LESSON PLAN ----- Greshma Clement

LANGUAGE LAB

Use of Language Lab in Developing English Language skills

English is the language which is most widely used in communicating around the world. As it is such a global language, it is very important to learn this language with good fluency, correct pronunciation and rich vocabulary. Here comes the role of a language lab. A language lab or language laboratory is a special room or hall arranged to provide various audio-visual materials based on the target language to the learners. Individual computers, headsets, microphones and so on are made available.

Language labs are becoming more common at academic institutions as they offer students a virtual environment where they can listen and practise the language they intend to learn. While learning a new language, the mere mugging up of the dull theories is not enough to excel in that language. To excel in any language, one should practise it in everyday life. Language labs provide that practice in very entertaining and interactive way.

Though English is being taught from first standard, the proficiency needs considerable improvement, especially in communicational aspects such as listening, speaking and phonetics. This is mainly due to the lack of continuous practice in communication. Thus, students should be given opportunity to practice listening and speaking in English language. Moreover, nowadays, English has become very necessary for survival. So, it is an evitable kindred even for monolinguals. In order to solve this tension, language labs are introduced as they can make English learning process highly effective and interesting for learners. As practice leads to the success in language learning, a language lab does the same. The language lab helps students to learn much faster than in a regular classroom setting. At the lab, the students can watch videos, practice their pronunciation through a speech recognizer, learn new vocabulary and much more.

In short, language lab is a very innovative and cost-effective tool for all academic institutions, from school to college. It is very helpful in improving the students' oral communication and comprehension skills. As the lab is introduced to cater the individual needs of language learners, it is learner-friendly too. So, one can easily become proficient in a language with the help of language laboratories.

ONAM

THIRUVONAM 2020

Onam is the harvest festival of Kerala. It reminds us the beauty and importance of our green state, KERALA, my homeland. Though, the 2020 Onam was in the middle of Corona pandemic time, the colour of the festival didn't fade. Even though we were all sitting at home without going out for fun, we celebrated Onam with much love and hugs of our Family. We prepared an elegant floral carpet (pookalam) and a splendid feast (onasadya) containing more than 10 dishes. The festival also reminded of the maveli, oonjaal, thiruvaathira, onathallu, pulikali and vallamkali.

""HAPPY ONAM""

MY FAMILY

Pearls of Home

Family makes a home complete.
In our family, 1) we can speak out 2) we can chill & enjoy 3) we can shed our tears 4) we can release our anger 5) we can do whatever we like 6) we can flourish our best hobby 7) we can enjoy everything we like 8) we can have any dish and
any dress 9) we can
debate and
raise our
opinion
10) we can
follow our
ideologies
and so on. Here are some photos
of my beloved family.

NEW YEAR 2020

HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2020

Let me announce 📢 that,

           I have become,

           Ms. Greshma Clement M.A., NET

I thank God Almighty, parents, teachers, sibling, grand parents, friends, neighbours, family relatives and other kith and kins. It's your guidance, prayer and help that made me what I am now. Thank you so much for all your efforts and thank you myself for working hard towards the goal with determination.

🎤🙋📝📚

Pencil Sketch - Peter Handke

Portrait of 

Peter Handke

Nobel Laureate (Literature) - 2019

 

I did this pencil sketching of Peter Handke.

He is an Austrian novelist, playwright and translator.

His famous works are:

• The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty
• A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

. . . . .

. . .

.

WORKBOOK - (B.Ed)

KERALA READER
ENGLISH - PART I


UNIT - 1

Nature’s Plenty

Chapter 1

How Far is the River?

Summary:

Ruskin Bond’s short story “How far is the River” is taken from a volume of his collection. The short story reflects the writer’s understanding of the psychology of a 12-year-old boy who longs to go out and explore Nature. Between the boy and the river stood a mountain. The boy was young and the river was small but the mountain was high. The mountain concealed the river and so the boy had never seen the river but had heard a great deal about it, of the fish in its waters, of its rocks and currents and waterfalls. The boy felt a great desire to touch the water of the river and ‘know it personally’. This short story deals with an unnamed twelve-year-old boy, a sturdy boy with untidy black hair and shining eyes, sharp features and a clear brown skin. How he undertakes a long and arduous walk to locate the river in the absence of his parents in the house that day forms the plot of the short story. As he walks towards the river, he meets woodcutters, milkman and mule drivers. Unfortunately, the boy is not able to get clear directions about the river and its exact location. But he still continues to walk, suddenly he encounters a village boy who smiled in a friendly way and told him that the river was not very far away. They have lunch together, and then walk for some time. Soon his companions had to diverge along another path and the boy was again on his own. He felt tired, lonely, miserable and hungry and tempted to return to his house. But if he failed he would always be ashamed of the experience. Finally, to his great delight the boy heard a sudden roaring sound, the sound of the river. It tumbled over rocks and the boy gasped and ran towards it. Although he slipped and tumbled, he still ran forward. Then he was ankle deep in the bitter cold mountain water which was blue and white and wonderful. At last the boy fulfilled his dream. The conclusion is abrupt and leaves the reader to draw

his /her own conclusion.

