Materials Development

Language testing and evaluation, internet tools and techniques, successful online learner, competencies for internet inquiry, self-assessment, technology enhanced assessment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyQ_SsWtp18&list=PLehzB4MuDBTGGRdfDVbCP7HkTEYoy4HCz&index=4

A difficulty in learning to read, traditionally known as dyslexia, has now been shown to belong with a language-specific disorder that manifests in oral language difficulties predating reading (Specific Language Impairment: Leonard, 1998), and may develop into Specific Reading Disability . This presentation is about identifying populations at risk for SLI or SRD in a second language situation, specifically, English in India. We report the results of a series of tasks designed to elicit inflectional morphology -in particular, the regular and irregular past tense markings on verbs -in English and Malayalam. Our subjects are 17 children between 8 and 9 years of age (mean age 8;5) in an "Englishmedium" school, who have been schooled in English for about 5 years (since their enrolment at around 3 years). Their home language is Malayalam, of which they are fluent speakers but in which they are literate only to the extent of alphabet and word recognition. * We would like to thank the staff and students of the Choice School, Tripunithura, whose cooperation made this study possible.

This paper captures the design of a comprehensive curriculum incorporating the four skills based exclusively on the use of parallel audio-visual and written texts. We discuss the use of authentic materials to teach English to Indian undergraduates aged 18 to 20 years. Specifically, we talk about the use of parallel reading (screen-play) and audio-visual texts (Shawshank Redemption, and Life is Beautiful, A Few Good Men and Lion King) drawn from popular culture in the classroom as an effective teaching medium. Students were gradually introduced to films based on novels with extracts from the original texts (Schindler’s List, Beautiful Mind) for extended reading and writing practice. We found that students began to pay more attention to aspects such as pronunciation, intonational variations, discourse markers and vocabulary items (phrasal verbs, synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and puns).

We present a high resolution X-ray spectrum of the accreting X-ray pulsar, OAO 1657-415 with HETG+ACIS-S onboard Chandra, revealing the presence of a broad line component around ∼ 6.3 keV associated with the neutral iron K α line at 6.4 keV. This is interpreted as Compton shoulder arising from the Compton scattering of the 6.4 keV fluorescence photons making OAO 1657-415 the second accreting neutron star where such a feature is detected. A Compton shoulder reveals the presence of dense matter surrounding the Xray source. We did not detect any periodicity in the lightcurve and obtained an upper limit of ∼ 2% for the pulse fraction during this observation. This could be due to the smearing of the pulses when X-ray photons are scattered from a large region around the neutron star. In addition to the Fe K α , Fe K β and Ni K α lines already reported for this source, we also report for the first time, the presence of He-like and H-like iron emission lines at 6.7 and 6.97 keV in the first order HETG spectrum. The detection of such ionized lines, indicative of a highly ionized surrounding medium, is rare in X-ray binaries.

The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN) was developed to assess the narrative abilities of bi- and multilingual children in the various languages that they speak. This paper presents the details of the adaptation of MAIN to three Indian languages, Kannada, Hindi and Malayalam. We describe some typological features of these languages and discuss the challenges faced during the process of adaptation. Finally, we give an overview of results for narrative comprehension and production from Kannada-English and Hindi-English bilinguals aged 7 to 9.

This paper captures the design of a comprehensive curriculum incorporating the four skills based exclusively on the use of parallel audiovisual and written texts. We discuss the use of authentic materials to teach English to Indian undergraduates aged 18 to 20 years. Specifically, we talk about the use of parallel reading (screen-play) and audiovisual texts (Shawshank Redemption, and Life is Beautiful, A Few Good Men and Lion King) drawn from popular culture in the classroom as an effective teaching medium. Students were gradually introduced to films based on novels with extracts from the original texts (Schindler's List, Beautiful Mind) for extended reading and writing practice. We found that students began to pay more attention to aspects such as pronunciation, intonational variations, discourse markers and vocabulary items (phrasal verbs, synonyms, homophones, and puns).

Can the EFL classroom be perceived as a space to raise cultural awareness and strengthen the idea of multiculturalism? Culture is considered as the domain of literature, and language teachers generally tend to shy away from any nuanced discussion concerning it. Even when we include concepts like critical reading and critical thinking in the EFL classroom, there is a resistance to introduce contested or controversial areas like what constitutes cultural awareness and the place of multiculturalism. However, perceptions are changing and prominent applied linguists have even described "culture" as the fifth skill placing it along with the four major skills, namely LSRW (listening, speaking, reading and writing). Language is an expression of the culture that engenders it and carries embedded within it the markings of that culture. Therefore, if one approaches the question putting aside preconceived notions of what is viable within an EFL setting, one realizes that language teachers are situated in a unique position-they are already teaching a seminal aspect of culture! This paper proposes to examine the viability of introducing culture and intercultural communication and multiculturalism in the EFL classroom. It will also attempt to explore pedagogical tools and practices that can be used in the EFL classroom to facilitate such a study.

