Language Lab review

 Language Lab review-

Introduction-

The word ‘laboratory’ originated in the late 15th century. Language learning has its separate requirements like all other subjects. There are four skills to master as Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The sequence of all these skills is also important. They must be acquired in a sequence for one’s proper development. After the boom in ICT a new chapter in language learning started as language laboratory. The language laboratory plays an important role in the language learning process. As it is a combination of various technological aids which gives many advanced facilities that can help a student to learn a language developing all four skills. It proves that education and technology are best complement of each other. Language lab is a class of English language learning where teaching learning process happens with computers and other technical support. For language learning students individually use a computer which is connected with a server.

History of Language Lab-

The language laboratory is an audio or audio-visual installation used as an aid in modern language teaching. They can be found, amongst other places, in schools, universities and academies. Perhaps the first lab was at the University of Grenoble in 1908. In the 1950s up until the 1990s, they were tape-based systems using reel to reel or (latterly) cassette. Current installations are generally multimedia PCs. The original language labs are now very outdated. They allowed a teacher to listen to and manage student audio via a hard-wired analogue tape deck based systems with 'sound booths' in fixed locations.

Advantages-

There are different features of language lab, which make the students to have interactive sessions. It provides equal opportunity to all the students to hear the instructor irrespective of place where they are seated. It develops the listening and communication skills, and they can learn correct pronunciation also. The language lab brought difference in teaching learning process instead of boring verbal centered teaching.

Disadvantages-

If there is no trained teacher than Language lab becomes useless. It can be engaged in a small classroom rather than huge classroom, as the teacher listens to students randomly the response can be unorganized and ineffective as there are many students to attend to. There should be good power supply in that particular area where the school is situated.

Thinking Activity on Sense of an Ending

Thinking Activity on Sense of an Ending-

1. What is the meaning of phrase ‘Blood Money’ in Veronica’s reply email?

Sarah Ford, mother of Veronica sends one letter to Tony Webster and gave him 500 pounds. In the email to Veronica Sarah mentions about “Blood Money”, which Tony doesn’t understand. In the letter Adrian wrote about his relationship with Sarah Ford mother of Veronica. It was due to their relationship that a child was a born that too mentally retarded. This novel speaks about lack of love and faith amongst each other. “Blood Money” can also be said that it was covered with Adrian’s blood covered according to Veronica and she also says it as ‘impure’. For Veronica Tony somewhere or the other was also responsible for Adrian’s death.

2. How do you decipher the equation: b = s – v x/+ a1 or a2 + v + a1 X s = b?

Firstly, according to me the first equation seems like-

B (baby) is the symbol of S (Sarah) and a1 (Adrian) relationship. Adrian cheated Veronica and had relationship with her mother.

Secondly, according to me the second equation seems like-

A2 (Antony or Tony) was in relationship with Veronica, than after they had broken their relationship Veronica and Adrian came into relationship. But when Adrian was with Veronica he was seeing Sarah Ford Veronica’s mother and at the end they both became intimate and Sarah gave birth to a baby (b).

3. Adrian’s diary is willed to Tony by Sarah Ford. Why did Sarah Ford own it? Why was it in the possession of Veronica?

This somewhat indicates that when Adrian was with Sarah in his last days he was happy before he died. They both had affair so it was obvious that Sarah would know about the diary. Before she died in the will she mentioned that the diary is to be given to Tony and so it was done. That can be a reason of Adrian’s diary willed to Tony by Sarah Ford. But that diary is with Veronica because may be she doesn’t wanted to hand over it to Tony.

4. Was the mentally retarded middle aged ‘Adrian’, Tony’s friend who did not commit suicide and was suffering from trauma and thus gone mad, and was living with hidden identity?

In this novel many things are not clear. There are possibilities that Adrian is in guilt of what he has done and is living a life with secret identity. If we rely on Tony’s memory than we can see that he had mentioned that Adrian was more sensible than all in their group. So, it can’t be said that he would have committed suicide just because he made someone pregnant.

5. How was Veronica related to Adrian, the one suffering in care-in-the-community?

Veronica and Junior Adrian can be called step-siblings as Sarah and Adrian were the parents. We can also say that Adrian, who was Tony’s friend, was suffering from mental trauma and had gone mad as he can be called the step father of Veronica.

