Education, Technology and ELT

  What is ELT?

  

     ELT is the teaching of English language to the people whose mother/first language is not English. ELT is an abbreviation for ‘English Language Teaching’ specifically to the students whose native language is not English. English language taught as the Foreign or the Second language to the people whose native language is different like in India, which is the multilingual country.

       This blog is the part of the tasks given in the ELT classroom. To see that tasks Click Here where there are the images, videos, quizzes, presentations and other reading resources are given which help the teachers as well as learners to practice LSRW skills and how the technology can be integrated in the ELT classroom. Two quizzes are based the CALL and Web Tools which can be used effectively by the teachers as well as the learners for self-learning module.

   Here, our task is to think about ideas that discussed in 8 videos which are embedded on the above linked blog task. Therefore, I am going to present main ideas that discussed in these videos.

Video-1 Sir Ken Robinson: Changing Paradigm

      In this video, Robinson talks about the changing education paradigm. As per his views, every country on earth reforming Public Education for the two major reason 1) Economic that how do we educate our children to achieve their positions in the economics of 21^st century. 2) Culture, how we can educate our children that they can get the sense of Cultural Identity (I know where I came from). He said by these they alienated children without saying any purpose to going to school, they introduce future by what has done in the past. He said that current education system designed for a different age of 18^th and 19^th century where there is the Industrial revolution and economic circumstances. He talked about ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) which is the matter of the debate. Today’s children are mostly influenced by the TV, Computers, iphones, advertise hoardings which considered as the distractions. Arts are the victims of this mentality and leads towards Anesthetic which shut senses off, deaden our self to what is happening. Schools are organized on the factory lines where there is ringing bells, separate facilities for girls and boys, specialized subjects like math, science, language and we educated them still by batches. Why do we do that? It is like manufacturing products year by year which will go into the market for sell. The  education based on the Standardization not on the Customization. He put stress on the ‘Divergent thinking’ that every persons have original ideas that have values, it is an essential capacity for creativity not its synonyms. It is an ability to see multiple answers of single question and many ways to interpret answer. And his last point is that of Collaborative learning that is happen in the group. Collaboration is the stuff of growth.

Video-2&3 Sugata Mitra: School in the Cloud SOLE and Future of Learning

     He talks about the Future of Learning in both the videos. He discussed about what is going to be the future of learning. He talks about the education system, which came from last empire. Victorians made global machine of people and to produce that people they produce other machine called School where people are produce to be part of the BAM (Bureaucratic Administrator Machine). Where good handwriting, ability to read, able to do additions, subtraction and other sums because that are in demand at that time but now this education system is outdated the jobs we have that is of computer clerk who doesn’t require good handwriting and ability of calculation because computer is able to do it. His major project is ‘Hole in the Wall’ that he started for the slum poor children who do not have computers. 

He provide them computer which fit into the wall and he found that children who do not know the English language and haven’t any knowledge of internet, they learnt how to browsing and taught each other. He provides street side computers to the remote villages near Delhi to spread self-education. He said when threats are given to the students; it shut down a part of brain. Threats are Punishments and Examination, which destroy the creative mind/brain of students that happen in the old time. He said that what happens with the creativity of our age and to keep that balance backs from threats to pleasure, he is looking British grandmothers who can give lesions to these poor children through the web Camera called ‘Grany Cloud’ from which the ‘SOLE’ (Self Organized Learning Environment) emerged where broadband + Collaboration + encouragement & admiration put together and learning happens itself. His wish is School in the Cloud. He said now we are using technology like phones, tablets, laptops in the classrooms why that are not allowed in the examination hall while in future job we will have to deal with that. He said we hate text messages like How R U? rather than How are you? what is problem in that. He said Teachers should be friends not sages and guides and schooling should remain forever not of 5 or 6 years.

