Thinking Activity on ELT based videos

Thinking Activity on ELT based videos- 

1> Ken Robinson’s Changing Education Paradigm- In this video Robinson talks about the changes education needs to undergo. He speaks that not much has changed in the education system of today’s world as compared with the old days. Robison says that it’s not right to medicate students to bring them to schools. He says that education shouldn’t be enforced on anyone rather it should be flexible so that it can attract more students. Robinson says that education needs to me more individualized. Robinson says that destroy the myth that there is a difference between academic and non- academic subjects, between abstract and the theoretical. He says that learning becomes great when it is done in groups because one can get to know many things in groups which they can’t find in books. He also says that we need to change the thinking of those who are related with the education system.

2> Sugata Mitra’ build a school in the cloud- In this video Mitra says that he wants build a learning lab in India where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online. According to him, with the rise of the internet memorization is not so important now-a-days. For jobs of future students has to learn how to think critically. Mitra wants students to make new discoveries and spread it across the whole world.

3> Sugata Mitra’s future learning- In this video he talks about the future of learning that with advancement in technologies students must also get acquainted with the new learning process. He says that the old and traditional method of learning process must be removed. The teachers should also expose the students to different and easy ways of learning process.

4> Salman Khan let’s use video to reinvent education- In this video Khan talks about the use of videos in making studies easier and interesting. Videos can help break down difficult concepts while still capturing the imagination.  Khan gas transferred the heavy textbooks into interesting videos which attracts many students towards it. It lends itself to self-paced, customized learning. There’s no need to feel embarrassed if you don’t understand a concept, just rewind and replay until you do.

5> Mark Prensky Digital natives, digital immigrants- In this video Prensky calls this new generation of high technology usage as "Digital Natives", and says that today’s generation are the native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet. And Prensky also say that all the people who are born before this era is called as “Digital Immigrants”.  This gap between the two generations is remarkable in the use of technology. As natives are well-acquainted with the use of technology, whereas the immigrants have to learn the use of technology and adapt themselves to the modern use of technologies.

6> David Crystal the effect of new technologies on English- In this video David Crystal says that technology has the ability to change and create new language and develop the way in which we speak.  Crystal mentions how we speak differently when we text rather than speak, as the shortage of characters we are given.

7> David Crystal the biggest challenge for English language teachers in the times of internet- In this video Crystal says that in today’s world the English ascents or dialects which students and teachers use is much different because teachers are more of traditional and old in their languages than students. Language change makes you ready for everything. Translating and interpreting and language teaching are the toughest jobs according to Crystal because human behaviour is much more complex than language teaching.  Teaching profession is much hard than any other professions.

8> David Crystal texting is good for English language- In this video Crystal says that the more one texts the more one’s literacy level goes up.

Thinking Activity on One Night @ The Call Center

The meaning of self-help book we can say is that easiness or easy to read and what the message is conveyed easily through it. The self-help book is one that is written with the intention to instruct its readers on solving personal problems. However we can see in this novel the characters of Radhika and Priyanka their idea about the “vasudhaivkutumbkam”, also mother happiness is own happiness. Self-help book often focuses on popular psychology such as romantic relationships or aspect of the mind and human behaviour which believes in self-help feel can be controlled with effort. The self-help book typically advertises them as being able to increase self-awareness and performance including satisfaction with one’s life.

Globalization has affected the characters in the novel at various levels. Novel is based on the theme of globalization. Military uncle is connected with his son and grandson, Vroom and Shyam designs webs. The title itself has the theme of globalization.

Anti-American Sentiments- 
America is quite represented with negative aspect in the novel. Anti-American Sentiments is also thematically distressed in the novel. With Vroom as the character it is clearly visible that national pride is interwoven with this. Vroom has different sight to look at America. This text is much spoken about patriotism and rejected the Western culture which is imposed forcefully.

 Cyber Punk is a science fiction genre in which the future world is portrayed as one in which society is largely controlled by computers. One night @ The Call Center is categorized as a cyber punk novel because it displays the lifestyle and problems of those smart and young generation who are working in such a direction with technology and internet that it becomes their life.

Thinking Activity on Can technology replace teachers?

Can technology replace teachers?

In today’s world one of the most controversial questions going on is- Can technology replace teachers? There are many arguments supporting it and there are also many arguments opposing it.

