Innovative Ideas for Teaching English

PTI 4 October 2009, 05:01pm IST LONDON: Believe it or not, overseas students are better at English than their British counterparts. A new study by Queen's English Society has revealed that British undergraduates make three times as many grammatical, punctuation and spelling mistakes in English than those from the overseas. Researchers have based their findings on an analysis of the written work produced in the year by final-year students. The study covered 28 final-year undergraduates' work -- 18 of them British and 10 from overseas (five Singaporeans, four Chinese and one Indonesian). The study found on average Britons had 52.2 punctuation, grammatical and spelling errors per paper as compared to just 18.8 for the international students, leading British newspaper 'The Independent' reported. Spelling errors included "flourescence" for "fluorescence", "alot" for "a lot", "seperate" for "separate", "y...

MASHA HASSAN, Speaking Tree, The Times of India   The vibrating strains of Azaan always have an enchanting effect on me; they resonate in my mind, filling my soul as well as the atmosphere with their sound of solace . I don't offer namaz (being too young for it). Yet, the prayer makes me feel like surrendering myself submitting to the spirit of Islam that stands for peace and purity, humility and discipline. The term 'submission to God' is a deep and divine term when it is followed in true spirit. We are not expected to visualise God but to worship Him and adore Him as a Protector. I wake up everyday, my eyes opening to the serene sound of the Azaan, every word finding its way into my consciousness as the new day dawns with the promise of a new beginning. I don't know Arabic, but the words and their impact are so evocative that it is easy to recognise and submit to the One Power that protects and guides us, and surrender and submission to the Almighty is but an exp...

1)       I'm having two sisters I have two sisters   2)       They had gone there yesterday. They went there yesterday.   3)       I didn't knew it. I didn't know it.   4)       I like listening music. I like listening to music.   5)       I'm telling to you. I'm telling you.   6)       All the peoples were quite excited All the people were quite excited   7)       I cannot discuss you that. I cannot discuss that with you.   8)       One of my friend is coming tomorrow. One of my friends is coming tomorrow.   9)       He gave me all the informations. He gave me all the information.   10)   This scissor is not working These scissors are not working   11)   Can you tell me what time is it? Can you tell me what time it is?   12)   Myself Krishna from Saharanpur. My name is   Krishna from Saharanpur or   I am Krishna…   13)   I told him 'ki' I was busy. I told him that I was busy.   14)   "She doesn't...

I am teaching my English literature class of undergraduates, fresh from rural schools, in the middle of a north Indian desert summer. Through the grimy windows we can see the dust devils spinning in the far distance. During this season, the landscape appears in tones of grey and brown, sometimes obscured entirely by a dust storm that blots out everything in a swirling haze. We are thirsty all the time.  As one launches into Shakespeare's sonnet, 'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day', my somnolent class looks mildly interested, their expressions soon changing to disbelief. I can see them thinking, 'These crazy angrez. Who is this Sexpeare, comparing his lover to summer?' But summer is not just weeks of helpless suffering for those who have to live through them. The beautiful mogra, the essence of summer, blooms lavishly, spreading its heady, intoxicating fragrance far into the sultry night. Entwined in the hair of the beloved in the initial, exhilarating...

DIPANKAR GUPTA   Slumdogs arouse instant interest because they laugh, bark, bite and bitch out in the open. They gambol in the sun and the rain without shoes, but can plot in alleyways for blood, lucre and less. Their lives are hard and brittle, but when they are generous they can make you cry. As this rapid play of emotions is there for all to see, we are alternately repelled, attracted and awestruck. When they are chuckling and playful, we wonder how laughter can crack through poverty. When they claw and scratch we put it down to their bestial nature. We see them one act at a time: one winsome smile, one cruel swipe, a suckling child, a leery ganglord. Slumdogs can break your heart and smash your face, but always in full view. The truth is that we are not very different from them. We go through the same feelings too, but much of them covertly backstaged. The higher we go up the ladder, the less our emotions are on display. When we at last come to royalty any public show of fee...