Video- 4 Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

     Here, Salman Khan’s main argument is that ‘People can learn more from videos than books’ in context of development of technology. He is a banker no a teacher but by the source of videos he became teacher without any official degree that is the main benefit of progress of technology. He started just by teaching his cousin and uploaded videos of math/ science on YouTube with the exercises after watch that videos and appreciated worldwide he got many interesting feedback like one person said ‘First time I smile during doing math work’. Then, he invited by many schools and teachers on virtual platforms and, most of the American schools used his video resources in their classrooms. Through this, students can interact with each other, which humanized them. Now, there are group of people who run this software in  the Khan Academy.

Video-5 Marc Prensky: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

       Prensky talks about the generation of 21^st century who are advance in technology from the very childhood than their predecessors. He calls them Digital natives (Native speakers of digital language of computers/internet). In addition, Digital immigrants who don’t born in the digital world but have adapted technology and many aspects of new technology. They speaks outdated /pre digital language to give instructions to new students. They believe that their students can’t learn from watching TV and playing video games which suggests the traditional mindset of digital immigrant while digital natives have laptops rather than books in their libraries. Today’s teacher should speak in language that student can understand because they born in new culture and learn new languages. They should think about the future demand of education. Like, Salman Khan works for Digital Natives because he has future vision of learning.

Video- 6,7&8 David Crystal: The Effect of New Technologies on English, The Biggest challenge for English Language Teacher in the time of Internet and Texting is ‘Good’ for english Language

     In these videos, David discussed about teaching of English language through the Technology and its influence. He said when any new technology came it influences language quite dramatically. He gave examples of Printing Press by Gutenberg that brings the varieties of newspaper with headlines and cartoons, Development of the telephone in 19^th century when people even don’t know how to use but now used by everyone, Broadcasting came where people believe it is brain washing while it introduced varieties of language which brought speak commentaries of footballs, news reading  and Ted shows, these all are the result of broadcasting. Now, Internet doing the same thing, in 1991 WWW (world wide web) arrives without that younger generation don’t know the world. ‘Blog’ arrive in 1997 before that on one blogged then slowly FB came in 2004, YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2006. These are examples of new technologies that developing new styles of English Language. The style used in texting that you don’t use in blogging, technology influenced English in quite specific way like in text messaging. 

There is limit of 160 characters in Twitter there is 140 characters because 20 is defined who you are as early there was prompt of  ‘I am doing’ which change in 2009 as ‘What’s happening?’ because early prompt said to look into yourself while new one say to look around you and there is change in Tenses and  noun to pronoun. Internet has major influence on English language as new abbreviations came like ‘LOL’, its tiny fraction of English Language. Text messages are not full of only abbreviations, its only 10% and 90% use of standard English language. There are myths that people believe that Texting is only used by the kids, invented y them and they don’t know how to spell correctly and if that language used by them in exams, they considered as illiterate. However, here David said this texting provide them the great platform for practice of read and write.

      These all progress creates biggest challenge for teachers because of growing Internet and globalization of English Language. If you put/use any new word on FaceBook, everyone knows it in 24 hours. He said that two most important jobs in the world that are 1) Translating/ Interpreting and 2) Language Teaching. Teachers should paid highest salary that not applied until now. He gave example that if you want to learn South African Language, you don’t need to go there but just type it  in Google and you get the local newspaper, audios, videos in that language. You can also do Skype interaction with native speakers of that language. It takes time but once you do it you get materials that can used every year.

    Therefore, all these videos are very useful /helpful for English language teachers to teach English by the integration of technology and can create the future of leaning.  Students also can learn how to do self learning. 

Here is one more video which talks on the same topic and about the wheel of modern education where three things are important 1) Self-Learning 2) My Tribe and 3) Deep Immersions. 

Annotated Bibliography of Literature Reviews

                               

      1)    What literature is for?