6. Do you see any missing block – some dot which is not getting connected with the whole or dot missing to get full sense of the novel - in the plot of this psychological thriller?

As this novel is totally based on memory of sixty years old Tony, so we can find many unclear things. Its like- why did Veronica and Adrian met? Why did Adrian cheat on Veronica? Why Sarah did kept on looking for different men? The novel itself doesn’t give us necessary information about the characters and so we can presume whatever we want to.

7.  Do you see any possible reason in the suicide of Adrian Finn?

In this novel one or the other had relationship. As Adrian was in affair with Sarah Ford that doesn’t he would commit such a cowardice act. But during their school days one of their friends did so for similar type of reason and can say that Adrian also came under the same influence.

8. In the light of new revelations, how do you read character of Veronica? Instinctive, manipulative, calculating, stubborn, haughty, sacrificial, trustworthy, good Samaritan?

In the novel we find that Tony as Narrator and through his point of view we look at every characters. But we perceive that Veronica’s character is different from others.  Veronica arises in our mind as instructive, Manipulative, Calculative, stubborn and haughty but as time passes the story discloses that she appears as sacrificial, intelligent, trust-worthily and Good Samaritan. It’s all from narrator Tony’s views points. It may be that this type of Veronica is not real one but narrator talk as their limitations.  Tony can’t think about beyond the boundaries that she is real or not. Or maybe something Good and shy Veronica.

9.What do you mean by Unreliable Narrator? Is Tony Webster classifiable as Unreliable Narrator?

 Unreliable narrator is the one whose narration cannot be taken as reliable or whose narration is not faithful to reality. Tony can also be called an unreliable narrator because he starts his narration by saying that “I remember, in no particular order”. We can say that whatever the narrator is going to tell is the outcome of his broken memory as he joins the missing dots with his own perspective and imagination.

What is Literature?

What is Literature?

I would like to start this question with a quote by Northrop Frye, he was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist. The quote is-

“The world of Literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination”.

The above mentioned is very apt for Literature, as it is based on imagination; I too have got some imaginative description for Literature. For me Literature is something very challenging which daily rises with new questions during dawn and sets with new answers during dusk.

I am studying Literature since five years but still I am unable to find mine own apt definition for Literature. Whenever I think I have got an apt definition then again Literature unfolds in itself in a new way infront of me.

Everyone have their definition of their own and so do I have. For me Literature is like a Marigold flower with end number of petals in it and also it has got an essence like the flower has of its own. It also acts like a guiding light for the new generation of people to get well-accustomed with their roots without believing different types of interpretations. Now I read Literature to challenge the age- old beliefs of people and to bring out new definitions of it.

Literature always welcomes both criticizers as well as supporters; I prefer to find out for myself what I want to be rather than walking on the trodden path which people have traveled from the ages.

Last but not the least, I would like to quote few lines from Robert Frost’s poem that is “Road Not Taken”, which is one of my favourite poem which fascinates me to look life and Literature in a different way and the lines are-

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

How Literature shaped me?

How Literature shaped me?

I would like to start the above question with a quote by Fernando Pessoa, he was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator publisher and philosopher. The quote is-

           “Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life”.

The above quote is very true and I can very well relate with it. It’s so because from an early age onwards I got connected with Literature and started to ignore things in such a way as if they never existed. I started to read novels and started to let go things imagining it to be all fairy tales. I used to interpret life in the same way as the writers use to portray it in their novels. Though I got connected with Literature in this way but now in real sense after five years I am able to understand only few petals of Literature.

When I was in B.A, I used to see Literature through the eyes of my Professors and never tried to go into it of my own. It was so because at that time I thought that going down the Ages would make me insane, so I kept myself aloof from it. Now I can sense that unknowingly I was also in the same group of people known as Sheeples and accepted everything believing it to be the sheer reality. I never thought that one day or the other I would write Blogs or think critically which I am doing today when I am pursuing my M.A. Now Literature seems something very fascinating to me. I have started to think critically and also have started questioning on the existence of any piece of Literature.

