LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 3 March 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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Teaching Paragraph Writing -
"Bilingual" Newspapers as Tools

Sr. Mary Lowrencia, Ph.D.

Introduction

The focus of this paper is on teaching college students how to write effective paragraphs using newspapers as a tool. I find from my experience as a college teacher in a rural setting that the problem of the students relate not merely to just communicating ideas but generating them on their own as well. If students were asked to write a paragraph on a given topic, they would have only very few ideas, which would not be sufficient to cover the theme expected in the paragraphs of the essay. So I thought that using "bilingual" newspapers could be of great assistance in helping them to give direction to get ideas. Once the ideas are at their disposal, they could easily attempt to produce a paragraph.

Students from the rural background hail mostly from Tamil medium schools, so their exposure to English is very minimal. Right at the beginning of their college life expecting them to write an effective paragraph, naturally, is a hopeless expectation on the part of the teacher. Ignorance coupled with fear and inhibition obstructs the students' thinking capacity and the result is their inability to write a paragraph.

It was hypothesized that if ideas were available in Tamil and translation of the same was available in English, mini-composition paragraph writing could be taught and eventually it may lead them to write on their own with confidence.

Experiment

The experiment was carried out in Bharath Niketan Engineering College among the Computer Science Engineering (CSE) students who are mostly from the rural background first generation learners hailing from rural Tamil medium schools. The college is located near a medium-size rural town, Aundipatti in Theni district, Tamilnadu, India.

These students were taught grammar along with their curriculum for one semester. While teaching how to write paragraphs, students were asked to narrate an incident. They found it very difficult to generate ideas because their reading habit was not strong. So the researcher thought of using articles or news items from newspapers, which are within the easy reach of these students, to develop their writing skill.

Reasons for Choosing Newspaper Items

Newspaper is contemporary literature which reflects the lives of the people. It gives insight into the environment and happenings around the world. It also enhances the knowledge and understanding of the world, with a lot of information about various subjects at various levels. This type of literature opens the minds of the students. In addition, this exercise also paves the way for the students to read newspapers every day. Because of these varied reasons I thought that newspapers could be of real assistance in teaching paragraph writing.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Balbir Madhopuri's Changiya Rukh - A Critique of Dalit Identity and Politics | Multiple Nested Triglossic Situation in Pakistan | Problems Encountered by Arab EFL Learners | Language and Nomenclature Imbroglio among the Kukis | Indigenous Language Abandonment in the Religious Domain in Murree - A Family Report Analysis | A Comparative Study of New Woman through the Female Protagonists of Kamala Markandaya and Shashi Deshpande | A Look into the Causes of Language Choice among Female Students in Academic Setting in Pakistan | Census and the Aspects of Growth and Development of Bangla vs. Bangla-Hindi Bilingualism -With Special Focus on West Bengal | Joshi's The Foreigner - Within and Without | To Investigate the Sense of Teacher Efficacy between Male and Female Teachers of Secondary Schools of Wah Cantt. | Comparative Study of Cost Effectiveness of Formal and Non-Formal System of Primary Teacher Certificate Programme in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) | Sudha Murty's Short Stories as a Motif of Values | Standard English as a 'Fiat Code' and the Dwindling Faith behind It | Effect of the Use of Motivational Techniques on the Academic Achievement of the Teachers at the Higher Education Level in Pakistan | A Critical Analysis of the Function of Mass Media Language as a Tool of Social Oppression | The Use of Films in the Teaching of English in India | A Comparative Study of Effectiveness of Concept Attainment Model and Advance Organizer Model in Teaching of English in Teacher Education Course | The Effect of Cooperative Learning on Academic Achievement of Low Achievers in English | Imagining a Borderless World: A Comparative Study of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda | Teaching English in Schools: Problems and Solutions - A Case Study from Rajasthan, India | Socio-cultural Patterns of the Tamil Brahmin Community in the Novels of R. K. Narayan | Effects of Multimedia Glosses on Aiding Vocabulary Acquisition in EFL Environment | English Language Teaching in Rural India - Issues and Suggestions | Teaching Paragraph Writing - "Bilingual" Newspapers as Tools | A Study of Teachers' Academic Qualification, Morale and Their Teaching Behaviour | Syllable Onset Clusters and Phonotactics in Pahari | Literary Criticism as a Shared Set of Measurement | Ted Hughes's Poetry - The Problem of the Evil of Self-Consciousness | Travelogue as a Literary Genre | Bim's Unfailing Strength in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day | Impact of Education on Development of Self-Concept in Adults | An Analysis of the Lack of Primary English Language Skills among the Technical Students of Hindi Speaking States | Emergent Literacy Experiences in the Classroom - A Sample Survey in Mysore City | ICT Enabled Language Learning Using Handphones - An Experimental Study | Creative Writing in Language Classes | Business Communication: Techniques and Methods by Om P. Juneja and Aarti Mujumdar (Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2010) | Word Formation in Surjapuri | Beatrice Culleton and Her April Rain Tree - Identity Crisis of the People of Mixed Races of Colonization | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF MARCH, 2011 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT. This document is better viewed if you open it online and then save it in your computer. After saving it in your computer, you can easily read all the pages from the saved document.

Call for Papers for a Language in India www.languageinindia.com Special Volume on Autobiography and Biography in Indian Writing in English | Call for Papers for a Special Volume on Indian Writing in English - Analysis of Select Novels of 2009-2010 | HOME PAGE of March 2011 Issue | HOME PAGE of Language in India | CONTACT EDITOR languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com

Sr. Mary Lowrencia, Ph.D.
Department of English
Bharath Niketan Engineering College
Andipatti
Theni District
Tamilnadu, India
lowrencia03@gmail.com

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