Is Slumdog Millionaire justified in portraying India as a poor country infested with slums?   The topic is open to discussion. Please post your views and comments on the topic.   Author's View   Movies like SM project India to the entice and delight the Westeners   and West-oriented people. Although it is true that India has many poor, illiterate and underfed populace, there are many who have brought glory and riches to the country. India is no more a country of snake-charmers and magicians.  

NEW DELHI: India is failing its rural poor with 230 million people being undernourished — the highest for any country in the world. Malnutrition accounts for nearly 50% of child deaths in India as every third adult (aged 15-49 years) is reported to be thin (BMI less than 18.5). According to the latest report on the state of food insecurity in rural India, more than 1.5 million children are at risk of becoming malnourished because of rising global food prices. The report said that while general inflation declined from a 13-year high exceeding 12% in July 2008 to less than 5% by the end of January 2009, the inflation for food articles doubled from 5% to over 11% during the same period. Foodgrain harvest during 2008-09 is estimated to be a record 228 million tonnes. However, the requirement for the national population would exceed 250 million tonnes by 2015. India ranks 94th in the Global Hunger Index of 119 countries, the report said. Brought out by the United Nations World Food Progr...

By the end of 2009, the number of people who suffer hunger worldwide could swell to one billion, warns the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in its report, `The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008'. Globally, the number of chronically hungry people suffering from prolonged food deficiency is currently 963 million. Almost two-thirds of undernourished people live in India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia, according to FAO. India ranks 66th out of 88 countries on the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)'s Global Hunger Index 2008 and has the largest number of undernourished people 200 million in any one country. The IFPRI says the overall hunger situation in India continues to be severe, though there are variations across states within India. Madhya Pradesh is worst off with hunger levels comparable to Ethiopia's. Though Punjab's rank in India is number one, it is 33 places below other develop...

TOI, 21 Feb 2009, 0000 hrs IST, Ban Ki-moon and Al Gore   Economic stimulus is the order of the day. This is as it must be, as governments around the world struggle to jump-start the global economy. But even as leaders address the immediate need to stimulate the economy, so too must they act jointly to ensure that the new de facto economic model being developed is sustainable for the planet and our future on it. What we need is both stimulus and long-term investments that accomplish two objectives simultaneously with one global economic policy response a policy that addresses our urgent and immediate economic and social needs and that launches a new green global economy. In short, we need to make 'growing green' our mantra. First, a synchronised global recession requires a synchronised global response. We need stimulus and intense coordination of economic policy among all main economies. We must avoid the beggar-thy-neighbour policies that contributed to the Great Dep...

In humans, as in plants, roots grow deeper if left to grow in one place, untransplanted MARK TULLY Magazine| Jan 12, 2009 T homas Hardy, who wrote some of the best known English novels, one of which was called The Return of the Native , said, "I am convinced that it is better for a writer to know a little bit of the world remarkably well than to know a great part of the world remarkably little." The bit of the world Hardy knew remarkably well was his native place, the county of Dorset in the west of England. It was a very small bit of the world, and a remote rural bit at that, which did not keep up with the fast-moving times of the last quarter of the 19th century. Hardy's novels reveal the profound influence of his native place but he was not a country bumpkin. One biographer of Hardy has said, "The two contrasting modes of feeling—for his native soil and for his cultural mecca (London)—entwine, sometimes fusing, sometimes pulling asunder, always with varying ...

With Barack Obama taking oath yesterday as America's 44th and first African-American president, the United States turned a page and closed a chapter. Obama's spectacular success story is packed with poignant, and powerful, symbolism. If he accepted the Democratic nomination last August on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's `I Have A Dream' speech, his inauguration follows the American holiday in memory of King. It is the culmination of an extraordinary story and a new beginning. Obama rode on a ticket for change. A country left bitter, fearful and divided by eight years of George W Bush's presidency, welcomed him with relief and expectation. The world, which had viewed America with growing alarm during these years, tuned in to Obama as well. He represented hope that America would manage its own house responsibly and favour consensus and cooperation while dealing with the world. But as enormous as his moment in history are the challenges Obama will face from ...

