LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 6 : 1 January 2006

Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Associate Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.

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BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports to thirumalai@bethfel.org.
  • Contributors from South Asia may send their articles to
    B. Mallikarjun,
    Central Institute of Indian Languages,
    Manasagangotri,
    Mysore 570006, India     or e-mail to mallikarjun@ciil.stpmy.soft.net.

  • Your articles and booklength reports should be written following the MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.
  • Would you like to announce the dates and venues of your conferences, seminars, etc., and also publish the outline proceedings of these programs? Send a report to Language in India.

Copyright © 2005
M. S. Thirumalai

Language In India is a monthly online journal devoted to the study of the languages spoken in the Indian sub-continent. We wish to present the scholarly research findings on these languages in popular language. Our focus is on language use in mass media, education and administration, speech and hearing, sociolinguistic and political aspects relating to these languages and the society in the Indian subcontinent. We wish to present the linguistic descriptions, interdisciplinary research, and current issues of importance relating to Indian languages. Following the age-old tradition of Indian scholarship, the pages of this journal are open to scholarly articles on any language. We believe in co-operation and mutual help to foster amity between all peoples and their languages. This online journal publishes not only articles, but also book-length reports and studies. We want to be a blessing to Indian languages, praying for "strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow." We sincerely believe that every Indian language deserves our whole-hearted support for growth and that every one can find its place in a mosaic of unity and understanding, serving each other and singing the glory of God.

CONTENTS

WISH YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Dr. Lakhan Gusain, professor at the John Hopkins University and a leading researcher in the areas of endangered Indian languages and Hindi linguistics, joins the Board of Editors of Language in India from this issue! We are very glad that he agreed to join the team, and we look forward to his leadership, guidance, advice, and help in the publication of this journal.

LANGUAGE IN INDIA is now accepted for indexing in the most widely referred to data base of EBSCO Publishing! We receive over 250,000 hits every month, and are marching toward 300,000 hits every month in 2006! We have applied for the ISSN number for the journal. Thank you, our dear readers and authors, around the world!

From this issue, the Board of Editors decided to publish longer and intricate articles, book-length reports, and dissertations that need complex symbols, diacritic marks, etc. in PDF format. This will be done only selectively for the time being. May we request our readers to kindly let us know whether they face any difficulty in accessing these PDF files. Please write to thirumalai@mn.rr.com.

You can now print your favorite articles with ease and less ink! Please click on the link, given at the end of each article, which says CLICK HERE FOR PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION! Check it today!
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CONTACT EDITOR

Map of India, courtesy: Census of India.

INSTITUTES & DEPARTMENTS OF LINGUISTICS, INDIAN LANGUAGES, SPEECH AND HEARING, AND ENGLISH LITERATURE! SEND YOUR ANNOUNCEMENTS TO APPEAR IN THIS PLACE!!

ELT@I
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION OF INDIA

NATIONAL WORKSHOP
on
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT - CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
11-12 NOVEMBER, 2005
organised by
ELT@I Teacher Development SIG and ELT@I Surat Chapter
in association with
Wadia Women's College, Athwalines, Surat

INVITATION

The Management, Principal and Staff of Z. F. Wadia & N. K. Johta Women's College of Arts and Commerce, and members of the ELT@I Teacher Development SIG and ELT@I Surat (Gujarat Chapter) cordially invite you to a National Workshop on TEACHER DEVELOPMENT- CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES on 11th and 12th November, 2005. We are glad to inform you that Dr Sudhakar Marathe, Professor of English and Dean, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad, and Mrs. Meera Marathe, IIIT Hyderabad, have offered to conduct the workshop.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers are invited dealing with the main theme of the Workshop. Last date for submission of papers is 1 November, 2005. Please send your registration fee Rs.400/- (inclusive of lodging and boarding for two days). [Rs.350/- only if paid before 25 October-an early bird discount.] Paper presenters are requested to send Rs. 100/- in addition to the registration fee. Please send the fees before 1 November, 05 along with the registration form/s duly filled in to Dharmendra Sheth by a demand draft to be drawn in favour of 'Dharmendra Sheth' payable at Surat.

Please feel free to communicate with us with suggestions or for queries.

Ashokbhai Desai. Principal, Wadia Women's College, Surat
Amol Padwad. Convenor, ELT@I-Teacher Development SIG
Kanti Kantharia. Event Manager, Mob: 9426128858
Dharmendra Sheth. Coordinator, ELT@I Surat (Gujarat) Chapter
Ph: (R) 0261-2766213, Mob: 98254 42418
e mail: shethdharmendra@hotmail.com