Interiority and the Dialogic elements in the novels of Margaret Atwood. She has presented a number of papers both in India and outside India. Currently she is engaged in a research project involving language and religious studies. Her other interest are language and culture, religion and rituals, gender studies, and ecocriticism. Abstract The distance between the straightjacketing imposed on women by society and their aspirations is a recurring theme in Margaret Atwood. Her protagonists, alienated from themselves as well as society have a complex and troubled relationship with their own bodies. A woman's body, is presented by Atwood as heavily inscribed by culture. Compelled to constantly measure and judge herself against the proscription that deny acceptance to a woman's body if it does not conform to male determined precepts of beauty, the body becomes an important intermediary in a woman's dialogue with society and a tool with which she negotiates her relationship with the outside society. In Atwood's novel Bodily Harm the protagonist RennieWilford is diagnosed with cancer and has to undergo a mastectomy. Her cut off left breast questions her identity as a woman and forces a rethink about her subjectivity and her identity as a woman. The threat to her identity is not merely mounted by a society which insists on reducing women to erogenous zones. It is also because of the narrative that places specific diseases like tuberculosis, cancer and AIDS within the context of religious rhetoric of sin and punishment. However, Atwood refuses to lay the blame entirely on society and its patriarchal conventions. My thesis is that Rennie's disease is in fact, as an exterior manifestation of an inner malady.

Conrad's Heart of Darkness occupies a unique position in the canon of World Literature. The text purporting to be a narrative reported by the frame narrator embodies Marlow's experiences in Africa. The first narrator serves the function of an implied reader and by emphasising the impressionistic and symbolic nature of Marlow's tale Conrad's attempts through him to establish a conceptual boundary, which while inviting certain readings and interpretations, excludes others. In post-modern era the heat and polemics of post-colonialism and New Historicism, Feminism and Marxism have been brought to bear upon the text disregarding the hermeneutical closure within the text. They have uncovered elements of racial and sexual prejudice operating throughout the text. This paper attempts to uncover the parallels between the treatment of race, gender and nature and to locate it in the exploitative homocentric ethic of Western civilization. Influential post-colonialist critics including Chinua Achebe and Edward Said have made detailed exploration into the underlying racial prejudice evidenced in Heart of Darkness. The text, which was initially hailed as the as "the most powerful indictment of imperialism" (Watt 161), has been unpacked to expose systematic dehumanising of Africans as the "other," an "exo-cultural stereotype" (Foucault's term) and Africa as the uncanny "jungle purgatory" for the re-education of the white man. While one need not conflate Conrad's views with Marlow's a detailed examination of the text reveals deep seated racial prejudices that are hard to overlook. The purpose is not to suggest that Conrad was intentionally racist, but to expose the insidious ways in which ideology functions. The extend of this is evident from the fact that Conrad in spite of his professed anti-imperialistic and anti-racist stance is still a victim of the same ideology which Heart of Darkness attempts to critique. Marlow's attitude to women displays a similar contradiction. Vincent Pecora in his essay "Heart of Darkness and the phenomenology of voice" observes, "the text of Marlow's narrative" is the inscription of the ""metaphysical need of his time." What his discussion excludes-and thus opens to question-are some of the cultural forces that constitute that "need"-in particular the

This paper begins with unravelling the tenets of modernism versus the tenets of postmodernism and examines how the principles of the latter became popular especially with the onset of postcolonial studies. Applying these critical approaches to the study of religion can be a fraught exercise but can also prove enlightening in understanding the suppression and re-emergence of native religions in colonized spaces. The postmodernist paradigm can be utilized to critically evaluate factors that led to the emergence of various indigenization movements in societies that were once colonized, such as the Philippines. This study explores the revival of the ancient Filipino system of belief in Bathala, the Supreme God, through the interpretation of the symbols of Baybayin, the ancient Filipino system of writing. It finally addresses the need for an alternative discourse on the renaissance of the precolonial culture in the Philippines, particularly in the field of religion. Despite the subjectivity of postmodernism as a paradigm, the paper argues that an attempt to uncover the meaning of Bathala will help the present Filipino generation to understand and appreciate the roots of their spirituality.

In this article, I will be examining two aspects of language teaching that need to be addressed urgently. The first one involves the relationship between culture and language. I will be examining the role of cultural embedding involved in language teaching and learning and the need for decolonising materials. I will also be looking at the violence inherent in languages belonging to communities wielding power and hegemony -in this instance, English. In a sense, the second issue is an extension of the first problem. In this article, I argue that the violence towards nature which is the hallmark of the Anthropocene, is sustained and perpetuated through languages. While teaching English there is an urgent need to become aware of the insidious ways in which exploitative practices are sustained through language.