It is true for the advancement in technology paper work is lessening day by day and machines are over-taking it. Machines can perform a task within a fraction of seconds which we the humans are unable to do. In today’s education system technologies are also getting involved in a vivid way. Earlier Arts classes always used to be comprised of- a teacher, students, books and a blackboard; no one ever thought of the involvement of technologies in the classes. Now-a-days technologies has replaced the traditional system of Arts classes, books and teachers has got transferred to- laptops, projectors and blackboards has got transferred to smart boards. While teaching in Literature classes if students are shown examples from different movies and advertisements it becomes more effective than only just teaching the topic verbally. Students can be taken for excursion to different historical places but students can’t be taken to the places where Shakespeare thought of writing a play. But through technology students can be helped in experiencing the taste of Shakespearean plays.

A student studying in a particular school or college can also join one or more online courses of his or her interest and can complete it with their routine studies. It is due to technology a student can study himself wherever he is without any such assistance of a teacher. Wherever he gets stuck up, he can watch videos regarding it which would make things clear. In today’s world students find more convenient to study with the help of technology rather than teachers.

As technology plays it role in the education system, it doesn’t mean that a good teacher got replaced by it in a whole. There’s no doubt that technologies has all the informations but it can’t specify which information is reliable and which is not, which a teacher can. Technology can only simplify the learning process but it can’t replace the role of a teacher. A teacher gives lessons for life and encourages students to achieve their goals where technology fails and without a teacher a computer or any such technology is just a machine. Technology can only be beneficial for a student when it is used by a good teacher. 

Review on the movies- Midnight's Children and The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

This task is a part of our academic activity and based on thinking activity-
                           Midnight’s Children 

Midnight’s Children one of the most much-admired novel by Salman Rushdie. He is Diasporic writer. Who is an Indian-born British essayist and fiction writer. He says about this topic ‘Midnight’s Children’- Indian pessimism. He gives ideas of historical fact and magic realism in novel.
 Midnight’s Children movie is luminously directed by Deepa Mehta, this movie is also based on this novel. The movie is a controversial one, that has tragedy, romance and comedy also.


The movie has a dramatic and mysterious touch that gets you an entire picture of Indian’s journey through all its trials. The movie is highlighting the two lives of two individuals born at the stroke  of midnight when India achieved its Independence. This movie takes through all the ages beginning from the grandparents to  the children. Born , poor become rich, rich  become poor. Changing of the children plays  vital role in changing plot of the movie. Saleem becomes Shiva and Shiva becomes Saleem, and then movie turns around their lives. Son of rich becomes poor and poor boy suddenly becomes rich. Which is fine example of class conflict in India  at that time.

Here in the case of Saleem and  Shiva  I observed there is a crisis of  superiority , why it happened ? Because one is Muslim by birth and the other one is Hindu. As we know that it is the time of Independence, and there where so many geographical problems taking place. Yes, it was the time of  partition .
In movie the Characters of Parvati, Shiva and Saleem  presents magic realism. Magic Realism also plays vital role in making the movie believable. If this technique won’t be used then perhaps we won’t believe in the story. Through magic realism all children brought together in the movie, and it gives novelty to the movie and makes it more interesting.

Movie is also political allegory, presenting dark side of partition, then the war with Pakistan and Emergency. So it looks like Rushdie as an outsider criticizing India. The scene of India in the movie is of slum, poverty which looks defaming India and looks towards India like western people does.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist 

The Reluctant Fundamentalist  is a novel by Pakistan born writer Mohsin Hamid. The movie is also based on this novel. 
The Reluctant Fundamentalist movie is brightly directed by Meera Nair Dir. The whole movie is talk about relations between East and west. The story of the movie is narrated in flashback technique by Changez  Khan. The story of the movie is of young Pakistani man chasing behind corporate success. In this movie we can see that what reality has to do between film and Reluctant Fundamentalist in this film main theme.

In this movie we can see the American political affairs and news about 9/11 in America land the terrorist attacks to world trade centre. That scene is all that fundamentalism and film focus on Changez is also Pakistani everything. This attack 9/11 makes him question all his value and he becomes a logical example of anti-capitalist morals and principal.