PROGRAMME
11-11-05 (Friday)
9.00-9.30 ---- Registration
9.30-10.30 ---- Inauguration 10.30-11.30 ---- 'Teacher Development' - Introduction by Dr Sudhakar Marathe
11.30-11.45 ---- Tea Break
11.45-1.15 ---- Workshop (Session 1) Dr Sudhakar Marathe
1.15-2.00 ---- Lunch Break
2.00-3.00 ---- Workshop (Session 2) Meeraben Marathe
3.00-4.15 ---- Workshop (Session 3) Dr Sudhakar Marathe
4.15-4.30 ---- Tea Break
4.30-5.15 ---- Question-Answer Session
5.15-6.00 ---- Publishers' Interface.
12-11-05 (Saturday)
8.30-9.30 ---- Paper Presentations (4 Parallel sessions)
9.30-11.30 ---- Workshop (Session 4) Dr Sudhakar Marathe
11.30-11.45 ---- Tea Break
11.45-1.15 ---- Workshop (Session 5) Dr Sudhakar Marathe
1.15-2.00 ---- Lunch Break
2.00-3.00 ---- Workshop (Session 6) Meeraben Marathe
3.00-4.15 ---- Workshop (Session 7) Dr Sudhakar Marathe
4.15-4.30 ---- Tea Break
4.30-5.00 ---- Question-Answer Session
5.00-6.00 ---- Valedictory Function

THEME OF THE WORKSHOP

Teacher Development-Challenges and Opportunities.

After parents, the teacher is the most influential person in learners' lives. Every aspect of a teacher's personality has a measurable and significant effect on learners: knowledge of the subject, style, presentation, speech, richness and flexibility of language command, body-language, rapport, interpersonal skills, imagination, ready-wittedness, ability to perceive learners' reactions and to respond to them, humour, conversational skills, self-confidence…. The fact that in language teaching subject-content and medium are identical aggravates the problem.

An effective teacher's classes always have worthwhile content. An effective teacher may also keep abreast of all the latest scholarly and methodological developments in his field, but this is far less important than the qualities identified in the first paragraph. For knowledge can never substitute skill and application. Today the average teacher-though apparently well enough equipped with appropriate qualifications for the job in terms of degrees-is extremely poorly equipped in fact to perform the formidable task of teaching English. In this fact lies the importance of Teacher Development.

As elsewhere in the world where English is taught as a second or foreign language, English Language Teaching (ELT) in India is passing through a decisive phase. Some erroneously believe that by qualifying language teaching by the resoundingly magical adjective COMMUNICATIVE (CLT) the work will get done better. In fact, the move towards teaching language as communication and through communication is a far, far more daunting task for teachers than their routine and ineffectual practices.

That is why teachers often find the knowledge and skills they are supposed to have acquired during their formal study toward teaching qualification inadequate to meet the needs of today's ESL or EFL classrooms. They fail in their main task regardless of the 'method' they seem to employ.

Therefore, to my mind, it is imperative to study important aspects of Teacher Development in order to understand the impact of teachers' newly acquired knowledge or skills on their classroom teaching. It is also imperative to attempt to trace the root causes of the problem-mainly in the absence of the qualities named in the first paragraph above-so that we may at last begin to admit them, address them and begin to attack them. That in essence will be the task of the projected Workshop.

Dharmendra Sheth
Coordinator, ELT@I Surat (Gujarat) Chapter
Sudhakar Marathe
University of Hyderabad.

Call for Papers

South Asia Language Review: Special Issue on `Second and Foreign Language Learning"
Guest Editor for this volume: Dr. A.R.Fatihi

South Asian Language Review (SALR), a bi-annual journal published by IILS in India invites contributions on the theme of Second and Foreign Language Learning. This special issue will focus on the fundamental theoretical issues in language learning such as child, second and foreign language acquisition, language education, bilingualism, literacy, language representation in mind and brain, culture, cognition, pragmatics and inter and intra group relations.

Papers are solicited in areas which include, but are not limited to the following topics:

1. Investigating Language Learning Theorie.:

2. Formal Instruction and Language Learning.

3. Attitudes, Orientations, and Motivations in Language Learning: Theory, Research, and Application.

4. Bilingualism: Motivational Orientations and Self-Determination.

5. Acculturation attitudes in Second Language Acquisition.

6. Second language acquisition and computer-assisted language learning.

7. Error Analysis 8. Lexical Approach to Second Language Teaching.

Submission Requirements:

Authors are requested to submit an original paper in not more than 3000 words (15 pages) by August 15, 2005. Format preferred: MS Word (doc or rtf files) and if possible a pdf/ps file too.

Style-sheet:

Refer to the style-sheet of `Language'

Email submissions: fatihi_ar@indiatimes.com or fatihi_ ar@yahoo.com.in, onkoul@sify.com, umarani@pitt.edu.

Notification of acceptance will be sent by September 30, 2005.

Revised versions of the paper should be ready by October 31, 2005.

Snail mail/disk submissions:

Dr. A.R Fatihi, Guest Editor, SALR.
Professor, Department of Linguistics,
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh (UP), INDIA.
Tel: 91-571 -2505259

Prof Omkar N. Koul, Editor, SALR
C-13 Greenview Apartments 33
Sector 9
Rohini
Delhi 110085, INDIA
Tel: 91-11-27556197