Teaching Pronunciation in Kerala’s Context

Teaching pronunciation is a funny (or sad) case in the colleges of Kerala, India. Traditionally, phoneticians have found several challenges on teaching listening. This may include lack of time for the teachers, the influence of first language (L1) rhythm in the second language, mental block of the students, other background noise in the class room, hearing problems and so on. However, there are so many other problems which I could find in the classes of Kerala.
1. Lack of continuity
In Kerala, teaching pronunciation (means standard introduction to phonemic variations of sounds and accents) start in the college level only. In the school level, no emphasis is given to pronunciation. As far as Kannur University is concerned, the introduction to pronunciation starts and finishes at the first semester itself.

2. Lack of time
First of all, the teachers won’t get enough time to train the students. Considering the fact that there is only one semester, it is impossible for the teachers to give training to the students. Ideally, one semester lasts six months, but in reality, teachers won’t get six months at all. Besides, communication English paper is just one paper along with another long paper.

3. Lack of facilities
The paper required the teachers to play audio files in the classrooms and train the students. This required computer assisted language lab for getting proper training. Most of the colleges in the state do not provide such a facility.

4. Individual attention
For a proper training, the teacher should give individual attention to the students. In most colleges, there will be more than fifty students in English classes. This makes giving individual attention a dream.

5. Lack of trained teachers
Most of the teachers of English would be graduates or post graduates in English literature, not Functional English. They may not have a clear understanding about the sound systems and phonetics, though they may have got some introductory lessons on these during their college level.

If the educators are not giving a serious review on these aspects, teaching pronunciation is going to be a total waste of time.

Need for a Structural Change in the Society

Ahimsa reigned the politico-religious discourse of India two times in history: Emperor Ashoka’s time and Gandhian era. Except these two times, Indian social and political arena was or is controlled by violence. The films, literature and other social and entertainment platforms are glorifying various forms of violence, not just in India, but the whole world.
Violence in any form, for whatever reasons, cannot be justified. Animals kill the other species for their survival, for food. Had they known to think, to speak, and to write, they would have justified their violent nature; as humans are capable of doing these things, we are justifying our unjustifiable violence with the help of ideological explanations; in the name of religion, caste, creed, nationalism, social security, and so on.
Whether art and literature fuel violence or just represent violence in the society is a difficult question. Both help each other maybe the safest answer. However, one can easily see that violence, whether genocide or sexual crimes, are increasing in the society because the society favors violence instead of non-violence. As noted earlier, we can find only two instances where a widespread discussion surrounding non-violence dominated. When the national culture itself is that of violence, how can we expect a decrease in crime ratio?
There may be difference of opinion about the argument that the national character of India is violence itself. For that we need to identify the terms that are in use; for example, when the police or army kill someone in an encounter, nobody considers it as a crime, whereas when an individual kills someone for money or for any other reasons, it is a crime. However, in a closer look, we can identify that both are instances of violence, the only difference is that one act of violence is supported by the prevailing ideologies and social norms whereas the other not; one is accepted by the society, and the other not.
We, as a society, favor atrocities of any kind provided it is supported by religion, caste, party system, linguistic group, race and so on. Atrocities against minorities are supported by the national parties as these minorities do not form the part of the so-called “Sanatana Dharma”; violence against other parties are being justified as they are against the ideology of that party and so on.
These often can be exemplified in the movies of our times. We can never find the heroes arguing for non-violent methods, they are heroes mainly because they resort to cruel act of violence. They may give justifications for their violence, may be to save someone, the country, the village and so on. However, they are glorifying nothing but violence.
When the political parties, religious groups, caste leadership, literary pieces, movies and so on propagate violence in this way, what we can expect from the poor masses? They are living in their own imaginary world and whatever they are doing are for a reason (which may be madness for the society). The increased number of violence against women, children, and other socially isolated sections can be because of this reason.
If the continuing glorification of violence is the reasons for crimes in the society, what we need to do? We need to give an emphasis on non-violent ways of thinking in the society. This does not mean we need to reproduce the statements of Gandhi or Buddha; they already said what they want to say. We need to move on from where they stopped. Only through non-violence, we can decrease the crimes in the society.