Now I have parted myself from the sheeples. Unlike everyone I have also heard the same age- old traditional definition of Literature that it is the “mirror image of society”, now I have started to question this definition and I am also trying to find out the retrospective answer to this definition. Now I have realised that Literature never said to see things in the same way as others see rather it is an open book where we can put our own independent view points and it readily accepts the same. At first I was unable to understand why the writers like Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf have written the bitter things of society, it’s so because people somehow or the other people would read or listen about Literature through which they would get to know about the deteriorated  condition of their society which they were unaware of. Now I got this reason after thinking deeply and also reading Literature. According to me, Literature not only represents the negative vibes of society but it also represents the positive vibes as well.

Now-a-days whenever I read any novel or poem I try to apply different types of theories in it and try to give it a new shape. Whenever I watch a movie I try to connect it with some literary texts and try to see what end results does it shows in that particular text. I can say Literature has engrossed itself in me in such a manner that every now and then I try to connect many of my real- life experiences with it.

Every culture has its own Literature, but according to me one can’t get the true essence of his or her own culture’s Literature until and unless he or she tries to peep into it of their own.

Last but not the least I would like to say that Literature for me is like a marigold flower which has got end number of petals in it in the form of different literary ideas. And these ideas are always ready to get plucked by us unlike the petals of a marigold flower.

Now I am also able to pluck the petals of Literature after I have removed myself from the group of sheeples.

Library Committee Report (2016-18)

Library Committee

“A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.”

                                                                                                            –Norman Cousins

Unlike the above mentioned quote it’s very true that Library gives birth to new way of looking at things. It is also considered to be the place full of knowledge where every book in their silence opens up with new and unknown facts. In today’s world who wants to go to Library when we have become so techno-friendly but the realities which books can show, technologies fail there. Books and libraries always welcome their readers open-heartedly whoever the reader might be. Once we get the taste of entertainment it provides with all of its knowledge then we would get tempted towards it for its hypnotic magic easily.

Department of English, MKBU is known as techno-friendly department because though being an Arts Department it makes use of technology as much as possible but rather than it has got a Library of its own. It’s made for the ease of the students so that time and again they don’t have to go to the Central Library and also they don’t have to get tensed about the availability of books. This Library is open for all the students during the Department hours.

Along with the Library the Department has also got its own Reading Room which any student of the Department or any Research Scholar can access according to their own need. Our Head of the Department Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir has also got his own Library inside his office from which he also lends books to students.

Every year the Leader of Library Committee keeps on changing and it’s a very good opportunity to learn many new things. And as it’s always said without a support system a Leader alone can’t run the show, that’s why along with the Leader a Committee is also elected.

As the Library is open for all so along with the students, teachers and Research Scholars takes the advantages of it. In our Library we have got many self- help books, CDs and DVDs of movies related to our syllabus, NET/SLET help books, and materials of SCOPE to improve Language and many reference books also. Every year this list gets extended with new books.

It would be appropriate to quote Zappa-

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

                                                                                                              –Frank Zappa

Working as a Leader of Library Committee was an awesome experience. Everyday when the Department started I had to open Library for someone’s book renewal or for issuing books to someone, and then I had to maintain record of who took which book with their return dates. During Department hours at any point of time someone might come and say that he or she wants to issue a book than I can’t deny and have to do my duty. This is what this Library taught me how to manage your own responsibility. Last but not the least, I would like to thanks Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir, all other faculty members and also my Committee members without whom the proper functioning of Library wouldn’t be possible throughout the year. I hope in the forthcoming future also all the batches would carry on this tradition and would also contribute in the growth and development of Department and its Library.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank all of my Committee Members without whom I couldn’t have reach the expected goal. My members are- Architaba Gohil, Binkalba Gohil, Kavita Mehta, Mital Raval, Megha Trivedi, Komal Shahedapuri, Kiran Vora, Kailash Baraiya, Khushali Dave, Ajit Kaliya, Krishna Khamal, Ridhi Maru and Rinkal Jani.

