‘Contemporary Themes and Issues in Language Padagogy’ edited by Vaishna Narang
Published by: Book Plus, Delhi | Reviewed by Prof. (Dr.) Shefali Bakshi
Contemporary Themes and Issues in Language Pedagogy is the first volume which guides the students and research scholars in the area of use of tools for research. It expresses the paradigm shift in language pedagogy and gives the latest designs used for research. It has a variety of papers by eighteen authors who are experts in their own field and research scholars. Prof Narang, who is a Professor of Linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), editor, very ingeniously divided the whole content in four sub-groups, related to research analyses supported by extensive empirical data. In her Preface, she extensively explains the purpose and objective of this volume that wants to reach not only the linguists but also a wider audience in order to benefit them in their research.
The book begins with a segment on Background Studies which has five papers based on analyses of various Skills like Writing Skills, Reading Skills, Summarization Skills, and how Cohesion can be interpreted not as grammatical but as a semantic association.
The second section is titled Language Teaching Methodology which deals with the latest techniques of teaching and learning process and methodology. This encourages teachers and researchers to adopt different devices, tactics and strategies that are successful to teach ESP in the actual classrooms.
The third segment deals with The New Paradigm and L2 Studies in which there is FL learning contrasted with SL. The different chapters deal with learning English as a SL in a foreign place where English is not a MT and also teaching and learning of Spatio-Temporal Deixis.
Language and Pedagogy constitutes the fourth section which is perhaps, the heart of this volume as it discusses various issues on language planning and policy in India. This section has varied papers on Quota, Remedial English, and Teacher Training, all related to problems in India with a few suggestions for solutions to these problems.
The first paper titled Contemporary Themes and Issues in Language Pedagogy by Prof Vaishna Narang discusses an outline of two paradigm shift in Language Pedagogy since the last century. It begins with Grammar-Translation method and moves on to the Direct method, thus discussing the major changes in language teaching and the first paradigm shift. The paper concludes with the second paradigm shift from Structure oriented drill methods to learner oriented pedagogy. This is a comprehensive research by Narang which is very informative and enlightening for all readers, thus guiding them in their own research and learning progression.
Gurupdesh Singh in his chapter on Summarization Skills: An Analysis in Text has raised several questions associated to classroom observations in students’ composition and distinction between the main topic from other details in a given piece of discourse/writing. He has raised such issues and concluded that Indian ELT classrooms must take advantage of the interface that exists between teaching reading and writing at the advanced level.
Cohesion in Bekett’s “Waiting for Godot” by Shefali Bakshi discusses and analyses the speech events in Waiting for Godot according to Halliday and Hasan’s theory. She discusses the various types of Cohesion like Reference – Use of He and Him, Use of It, and Use of ‘That’ and ‘It’ for extended reference and Ellipsis. Bakshi concludes that such kind of analysis of Cohesion can help the student in understanding the development of such a complex play from the point of view of Ethnography and Communication. She further suggests that Life and Language are interconnected through context of situation, which in turn includes not only speech events but also cohesion and therefore readers/audiences have sub-consciously found the absurdity of the play, a natural part of their own lives.
Two chapters in this section by writers from Yemen highlight the teaching of Reading and Writing skills to Speakers of Arabic in Yemen along with very good statistical data to support their findings.
The second segment begins with Vinay Kirpal’s discussion of the teaching of English related to IT companies in India and he proposes the Competence-based approach as the most appropriate approach, so as to prepare Indian professionals for future challenges.
Deepti Gupta resolved the issue of Methodology Dilemma by showing a paradigm shift from EFL to ESL and concluded that poor teaching response was not due to any weaknesses in Communicative Language Teaching but due to the absence of a particular context.
Different chapters in this section discussed the ESP- in relation to Mass Communication, Technical English and whether to teach Grammar or not.
The Section on The New Paradigm and L2 Studies discussed a variety of papers related to SL Acquisition and Learning English at different places. Priyanka Bhattacharyya suggests that language teachers must understand the phenomenon of deixis in order to understand the cognitive processing of language.
The last section begins with H C Narang’s Angrezi is mulk ki zaban nahin ho sakti – Language Policy and Planning in India. He points out that although language is an important identity marker of a particular community and its members there is hardly any policy and language planning in India and the only way out would be some revolutionary changes in the entire socio-political structure of the country.
Viney Kirpal addresses the problems of Quota and what it could not construct till to date. He mentions how the SC/ST/OBC students suffer because of no basic sound knowledge which deprives them of good grades at the higher levels in IIT/IIM, in spite of getting admissions due to reservation quota. He rightly suggests that the corporate of India could adopt the government schools/colleges and provide quality education exclusively to SC/ST/OBC so that they come at par to the so-called elite classmates.
Chandan Kumar gives information about the “Remedial English” Programme in JNU, New Delhi, which runs under the scheme of UGC and suggests that A very successful language program requires a well coordinated course syllabus, that includes the students needs, register analysis and integrated skills . . . .
Thus all in all this is a very comprehensive volume which covers a range of studies, issues, themes, and recommended solutions on Language Learning and the paradigm shift in language pedagogy which will help researchers to know the most recent trends in research and the direction in which they need to move. Prof. Vaishna Narang, the editor, has done a brilliant job in selecting and dividing inter-related articles and papers and bringing them under one umbrella in order to profit all research scholars and teachers of the English Language.
** ELTWeekly team would like to thank Prof. (Dr.) Shefali Bakshi for contributing this book review.
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