Innovative Ideas for Teaching English

Ghalib, Sarat Chandra and Subramania Bharati deserve the honour. We tend to ignore our real heroes, and hail superficial ones. These days, the issue of awarding the Bharat Ratna on Republic Day is in the news. When I appealed for the Bharat Ratna to Mirza Ghalib and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya, some people objected, saying that such awards should not be given to people who are no more. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong in giving awards posthumously, provided they are given to the right persons. The Bharat Ratna has been conferred posthumously in the past. Two examples are Sardar Patel and Dr. Ambedkar. Mirza Ghalib is a modern figure, not a legendary one like Lord Rama, or an ancient one like Gautam Buddha. Though he was brought up in the feudal tradition, he often broke through that tradition on perceiving the advantages of modern civilisation. Thus, in one sher (couplet), Ghalib writes: Imaan mujhe roke hai, jo khenche he mujhe kufr Kaaba merey peechey hai, kaleesa m...

Sunday TOI, 18 Dec 2011 Why are some people bounding with energy, while others get exhausted just dealing with everyday life? Where did Dev Anand's indefatigable energy spring from?  Say 'Dev Anand', and the first words that come to mind are "energetic", "evergreen", "forever young" -- epithets associated with the thespian through his life. When he passed away, headlines proclaimed that Bollywood's 'youngest' actor had died at 88! Sometimes your own reputation can dictate the path of your life, and Dev Anand loved his evergreen, youthful, energetic image, working hard at living up to it. When he was diagnosed with hernia, he reveals in his autobiography Romancing with Life (Penguin), he  refused to get operated in India fearing his fans would think that the "'evergreen', 'forever young' man of unstinted energy, gifted by the Gods with eternal youth…..was but an ordinary mortal like them all..!" Extraordi...

The key finding in a recent study that even top schools in major cities in India suffer from the entrenched tendency to impart rote learning may have some shock value to those who believe that private educational institutions place greater emphasis on quality and holistic education. However, for those closely observing the school education scenario, it is a re-affirmation of a bitter truth: schools in our country are, by and large, quite far from seeing education as a process of learning with understanding, acquiring knowledge through self-discovery and conceptualisation; rather, education remains a mere transmission of information in a rigid classroom atmosphere, where the emphasis is on memorisation and the objective is to rush through a pre-determined syllabus and prepare children for examinations. While on the scholastic side the WIPRO-Educational Initiatives 'Quality Education Study,' which covered 89 schools, shows a fall in learning standards among students in classes 4,...

लहरों से डर कर नौका पार नहीं होती , कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती। नन्हीं चींटी जब दाना लेकर चलती है , चढ़ती दीवारों पर , सौ बार फिसलती है। मन का विश्वास रगों में साहस भरता है , चढ़कर गिरना , गिरकर चढ़ना न अखरता है। आख़िर उसकी मेहनत बेकार नहीं होती , कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती। डुबकियां सिंधु में गोताखोर लगाता है , जा जा कर खाली हाथ लौटकर आता है। मिलते नहीं सहज ही मोती गहरे पानी में , बढ़ता दुगना उत्साह इसी हैरानी में। मुट्ठी उसकी खाली हर बार नहीं होती , कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती। असफलता एक चुनौती है , स्वीकार करो , क्या कमी रह गई , देखो और सुधार करो। जब तक न सफल हो , नींद चैन को त्यागो तुम , संघर्ष का मैदान छोड़ मत भागो तुम। कुछ किये बिना ही जय जय कार नहीं होती , कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती। - हरिवंशराय बच्चन

STOI, 11 December 2011 Faced with opposition from its own allies like Mamata Banerjee, the government has shelved its proposal to allow Walmart and other multibrand foreign retailers to have majority stakes in Indian hypermarkets. Critics have accepted the bogus claim that foreign retailers will kill small Indian shopkeepers.  In fact, the Walmart model is a 20th century concept that's rapidly becoming obsolete in the 21st century. Internet shopping now threatens the hypermarket, which may survive in small towns with low land prices, but looks doomed to becoming a minority player. In the massive annual shopping spree during the Thanksgiving season (end of November) in the US, 39% of consumers said they bought goods mostly through the internet, against 44% who mostly bought from brick-and-mortar stores and hypermarkets. A small proportion also made purchases through catalogues. The internet proportion keeps rising. Arvind Singhal, a top marketing guru, says that in Britain, no le...

STOI, 11 December 2011 The past two weeks witnessed a remarkable spectacle in which India's democracy won but India's people lost. On November 24, the government announced a bold reform to allow 51% foreign stake in retail. It triggered off a storm of protest across the political spectrum, and eventually forced the government to back down and suspend the reform. During the entire debate, no one asked why China and dozens of countries welcome foreign investment in retail. The defeat of the government means that Indian consumers have lost a chance for lower prices, India's farmers have lost the prospect of higher returns, a third to half of India's food will continue to rot, and millions of unemployed rural youth have been denied jobs and careers in the modern economy. It is also a severe blow to the future of reforms in India. It does seem odd that democracy should win and people lose. But democracy's great flaw is that it is easily captured by vested interests. In ...

