Skip to main content

Language learning- 'the elephant in the room'

Wonders of Language..

An understanding on the acquisition of language was really a eye opener for me. Nothing in language is insignificant. This became a great motivation for thinking. It was of great wonder to know that that the sound structure of majority of human languages is following a certain pattern where the alteration of consonantal sounds and vocalic sounds is inherent in words. That is, every word will have a combination of consonant and vowel sound (CVCV pattern). For example, Baby is clearly in the patter of CVCV. I tried it in Malayalam and the pattern was clearly seen. this may be because the inherent want of human to make his/her language ease to his/her vocal chords. When I used to observe small children I used to get surprised how they speak with not at all been taught. The conversation with these children are really interesting. It was understood that a child can be made exposed to more than one language at a time as the inherent teacher in him/her would help him/her in acquiring the language. It was also understood that this has no any connections with the IQ of a child.

Some thoughts..

In my school Hindi was taught, but no one in the class did Know to speak. this may be largely because we do not get the environment where we can use our Hindi. One another reason may be that the languages are counted to be subjects and it is taught just like that of either subjects. The valuation of language is also on the basis of how a child writes where script has nothing to do with the knowledge of the language. I believe that language valuation should be rather different where the speaking skill is largely been evaluated.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How amusing can a crow nest be!

A bird which is ignored, disregarded as filthy and most of the time perceived to be having no qualities to be called 'beautiful'. Hence, what is worth about its nest!! I got to observe a crow-couple and their friends setting up a place for themselves for their short 'fruitful' family time.  This nest at our home is built on a lemon tree (not sure if technically it's a tree or a shrub). The nest is rather too shabby. I thought they are doing a poor job if it. Later observed, they are actually building a fortress. Meticulously planned to wave off any threats. A lemon plant naturally has thorns and hence any external interference should be low. But, the crow-couple had other ideas to up the game of security. They had gathered more thorny twigs and laid all over the plant. So many, if not hundreds of these twigs have been laid around the nest. I wonder, why would a crow do this. I assume it is done so that no other animals can easily approach the nest thwarting their pl

First experience at the Field Institute, Pondicherry

I attended the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation Training (CCE) for the Primary School Teachers, The training was conducted by the Department of Education, Puducherry with the collaboration of Azim Premji Foundation. 9 th August 2012, The training program started at around 9:30 AM. The first activity was of introducing each other. There were about forty primary school teachers from different schools of puducherry. The teachers introduced themselves by saying their names prefixed by an adjective which best suited to them and also the reason which they have choose teaching as a profession. The activity went interesting. After the self-introduction of the teachers the facilitators projected some photos in front of the teachers. The photos showed some children as well as teachers clicked from different situation. The teachers were asked to discuss on the photos; about the emotions, background and also the teachers were asked to connect these photos with the experience from th

An Inspired Teacher.

Thursday, 19 July 2012 An Inspired Teacher. Julia Weber, a single-teacher school teacher in the United States. She proved that inspiration and enthusiasm of a single teacher can make huge differences. Having the best infrastructure does not mean q uality in education. A teacher who is continuously innovating, reflecting and acting plays a key role in achieving quality education.  Using locally available resources is very important and effective in teaching. If the local community is thoughtfully involved in the schooling processes, most resources needed for learning can be easily organized. Currently, in most schools, irrespective of the management, the community is kept either out or they are only involved in a unproductive manner. Most places the community is not aware of what is happening in the schools. The schools are seen as building where something is taught, and this ‘something‘ is not known by the community. The idea of peer group learning is an effective way of