  

      This video draws our attention towards four psychological functions of great literature that how books affects/change our life. We have common belief that libraries/books are very important but what exactly is good for? So, here major four benefits are given 1) literature is time saver as it takes us years or decades back through our imagination and we travel many places without going there through our imagery. 2) It makes us nicer, by listing this, question arise in our mind that Are we bad before the contact of literature? But not in that sense, literature makes us more sympathize by giving feelings of deep importance. 3) It fills the place of other person; we often hear that Books are our best friends. It is our friend which never left us in loneliness. and 4) it prepares us for failure, because we have fear of failure, as in ON@CC by Chetan Bhagat,  God gave four aspects which are important in life when call comes, forth one is that people are feared from failure never accept it as a second chance do better. To win in life, failure is important part of it. If you cannot learn to fall down, you never learn to fly high. (Popova)

    

     2)    ‘How English Literature shaped me?’ by Arvind Adiga

       In this blog, Adiga shared his experience that how English literature shaped his whole life. He shared his childhood memories and talking about the Indian conservative town of 1980s. During this time how he devoured literature through circulating libraries that would lend out at a nominal rate. He also talks about the importance of English language and famous writers of that time. He got suggestions for good writers and books from the owner of that library. His grandfather’s house was full of books, all in English. He said, ‘we were the language’s, before language was ours.’ He found all glamour in English that shaped him a lot. (Adiga) 

  

     2)    Is B.A English in India just a time pass? By Ketan Krishna

      This write up has written in a very literary way as it begin with the statement that ‘It’s universally acknowledged that a person studying English literature as a formal course, isn’t really studying’ which is similar the beginning lines of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Austen. It is about the value and importance of students of B.A English in Indian society much for boys who study in this, how they look by society like jobless, no wife, no future, its waste of time. It also talks about the role of universities which differs from the school life that allows students to think individually. What happen after studying literature, existential questions arises and students learn to doubt every system and stay in the state of uncertainty. (Krishna)

     3)    Surviving B.A English

    This writing is by the group of the students of literature from Delhi University. Here, they are talking about how mountains of critical works/materials can be designed by literature students as assignment and presentations to share with global people their ideas and insights of different literary texts. (Surviving BA(hon) English )

  

   4) IIT dropout finds B.A English syllabus equally uninteresting by Pagal Patrakar

    

      This write up is about a boy who dropout from engineering to pursue his career by studying literature because his interest is in writing poems, so he take admission in literature but he found that girls are so hot but no one is interested in reading or studying literature. Students are not discussed about any books or essays. He complains that every student criticized his poems not praising but literature is more about criticism. He found that there is no beauty to study literature that is the situation in allover India. (Patrakar)

    5)    Life at Delhi University, 5 things every students of english goes through in college by Sudhisa Mishra

     The experiences of student has reflected through the whole article where 5 things are there that experienced by every english student in the college hat are stereotypes were false, we have stereotype image of literature that it all about reading literature but through it we can connects our self totally with the books which make us happy, sad or satisfied. We study literature era wise from Elizabeth to modern age. Literature students have new festivals like book fairs of their own happy day is festival for them. It introduces them to real truth, beauty of sadness, happiness, death, miseries etc. Literature students can explore views about cities, cultures, life of people, untraveled paths where poetries leads us. We can enjoy different places without going there that is the joy of being English literature students. (Misra)

Bibliography

Adiga, Aravind. " 'How English literature shaped me'." 16 July 2009. INDEPENDENT. 26 December 2017 <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/aravind-adiga-how-english-literature-shaped-me-1749429.html>.

Krishna, Ketan. "Is BA English in India just timepass?" 3 January 2015 . THE TIMES OF INDIA. 26 December 2017 <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Is-BA-English-in-India-just-timepass/articleshow/45742576.cms>.

Misra, Sudisha. "Life at ‪‎Delhi University | 5 things every English Honours student goes through in college!" 8 June 2015. Letsintern. 26 December 2017 <https://www.letsintern.com/blog/life-at-%E2%80%AA%E2%80%8Edelhi-university%E2%80%AC-5-things-every-english-honours-student-goes-through-in-college/>.