Mark Tully, BBC News Whether the government, the private sector or NGOs should deliver development is a question which will not have much relevance unless India's wealth continues to grow to pay for that development. English is one of the advantages India has which are said to be propelling it to economic superpower status. There are all those Indians who speak excellent English. It's the mother tongue of the elite and effectively the official language of the central government. Then there is the growing number of parents who now aspire to give their children an education through the medium of that language. But is the craze for English an unmixed blessing? Back in the sixties the British regarded Indian English as something of a joke. The comic actor Peter Sellers had mocked it so comprehensively that I found it well nigh impossible to get the BBC to allow anyone with even the faintest Indian accent on the air. In India, we native English speakers laughed at quaint p...

TOI NEW DELHI: For the first time in many years, fewer Indian students are going to the US for higher study, while the number of Chinese students has jumped. But, also for the first time, the number of US students in India has jumped by over 44%. According to the   Open Doors annual survey   by the US'   International Institute of Education (IIE), students from India decreased by 1% to a total of 104,000. "Yet, India, as a destination for US students study abroad, increased 44.4%," said the survey. Despite the decline though, Indian students represent 14% of all international students in US   higher education   and the nation is by far the favourite destination for   Indian students overseas . The spike in Chinese students in the US, the survey said, is largely responsible for the country registering a 5% growth in international students in its colleges and universities during the 2010-11 academic session. China has increased its student population in the US to about ...

Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India, argues that the media has a very important role to play in helping the country make the transition from an old feudal society to a modern industrial one quickly, and without much pain. The Role the Media should be playing in India by Justice Markandey Katju, (former Judge, Supreme Court of India), Chairman, Press Council of India To understand the role which the media should be playing in India we have to first understand the historical context. India is presently passing through a transitional period in its history, transition from feudal agricultural society to modern industrial society. This is a very painful and agonizing period in history. The old feudal society is being uprooted and torn apart, but the new, modern, industrial society has not yet been entirely established. Old values are crumbling, everything is in turmoil. We may recollect the line in Shakespeare's play Macbeth: "Fair is foul and fo...

Each morning when I  open my eyes I say to  myself: I, not events, have  the power to make me  happy or unhappy today. I  can choose which it shall  be. Yesterday is dead,  tomorrow hasn't arrived  yet. I have just one day,  today, and I'm going to  be happy in it."                        -GROUCHO MARX

By STEVE LOHR Adrianne Yamaki, a 32-year-old management consultant in New York, travels constantly and logs 80-hour workweeks. So to eke out more time for herself, she routinely farms out the administrative chores of her life — making travel arrangements, hair appointments and restaurant reservations and buying theater tickets — to a personal assistant service, in India. Kenneth Tham, a high school sophomore in Arcadia, Calif., strives to improve his grades and scores on standardized tests. Most afternoons, he is tutored remotely by an instructor speaking to him on a voice-over-Internet headset while he sits at his personal computer going over lessons on the screen. The tutor is in India. The Bangalore butler is the latest development in offshore outsourcing. The first wave of slicing up services work and sending it abroad has been all about business operations. Computer programming, call centers, product design and back-office jobs like accounting and billi...

Anahita Mukherji TNN  New Delhi: Heres a compelling argument for education reforms in the country: student suicides increased by 26% from 2006 to 2010,with metros Bangalore,Delhi and Mumbai having most victims,in that order.And this is just the official data. While 5,857 student suicides were reported in 2006,the figure jumped to 7,379 in 2010,according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau.In other words,20 students killed themselves every day in 2010,something both academicians and mental health professionals blame on a flawed education system where performance pressure ranks above all else. http://lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/getpage.aspx?publabel=TOI&city=Delhi

The governments intention to restrict the applicability of the Right to Information (RTI) legislation in certain areas such as sport and nuclear safety is puzzling.If anything,these two areas require greater transparency in light of corruption in last years Commonwealth Games as well as the protests against nuclear power plants in Jaitapur and Kudankulam.Ever since its enactment in 2005,the RTI Act has faced pressure from various government quarters to allow for greater discretion the call for removing file notings from RTI purview has been around for sometime.However,such moves go against the very principle of open governance.Trying to circumvent the RTI law or bring in amendments to increase the scope of exceptions only betrays reluctance on the part of the government to move towards transparent functioning. There is no denying that RTI has empowered people in a way previously unknown.That RTI activists have used the legislation to shed light on a plethora of scams in recent times b...

Yashwant Raj , HT  October 07, 2011 The screens simply said: Steve Jobs, 1955-2011.  The assistant at a Washington suburb Apple store was sure it was not what the screens of displayed devices said when he had last checked. He looked lost fleetingly, and then snapped back. All business, "Ho The company, on Jobs's watch, straddled the widely disparate worlds of business and personal computing. The personal computer was truly personal, topped up with a steady supply of even more personal computing devices. "He was a perfectionist," said John Sculley, in a television interview, of the man he infamously fired from the company he had founded. Sculley and Jobs never spoke again.  Apple's  best would follow Jobs's return. And he became an immensely rich man. Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune was $8.3 billion (Rs40,670 crore) in 2011, mostly the value of his 5.5 million Apple shares. His annual salary had been $1 (Rs49) since 1997. Jobs leaves behind w...

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night as...