From Ayodhya to Gujarath - Rise of Another Stalwart

I don't know anyone of you remember the name K. Lakshmana, the stalwart Inspector General of Police during the black days of Emergency. He was celebrated as a hero during the time of Emergency as under him, the Naxalite movement came to an end in Kerala, but later 'fate' turned its positions and he became a villain; he was convicted for the death of the Naxalite leader Varghese. I am not going to illustrate the complexities in this issue, but I was just reminded of Lakshmana when I heard of L.K. Advani's resignation letter. So, you may ask what is so common with I.G. Lakshmana and L.K. Advani.



I will come to that later, but what are the common aspects between LK and NaMo ( as the followers address Narendra Modi). One thing, both are BJP leaders, both are at least sometime in their lifetime been regarded as the hard face of RSS in the party, having so strong an idea on Hinduist principles. But, what attracts me the most is, Advani is responsible for Babri Masjid Demolition and subsequent murder of 2000 Muslims( if I trust Wikipedia) and then hailed as an undisputed leader of BJP whereas more or less Modi is responsible for the murder of 2500 or so people( excluding those who are missing and all) and the violence followed after Godhra incident and became the one and only notable leader in the BJP after LK Advani. Whereas Modi is trying to change his image from a bloodthirsty ideologue to the epitome of development, Advani failed in his attempt to be the moderate face in the NDA.

The question so is not who is better, but something else. Here lies the reason why I thought of Lakshmana when I heard of the fall of LK Advani. Lakshmana's case shows how good our system of law in punishing the culprits even if it is so late, whereas LK's case shows, even if the law failed, the time, the God will do its function well. Those who hailed him for the murder, for the illegal demolition of the Masjid conducted demonstration outside his house criticising him. A Great Show Indeed.

The Broken Window- Jeffrey Deaver

The Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Beware, you will not be able to put it down once you start reading. Thrilling would be a lesser word. The novel gives the details of the crime, the situation and the psychological reasons for making up his life. But what I like is his concept of 'the broken window'. Wikipedia defines 'broken window theory' as "a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime." When I was reading it, somehow, I cannot help think Foucault's theory of Panopticism which he formulated in his work 'Discipline and Punish'. The panopticon is used to for surveillance purposes, in the beginning in prisons, and later on in schools and other institutions. The novel narrates the issue of surveillance itself at the time of technological expansion and how data are used in the age of Internet and how can it turned out to be a trouble. Chilling, if you think further.

After a particular part of the novel, it seems the novel drags from the subject, but it is inevitable because the novelist needs to draw the characters, the formative stage of each and every character( of course not every, but main characters at least). This means, he needs to focus on the hero, Rhyme, his lover and fellow Sach, his cousin, and the villain and his victims. But somewhere I find it lacking something.

At one part of the novel, while the villain's stream of thought is going on, he recalls one experience from his childhood, especially the foster homes. Later on Detective Sach found that he is not the normal security man of SSD, but the former specialist before SSD was taken over by Sterling. He made the story that he was died in an accident, but later change his name and address to get a job as security guard in SSD. However, we won't get much more information about his transformation, except that from his childhood onwards he has this obsessive-compulsive disorder. Even then, I think, the writer should have given a little bit more information regarding this.

In the same way, I could not digest the relevance of the London operation which is mentioned in the book; maybe just to show that Lincoln Rhyme is a busy detective who got work from other places also. But I expected some more connection between this story and the main plot. If it does not have any connection with the main plot, avoiding some of the details might have helped to decrease the boredom some might feel while reading this. And the climax also could have been more colorful....



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Haridwaril Manikal Muzhangunnu- M. Mukundan

Haridwaril Manikal Muzhangunnu by M. Mukundan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Donno what to say after reading it. To be frank, I am always pessimistic regarding works which concentrates on pilgrim sites, some geographical unit which has some supernatural or transcendental significance. The same pattern can be seen in this novel as well, somewhat similar to O.V. Vijayan's Gurusagaram or so. Then, I just thought it is something like a recipe that we usually see in cookery shows; one teaspoon of salt, ... and so on. If you read carefully, it will be like, "some bhang or any other narcotics, some Sanskrit slokas, some puranas, and a girl, probably a lover with a sexual nature, and a hero who is not worldly- getting pleasures from sex, liquor, cigars and all. He has very good knowledge in puranas, and the Sanatana Dharma, but initially looks at those with a suspicious eye, but later finds solace in it.



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