Patrakar, Pagal. "IIT dropout finds B.A. English syllabus equally uninteresting." 25 April 2011. FAKINGNEWS. 26 December 2017 <http://www.fakingnews.firstpost.com/society/iit-dropout-finds-ba-english-syllabus-equally-uninteresting-1627>.

Popova, Maria. "Brainpickings." What Books Do for the Human Spirit: The Four Psychological Functions of Great Literature. 26 December 2017 <https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/09/school-of-life-literature-reading/>.

"Surviving BA(hon) English ." 23 January 2010. Suevivingbaenglish. 26 December 2017 <https://survivingbaenglish.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/hello-world/>.

Can Technology replace teacher?

    ·       Can Technology replace teacher?

    ·       Is teacher replaceable by technology?

                                        

      These debatable questions are more in the air in recent time when we talk about education and technology. Now, Technology becomes integral part in the life of modern people. In routine life, we are habituate to work with technical tools from early morning to late night. So , we can’t think that teacher can replace technology and technology is also not be able to replace teacher but teacher  and technology can mingled together into education system where more importance is given to the students and their self-learning through the integration of technology in the classroom where teacher is only the guide by the side.

Great technology requires great teachers 

                         

   

      This happens only when teachers are ready to accept technology to enhance their teaching and learning in the modern classroom. Technology can facilitate the learning process but it cannot replace the role of the teacher in the classroom as Samar Jodha in yesterday's Ted Talks India said one sentence that  'जिंदगी का तजुरबा कभी मशीनों से नहीं बल्कि मानव से मिलता है।' Teacher imparts students with life skills, valuable life lesions and inspire them to question, to think differently, to bring contextual meanings and to make careful judgments which technology may not be able to do. Without great teachers, technology merely becomes an automated tool and stops inspiring and engaging students, which is also experienced by me that when your teacher inspire you to do something with the help of the technology then you do. In addition, it happens many times that we are not aware about many technical tools, applications, online sources that introduce by the teacher to us then we start to use it by our own. I am also not aware about the technology and its benefits in the education; I have passed my graduation without awareness of technology that can be helpful in education only because I do not have those great teachers who are using technology that is why I cannot meet with the technology. However, in my Master’s studies, I am grateful that I got great teacher Prof. Dilip Barad who use great technology in teaching process. This can prove that teacher is must require along with great technology. Teacher is a guide, without proper guidance we cannot go on the right path. Teacher can change the life of students through their valuable suggestions that they have by their own experience of life. (Bryant)

     Therefore, in the modern classroom, Teacher and Technology are integral part, no one can work separately, and there should be combination of both.

Works Cited

Bryant, Abigail. "Technology vs Teachers: Can technology replace teachers?" 12 December 2016. Kognity. 25 December 2017 <http://www.kognity.com/can-technology-replace-teachers/>.

7^th A.K RAMANUJAN ANNUAL NATIONAL PAPER READING CONTEST -2017

                                          Organized by

                                       UGC SAP DRS II

                          Department of English, Faculty of Arts

                     The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

                                      Vadodara -390002

                          Accredited with Grade ‘A’ by NAAC

     

 

       I have attended this paper-reading contest last year in sem-2 and now I am going to convert my experience of that into blog, the theme of the contest was Parallel Cinema in India and was scheduled during 10-11 February 2017 at V.Y Kantak Seminar Hall, Department of English.

Parallel Cinema      

       

        As opposed to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema, represented especially by popular Hindi (Bollywood) cinema, Parallel Cinema known for its serious content, experimentation in terms of technique and narration, rejection of clichéd and stereotyped  plots and characters of popular cinemas and an awareness of social and popular issues. The films were made on limited budget and aimed at a niche market rather than a mass-market audience. The movement emerged in Bangla during the same time as the French New Wave and Japanese New Wave, led by internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Mrina Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, among others.

