers. On the contrary poor or bad handwriting invites the wrath of the examiners and it is a dishonour for them to go through it because they couldn’t make out anything from it.

Most of the students are unaware of the effects of their handwriting. Any student or adult can change or improve their writing within a day. The following ideas will help the students to improve their handwriting. The handwriting should be legible. Enough space between letters and words should be maintained throughout the writing. The correct shape of the letters should be in mind while writing them and also they should see that the letters are big enough to read without any constraint. The general rule in writing with space is that the students should not write not more than four to five words in a line and in a page they should not write more than twenty five lines

Learning English

Learning English

The difficulties of learning English are enormous and they can be overcome by continuous training and constant integrated study

The first difficulty for Indian learners is the mother tongue influence. The next obstacles arise due to wrong teaching methods and learning methods. The aspect of self-learning is totally absent among the learners. Further the learners don't know the future of the role of English in their lives. The most important thing is that they are poorly motivated.

Killer Language

English remains a killer language in India. For every year more than 2000 students attempt suicide as soon as the results are published. Moreover the poor learning and teaching of it causes tearful learning amog students.

Hence Engish Language causes the downfall of the quality of Indian Education.

Everlasting Hope

English Language has become a living giant among world Languages and it is described as a multi- trillion language. It has the power to generate new job opportunities and billions of youngsters live because of the immortal language. They rely on it for their promotion opportunities and higher education.

It has its destructive power too. As it grows, other local languages slowly die a natural death.

Hence the duty of the local people is to speak their language also along with English.

It is predicted by linguistic researchers that even the best classical languages would die and disappear within five hundred years without anyone to speak the language.