After the attack of terrorist in America we can see how problem coming to Changez Khan’s life in New York. Here we can see the term of Orientalism by Edward Said. Orienatalism is a style of thought based an ontological and epistemological, distinction made between Orient- the Eastern part of Asia and it is opposite to Occident. And movie also talks about the how Western countries see the East countries, in movie character of Changez Khan is about what is real fact about the East countries. Also we can say that all Muslims are not terrorist, but whenever we capture any terrorist it’s Muslim. So our mind’s is concept that all Muslims are terrorist. After reading the term Orientalism the concept of mind changes that all Muslims are not terrorist but they all are first human being. 

He goes back to his roots in Lahore , but he is now a different person, taking to a different world. Now he becomes third person mixture of the Pakistani poet’s son and the New York businessman. Now as a professor , he spends some time in the tea shop with his many faithful students.  He works as professor but American agents doubt them as terrorist. At the end of the movie, Americans realizes that Changez is innocent.
So film challenges American theory of doubting Muslim people. It gives voice to this people.

Thinking Activity

            Worksheet: Screening Movie Waiting for Godot

Q.     Who according to you is Godot? God? An object of desire? Death? Goal? Success? Or  . . .

Ans-> According to me Godot is an object of desire, it is so because as the play is based on waiting and we can see the two tramps- Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for a person named Mr. Godot whom they haven’t seen ever in their lifetime. They still keep on waiting because the wait itself gets generated to desire with the passing time. It’s for their desire only that their wait becomes so enthusiastic. It’s natural when we desire something we want to achieve in one way or the other.

Q.   The director feels the setting with some debris. Can you read any meaning in the contours of debris in the setting of the play?

Ans-> Here, director uses the settings of debris and wastage and collapsed buildings which shows failure of materialistic world. That’s why he shows that debris in the background that gives reminder to both of them that nothing is permanent in the end. But what gives them pessimistic way to live is the hope and meaning that they find out of that debris. And that’s why they go on waiting for Godot.

Q.  The play begins with the dialogue “Nothing to be done”. How does the theme of ‘nothingness’ recurs in the play?

Ans-> The play begins with the dialogue, “nothing to be done” is appropriate here because in every aspect of the play- in structure, setting, characters, dialogues and many as such we can find that the play has no meaning at all, though it suggests the nothingness of life. We can also find this in one of the dialogue which has got some connection with it, “nobody comes…. nobody goes…. It’s awful…” in the play we can see that both are waiting for Godot but they are not sure whether he would come or not but they still go on waiting. We know that our life is unpredictable and full of uncertainties are in it but then also we go on living our life with the hope that one day or the other we would achieve salvation but that day never comes. And at last we feel like worthless, though we had achieved so many things in our life and we all have one restless question which is what else can be done by us to achieve salvation.

Q.  Do you agree: “The play (Waiting for Godot), we agreed, was a positive play, not negative, not pessimistic. As I saw it, with my blood and skin and eyes, the philosophy is: 'No matter what— atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can't kill life." (E.G. Marshal who played Vladimir in original Broadway production 1950s)?

Ans-> We can say waiting for Godot as a puzzling play. Because it is not quite clear that the play is positive or negative or pessimistic play we can interpretate it in various ways. That’s why Beckett himself did not throw much light on the meaning of the play. It depends on individual because there is something in the play for almost everybody. According to E.G.Marshal’s philosophy that we can end our physical suffering by killing ourselves but the question is that can we kill the life or its cycle? No, we can’t because it is not static that’s why life goes on and it doesn’t make any difference whether we are living or dead.

Q. How are the props like hat and boots used in the play? What is the symbolical significance of these props?

Ans-> Significance of props like ‘Hat’ and ‘Boot’ are described in this play. Throughout the play Vladimir looks into hat so many times instead of looking into boot and through Vladimir hat is symbolised as a rational thought process. Estragon who focuses on boots more than hats is more earthly and grounded than Vladimir and through Estragon boot is symbolised as the struggle of life which all faces, and taking off boots shows the try to come out from that struggles. So it’s all about the struggle between mind and body for which we at times are unable to make out what is right or wrong because unlike Vladimir and Estragon our hats and boots also symbolises the same in one way or the other that is- hat thinks for the meaning of life and boots struggles for the meaning of life. 

Q. Do you think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic? Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. Do you think that such a capacity of slavishness is unbelievable?