WASHINGTON: Barack Obama strode to the pinnacle of American power on Tuesday, taking the oath as the 44th US president and shattering racial barriers as the first black leader of the country. He took over a nation longing for change after President George W Bush's eight divisive years in the White House, an era that witnessed the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks, the beginning of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and an economic collapse not seen since the 1930s Great Depression. Earlier, Obama used Monday's holiday in memory of civil rights giant Martin Luther King Jr. to exhort Americans to service and call on them to join him in taking responsibility for the country's future in a new age of accountability. Obama's ascendancy marks a milestone once unthinkable in a nation that has struggled with racial issues since its founding and where segregation was practiced in many Southern states decades ago. It took place outside the US Capitol, which slaves helped build. Obama took oa...

NEW DELHI: Indian chess players appeared to have the midas touch in circa 2008 as they bedazzled the world, digging gold almost everywhere on the pla net. The highlight of the year was of course Viswanathan Anand's brilliant defence of his World Championship title against Russia's Vladimir Kramnik in a 12-game match at Bonn, Germany. Anand thumped Kramnik by a huge 6.5-4.5 margin, making the World Championship a lop-sided affair when it was supposed to be "a battle of nerves". With this, the Indian ace became the first person to win the title in three different formats - knockout (2000), tournament (2007) and match-play (2008) - silencing his critics as he claimed place among the all time greats of the world. Anand's juniors also followed his footprints as 19-year-old Abhijeet Gupta and 17-year-old Dronavalli Harika were crowned the Under-20 girls' and boys' world champions respectively in Gaziantep, Turkey. India became the first country to boast o...

As planned, at exactly 8.06 p.m. IST on Friday the indigenously built Moon Impact Probe (MIP) detached itself from the spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 as it flew over the Malarpet mountain on the Moon. Twenty-five minutes later and revolving like a top to stabilise its descent, the instrument console about the size of a large television set with the tricolour painted on it hard-landed in a place called the Shackleton crater in the south polar region. With this India becomes only the fifth country in the world after the US, Russia, EU and Japan to have successfully sent an artefact to the Moon's surface. Yes, to an extent, the whole mission is also symbolic. For instance, it's a great shot in the arm for national pride to know that even China hasn't done something like this as yet. More importantly, though, it's a symbol of India's growing presence in space both in near-Earth remote sensing and communication satellite orbits to nearly 4,00,000 kilometres away in deep...

Kashmiri separatist hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani is reportedly poll-axed. He had perhaps hoped the last phase of the Jammu & Kashmir assembly polls would reverse the trend of high voter turnouts during the seven-phase democratic exercise. As he admits, separatists badly misread the popular mood. With the last phase clocking a 55 per cent turnout, the overall turnout for seven phases is an inspiring 61.5 per cent, far healthier than the 43 per cent of 2002. Srinagar, the main playground of anti-poll campaigners, saw a 20 per cent turnout which, though modest, is reassuring compared to 2002's meagre 5.06 per cent. From the start, Kashmir's voters defied the winter chill, poll boycott calls and terror threats to cast their ballots. Separatists and Pakistan sympathisers should read the writing on the wall. True, sections in the Valley may not see electoral participation as diluting the cause of azadi. But, in this context, Geelani's comments are significant. He has reported...

2008 may not have been the best of times but it wasn't the worst either. And there are plenty of things to look forward to in 2009. Global oil and commodity prices reached skywards last year fuelling inflation and a hike in interest rates in India. This was followed by tremors from the US financial crisis and the India story took a body blow, as projections for Indian GDP growth went down sharply from 9 per cent to possibly 5.5 per cent. On top of that there was a spate of terror attacks, culminating in the Lashkar-e-Taiba unleashing mayhem in Mumbai on 26/11. But this inventory doesn't exhaust everything of significance that happened in 2008. The glass was also half full. Take the economy, for example, where oil prices plunged from record peaks of $147 in July to below $40 now. Inflation is coming down and that should enable interest rate cuts to restart India's consumption boom. Moreover, the current crisis has led to calls to redesign the global financial architecture ...