Thank You,

Budhiditya Shankar Das

Library Head(2016-18)

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist is the story of a young orphan written by Charles Dickens, Oliver, and his attempts to stay good in a society that refuses to help. Oliver is born in a workhouse, to a mother not known to anyone in the town. She dies right after giving birth to him, and he is sent to the orphanage, where he and the other orphans are treated terribly and fed very little. When he turns nine, he is sent to the workhouse, where again he and the others are treated badly and practically starved. The other boys, unable to stand their hunger any longer, decide to draw straws to choose who will have to go up and ask for more food and Oliver loses. On the appointed day, after finishing his first serving of gruel, he goes up and asks for more. Mr. Bumble, the beadle, and the board are outraged, and decide they must get rid of Oliver, apprenticing him to the undertaker, Mr. Snowberry. It is not great there either, and after an attack on his mother’s memory, Oliver runs away.

Oliver leaves for London. When he is close, he is so weak he can barely continue, and he meets another boy named Jack Dawkins, also known as Dodger. The Dodger tells Oliver he can come with him to a place where a gentleman will give him shelter and food, for no rent. Oliver follows, and the Dodger takes him to an apartment in London where he meets Fagin, the aforementioned gentleman, and Oliver is offered a place to stay. Oliver eventually learns that Fagin’s boys are all pickpockets and thieves, but not until he is wrongfully accused of their crime of stealing an old gentleman’s handkerchief. He is arrested, but the bookseller comes just in time to the court and says that he saw that Oliver did not do it. The gentleman whose handkerchief was taken, Mr. Brownlow, feels bad for Oliver, and takes him in.

Oliver is very happy with Mr. Brownlow, but Fagin and his co-conspirators are not happy to have lost Oliver, who may give away their hiding place. So one day, when Mr. Brownlow entrusts Oliver to return some books to the bookseller for him, Nancy spots Oliver, and kidnaps him and takes him back to Fagin.

Oliver is forced to go on a house-breaking excursion with Bill Sikes. At gun point Oliver enters the house, with the plan to wake those within, but before he can, he is shot by one of the servants. Sikes and his partner escape, leaving Oliver in a ditch. The next morning Oliver went to the house, where the kind owner, Mrs. Maylie, and her beautiful niece Rose, decide to protect him from the police and nurse him back to health.

Oliver slowly recovers, and is extremely happy and grateful to be with such kind and generous people, who in turn are happy to find that Oliver is such a good-natured boy. When he becomes stable, they take him to see Mr. Brownlow, but they find his house empty—he has moved to the West Indies. Meanwhile, Fagin and his mysterious partner Monks have not given up on finding Oliver, and one day Oliver wakens from a nightmare to find them staring at him through his window. He raises the alarm, but they escape.

Nancy, overhearing Fagin and Monks, decides that she must go to Rose Maylie to tell her what she knows. She does so; telling Rose that Monks is Oliver’s half-brother, who has been trying to destroy Oliver so that he can keep whole of his inheritance, but that she will not betray Fagin or Sikes. Rose tells Mr. Brownlow, who tells Oliver’s other caretakers, and they decide that they must meet Nancy again to find out how to find Monks.

They meet her on London Bridge at a prearranged time, but Fagin has become suspicious, and has sent his new boy, Noah Claypole, to spy on Nancy. Nancy tells Rose and Mr. Brownlow how to find Monks, but still refuses to betray Fagin and Sikes, or to go with them. Noah reports everything to Fagin, who tells Sikes, knowing full well that Sikes will kill Nancy. Mr. Brownlow has in the mean time found Monks, who finally admits everything that he has done, and the true case of Oliver’s birth. Sikes is on the run, but all of London is in an uproar, and he eventually hangs himself accidentally in falling off a roof, while trying to escape from the mob surrounding him. Fagin is arrested and tried, and, after a visit from Oliver, is executed. Oliver, Mr. Brownlow, and the Maylies end up living in peace and comfort in a small village in the English countryside.

The Scarlet Letter

THE SCARLET LETTER

 In the second coming, it is said "To be without sin, shame and regret is to be more than human." In the Bible, it has been written "Thou salt not commit adultery." It is god's seventh instruction and those who violate it are sinners.

