The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : A self-learning tool to help students learn English

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Monday, Mar 15, 2010
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

A self-learning tool to help students learn English

R. Vimal Kumar

Tirupur: Conversing fluently in English has always been a tough proposition for students in Kongu region mainly owing to their lack of accessibility to learning material that concentrates more on functional usages of English instead of the traditional teaching obsession with the grammar.

In this context, an e-tool developed by a research team of Chikkanna Government Arts College, Tirupur, with the funding support of University Grants Commission, as a self learning courseware to help youth improve listening and speaking skills in English, is a noteworthy effort.

Compact discs

The programme was made available on audio-video modes in Compact discs.

Titled ‘Shine with power of English', the contents had been carefully designed so that even a novice could pick up the techniques comfortably and thereby improve their communication skills to respectable levels.

The official release of the CD is expected to take place very shortly.

Contents

Research team members comprising M. Muthukumar, A. S. Mohanagiri, C. Muralidharan, G. Subramanian and P. Manimeghalai, all faculty members in English department, told The Hindu that adequate emphasis had been given while developing the e-methodology to address some of the commonest problems faced by the students who predominantly speak Tamil.

“Instructions are given in bilingual (in Tamil and English) for the students' benefit,” said Dr. Muthukumar.

Divided into five modules titled ‘basic conversation skills', ‘pronunciation', ‘listening skills', ‘speaking skills' and ‘Test yourselves', the text incorporate visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles to make the lessons enjoyable.

Specially developed methods had been used to make the learners understand the skills needed to seek information from others as well as the conversing manners to greet a person.

Evaluation test

Options were available for the users to test themselves and identify the areas for improvement as well as correct the shortcomings.

Free distribution

College principal Mohammed Kani told this paper that the CDs would be initially distributed free to 500 students in the first year of their under graduate courses in the college.

"Later, we will even uplink the contents to internet-based platforms so that many thousands could get free access to it," he added.

Educationists can contact Mr Kani for more details on the CD (Tel: 94438-21621).

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