       

     This contest organized every year only for Master’s Students from different universities. From our MK Bhavnagar University, Department of English two students Ami Sojitra, my senior and I have selected for participation in that. It was two days contest where every Student has presented their research paper in 15 minutes and 5 minutes for questions/answers asked by Judges or other participants.  We reached there a day before contest and we have good interaction with others at Guesthouse during morning breakfast where we have introduced ourselves with each other. MSU students and Pro, Sachin Ketkar came to take us way on the Contest venue which was decorated beautifully according to the theme.

Day-1: 10 February 207

            The contest begun with the Inaugural Session in which welcome addressed by Prof. Sudha P. Pandya, Officiating Head of Department of English and Introduction to competition and the Judges given by Pronoy Singha, and Vote of Thanks by Mr. Dhiren Parmar. Before the beginning of the each session, interview of every presenter taken by news reporter that what you want to say/ prove through your research work. On first day, three sessions were there 

       

       Our turn was in the last session 4 to 5 on first day in which Ami Sojitra has presented her paper effectively on Parallel Cinema as a Movement in India and I (Komal Shahedapuri) have presented on the Representation of LGBT in ParallelCinema. (Click here for PPT) I was quite nervous because unfortunately my pen drive was corrupted and not work properly and my PPT was in that but Plan -2 was working , I have sent this PPT to me through mail , so I was able to download it in tea break . Then, I realized that our sir Dr. Dilip Barad (head of department of English MKBU) always taught us to ready with alternative plans that work that day for me and I can present my paper successfully. Then, in evening the cultural program organized by the students. 

      At night they took us to Kathiyavadi Restaurant where all participants, Judges, Chair Persons and other Professors took dinner together. There is also good discussion on the Food that some of the Participants are from Delhi and Maharashtra,  they have believe that all Gujrati food are more sweet, so they asked us that which food is not sweet that they can eat that food. Then, a Participant from Maharashtra said in a comic way that there is a sweet food called 'Puranpoli' in Gujrati food is small and we have in Maharashtra same food but in big form. Therefore, it seems like you have stolen from us. Over all, it was good dinner together as the intercultural communication took place and all can come together and know each other and different culture. It is my personal observation that in this types of seminars and conferences, during Lunch and Dinner time meaningful discussion took place among each other like one of the professor have discussed with us about our topics and research paper and she has appreciated both of us for our good topics for paper and suggested me to go forward with same topic (LGBT) in PhD Research because it  is unique/different topic in which not much research has done.

 

Day-2: 11 February 2017

       On second day, we have other four sessions, 

The contest was end with reading of the reports and Valedictory functions where valuable feedback and suggestions for film studies/ techniques given by three judges to all the participants as appreciation and improvement that should be needed in research work.

       At last, the announcement of results and Prize distribution was there where team-12 The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda won first team prize-Rs. 2000 and a trophy with the set of books, second team prize-Rs. 1000 and a trophy with set of books won by team-1 Deshbandhu College, Delhi University. 

      



     First Prize in individual category- gold plated medal and set of books won by Madhuri Adwani from MSU and second individual prize-silver plated medal with the set of books won by Punit Pathak from MSU.

     Consolation prize has given to individual participants in which first consolation prize won by Ami Sojitra from Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University and second by Nikhil Baisane from Pratap college, North Maharashtra University. To  other participants certificate with the set of books are given. The contest ends with vote of thanks by participants in a form of their experience of two days contest.                                                                                           

                                                                               

     We were return to our guest, some of participants were check out in evening but we have check out on the next morning. That is last moment to say farewell to all fellow participants and we have last dinner together where one of our judge was also present but when we talked with them, it was like friendly discussion. We have received wonderful hospitality there. I would like to thank to Dhiren Parmar and others for support and helping in matter of accommodation and food, Department of English MSU to organize this wonderful quality based Contest for Master’s Students and Dr. Dilip Barad to give us opportunity to attend this contest. Over all was wonderful and meaningful experience for me with different people of same interest.

Thank You…..