 The Scarlet Letter takes us to the early days of Puritan society. This book has derived its title from the custom which was strictly practiced by the Puritan settles. Whenever a woman was caught in adultery, she had to wear the letter 'A' embroidered in Scarlet color on her dress. Scarlet color symbolises blood, death, child birth and life. The scarlet letter is a book which deals with the values of the sin of adultery in the lives of three people most affected by it. These three people are Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. The couple of forbidden lovers and the wounded husband. It is an outrage of one individual against another and against the social code of ethics. This story is a story of sin too. That is why Hester and Dimmesdale who have committed adultery cannot be forgiven. The novel begins with a scene where a young woman. Hester Prynne is standing at the scaffold in the summer morning in the summer morning in the market place in Boston. She has committed adultery and stands in disgrace and tries to hide the scarlet letter 'A' on her bosom by holding her child close. Hawthorne defines Hester Prynne as "The woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale. She had dark and lavish hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a glow, and a face which besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of appearance, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes." People see Hester as a morally despoiled woman and expressed hatred. The chief minister and Dimmesdale urge her to confess the name of her lover who should be sharing her but Hester remains silent. Seeing his wife on the scaffold, he decides to conceal his identity and quickly puts his finger to his lips to warm Hester against the betraying the slightest sign of recognition. When Hester is taken back to the prison, a doctor visits her which turns out to be his husband Chillingworth. He tries many a times to know the name of Hester's lover but does not get successful and gets frustrated. Hester and Dimmesdale then plan to go to other place and decide to leave on election arrive. When the sermon gets over, people walk out of the church and Dimmesdale walks in. He asserts his guilt and shows everyone 'A' engraved on his chest and then dies. As Chillingworth couldn't take revenge, he dies of frustration. Here we can say that Dimmesdale is a greater sinner than Hester. He tries to conceal his crime from the public. He goes against the purity of his profession his conscience allows him no rest and he gets troubled constantly by his soul. He adds hypocrisy to his sin. He can't sit or study peacefully. He becomes restless and can't sleep peacefully. He remains awaked at night, writes sermons, and keeps fast. 'A man must be true confessor' is a puritan belief. He goes deeper and deeper into the pit of sin. The secret of his sin burns within him, which prompts him to confess yet he is afraid to reveal himself for what he is. Chillingworth is a greater offender. He was absent from Hester's life for seven years. In this case, we can say that a person needs love and so Hester fell in love with Dimmesdale. He is a person who is devoted to cold science. The way in which he broods over revenge and marks down highs victim and drives him steadily to self-destruction is made very creditable when he learns of Hester's shame, he dewiest his very identity and pursues revenge. 'Sinful father feels more pain than sinful mother.' Whenever we talk about sin, we talk about punishment. God also gave punishment to his children Adam and Eve. By giving birth to the child, she crossed broke the moral order of the society according to the puritan society. Though Dimmesdale loved Hester, he could not cross the Puritan culture moral order of the society. They both are self conscious. Hester is the first sinner. Other people become happy when Hester is punished as they have conditional mind and they do not feel her feelings.

'Sinful mother is happier than a sinful father.' When Dimmesdale comes to meet Hester in secret place or you have to accept us in daylight in front of everyone." The forest is shown as dark forest. She is tempered there and so she goes there. For people, it is a punishment to go in the dark, deep forest. Hester goes with the child and when she comes out, she is not the same Hester. It is due to the dark forest, she could change the sign A'. Hester returns. She has to. Her sin lies in New England. Hester chooses to return to New England to live the moral life: "But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne, here in New England than in that unfamiliar region where Pearl had found a home. Here had been her sin; here her regret and here was yet to be her penitence."  Pearl constantly reminds her mother Hester about her sin or crime which was done in past. When they are living in the forest, Pearl tells Hester: "Mother, the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. It will not feel from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet." She can be said a born misfit of the infantile world. The shadow of parent's sin can be seen forcing over the child of Hester.

CONCLUSION: -

 The Scarlet Letter is a tragic story of sin, crime and Punishment which can be learnt by the actions of all the characters, the crime they committed and the situations they face. The act of adultery is certain a crime against the individual. Same way, it is also a crime against society as it involves the violation of the moral code formulated and honoured by the society. Hawthorne has given the concept of sin and evil which is a puritan heritage. Sin and crime was the endless theme in this novel and the consequences of guilt as primarily psychological in nature. Hester's charm is shown by a sense of guilt. The story shows the concept of sin, crime and Punishment through Hester's life and Dimmesdale's inner guilt.