Ans-> Yes, I think obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic. When Lucky knows that his master has gone blind than also he gives the whip in his hand. When someone knows the reality and follows it blindly it’s called as addiction and he can’t come out from that easily. But it happens in the world that the disciples of the saints follow them blindly even when the reality gets revealed but instead of that they go on proving that there is no truth behind it. And we can’t make them realize until and unless they themselves not feel that what they are going into the wrong path and it becomes meaningless to show them the right path. We can find this type of slavishness around us too. So, one shall accept it as a part of life.

Q. “The subject of the play is not Godot but ‘Waiting’” (Esslin, A Search for the Self). Do you agree? How can you justify your answer?

Ans-> In Martin Esslin’s essay ‘A Search for the self’ he said that the subject of the play is not Godot but waiting. I do agree with his statement because throughout our life we are waiting for something. We know that future is unpredictable. So what? Can we give living life? Can we stop desiring something? Can we leave hope? No, we can’t. Our life itself is unpredictable but we go on living to meet with its end, i.e. death. So we can say that internally we are waiting for liberation of our soul. And externally we are waiting for the death. But the common thing in the both is “waiting” and we can’t free ourselves from it.

Q. Do you think that plays like this can better be ‘read’ than ‘viewed’ as it requires a lot of thinking on the part of readers, while viewing, the torrent of dialogues does not give ample time and space to ‘think’? Or is it that the audio-visuals help in better understanding of the play?

Ans-> Yes, I think that audio-visual gives us better understanding of the play. It is also true that it doesn’t give us ample time to think. We have to move fast with changing scene on the screen. But if we try to look at the reading of the text it too has got some limitations for which in some parts we can’t imagine the actual scene or action or pause which is written in the text. But in screening of this play we came across few things as such that why they take pause or what does the meaning of silence in both the acts signify.

Thinking Activity

Interpretation of the smallest Play- "Breath" by Samuel Beckett

Since down the ages no one ever thought of writing such small of just 30 to 32 seconds but Samuel Beckett was the first one to do it. And till today no one else could challenge him in this sphere. The name of his shortest play is “Breath”.

      When we watch the play, most would feel like what ‘rubbish’ is this and what to interpretate from this? But there is much to interpretate from this rubbish also. In the play we cannot find any settings or any character but only we can hear is the inhalation and expiration of breath. Everyday we inhale and exhale while breathing but we don’t try to see the possible interpretation of it as Samuel Beckett does. Though the video shows garbage along with the sound of breathing, it shows that there are both happy and bad times. Inhalation of fresh air signifies happy times and exhalation of air signifies bad times. We should try to find happy times for us in the midst of garbage also because happiness doesn’t always comes with a bed full of roses, it also comes with the most dejected things and times of our life. It is only us whether we want to see beyond the spectacle of the society rather than finding happiness in utter depravity also. Not only in life but in our surroundings also there is garbage like- in Politics there is lot of garbage, we the literate people keep on saying that- what a rubbish the Politics is becoming day by day and if we are asked to register our name for the next election than we would step aback saying that who would step in the pit hole knowingly? This is just exhalation trying to find a way of inhalation from the garbage. Society is twirling in the garbage everyday, it’s our own wish whether to twirl with it or not.

Digdarshak the Play

      

Digdarshak

The play ‘Digdarshak’ is written by Priyam Jani and directed by Rishit Jhaveri. The film is an autobiography of the Director, of his dedication towards theatre. Here the Director trains a boy in acting and he becomes the ‘Digdarshak’ for the boy. After the boy excels in acting he thinks of going to the cinemas which the Digdarshak dislikes. The Digdarshak thinks that after his disapproval also the boy went for cinemas and when the boy comes to meet him, they both started an argument for both cinema and theatre. The Digdarshak was unable to except the fact that cinemas could be better than theatre because he was an orthodox man for whom ‘Old is Gold’.

   At the end when their conversation was going on in between the Digdarshak came to know the truth why the boy left him. It was so because that the Digdarsak’s son gave two lakhs rupees to the boy so that he leaves his father because his father was so dedicated towards his work that it became his life and he slowly got detached from his son and his family which was disheartening the whole family.  When the Digdarshak confronts the truth he feels guilty and thinks that an artist should always try to balance his both personal and professional life.

     When the Digdarshak gives a script to the boy to read and the boy mistakens then Digdarshak says that cinema is more democratic than theatre because theatre is dictatorial.  And in theatre the Director is always a dictator.