Friday, July 24, 2015

ENGLISH - a SUBJECT or a SKILL?

How should English be taught in our schools and colleges? 

As a subject because it is hard to understand how you can manage a class as a teacher without books, chapters, class-work(mainly writing notes), coercing the students to learn the answers by-heart(mugging/ cramming/ learning by rote), enticing them to score good marks in exams by memorizing the whole text and afterwards feeling good about themselves and also about the teacher/school/college/institution.


As a skill because that's what the students need in their life after school and in the world outside school. Once your academic needs are met ie., you get the certificates with the right grades/marks,  skills alone matter. The essays, the dramas, the poems, the articles which you mugged up in school/college life are like files on a computer meant to be deleted. What is retained is the software, the ability to do a thing, the critical skill to face and excel in a life situation.

  

TO BE CONTINUED....



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