AUTHOR

ACTIVITY 1

Here are the thoughts of a boy after his nature-walk. Help him fill up the gaps of his thoughts with suitable words.

        Recently, I visited a …………, the magnificent Munnar.

          It is famous for its …………… estates, exotic lush greenery 

         and craggy peaks. And it is …………. in the Western Ghats, 

         in the state of …………. For a moment, I wondered whether 

          I was in heaven. Really, Munnar is a land of paradise.

ACTIVITY 2

You have read the story, “How Far is the River?”, haven’t you? Now, try to remember the story and complete the given word-puzzle with the words from the story using the clues given below.

B		R		F			T
			D			T			R
H		S		T				O
	O			L				S	S

 CLUES

Row 1: Wearing nothing on the feet.

Row 2: Person who cuts down trees.

Row 3: Doubt or reluctance.

Row 4: Isolation or lack of friends.

ACTIVITY 3

In association with World Nature Conservation Day (July 28), your school Nature Club plans to conduct a rally. For the rally you have to make some placards. So pick out suitable slogans from table given below and prepare a few placards.

       

BOX OF SLOGANS

Do not cut trees.

Do not litter.

Do not waste water.

Save animals.

ACTIVITY 4

Read the description about the path in the story, “How far is the river?”.

The path was steep, and the boy had to run most of the time. It was a dizzy, winding path, and he slipped once or twice. The hill was covered with lush green ferns, the trees were wound in creepers, and a great wild dahlia suddenly reared its golden head from the leaves and ferns.

Write down the words used to describe the path?

1)    ………………………………………….

2)    ………………………………………….

3)    …………………………………………

LIFE - (2)

Absurdity of Meaningless Life

I don't understand the meaning in life.

I always feel there is only a vacuumness, an unfillable emptiness.

I don't know what to write. ... Even my words are keeping a distance from me. I had only words as my friends, my feelings-sharing companions. Now as they are not with me, I feel lonely. ... I feel lost. ...

When I feel tired or if I want to turn away my mind from concerning about various physical aches, I watch some movies, especially the ones that deal with love at the midst of wars ... even though both war and love are matters of my hatred. ... Well, in spite of the truth that those movies provide me a sort of transient silent pleasure to my nerves, in the rest of the hours, I feel completely empty and most often I am troubled by the thought that why I live as a corpse.

Sometimes, my impulses carry me to the world of my talent to ease my mind. As I am a realist cum fantasy writer, thoughts of imaginary flesh and bone characters come to mind and provoke me to jot those thoughts down as plots.

If I have ample time I will either record or I will write my thoughts down in whatever sheets available, as I do now. This act is one among the things which give me happiness and moreover, ... confidence. But confidence in what? That might be the question. I know. ... Well, I feel confident in myself. I feel like I am born with a purpose ... with a load of responsibilities, towards nature, family, society and towards the world at large. Also I feel, I have the caliber to perform my duties with vigour and whole-heartedness. And I see as a vision where I do full justice to my life and soul.

After a while, my thoughts vanish and thus my belief in my dreams and aspirations too fades. I feel desp, dull and feel like gradually fading away or weathering away like an autumn leaf ... dry, pale and yellow. Yes, my life is yellow in hue. It turns shiny golden when I am hopeful. At the same time, it becomes dull orange when I lose hope. The fact is, most of the time, my life is almost like a shining sun at the horizon.

In 24x7, 23x7 I feel lost, but in the rest one hour of each day, my parents and hostel-mates try their level best to motivate me to make me cheerful and pleasant and to make me understand there is some or other kind of meaning present in life. Whether it is positive or negative, that doesn't matter. But life is meaningful and we should enjoy our life ... that's their stand. Well, I can read their mind ... poor people, the innocent ones. ... What to do!! Still I feel lost.

Very often my parents advise me to study well so that I can perform my best in the upcoming exam. Thus I open my textbooks and read. But one day, when I opened one of my texts, the printed pages starred at me so badly as if I am a culprit. After a few seconds of staring, the letters in the page started speaking to me like a friend. They asked why I mug up the unnecessary matters ... why I fill my talented brain with trash of academic stuff ... why I store the gibberish and compromise my thoughts and peacefulness. I stood speechless in front of hose question-arrows shot by the letters in my texts. How could I tell tem, I too have number of questions and question-marks 

in my mind which constantly quakes my thoughts resting in tranquility.

I studied 20 years continuously from the age of 3 in various academic institutions as 1+2+10+2+3+2. During these years, I was taught by my God, my thoughts, my parents, my teachers and my friends. All those teachings aided me to form my self-wisdom. But, still I feel lost, gone and meaningless, coz my conscious says absurdity is ruling the world and chaos is at throne.

I don't know what more to say ... to write ...

Even now, while I am writing this, I feel ... !!!

...

LIFE - (1)

What is Life ???

"It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifies nothing" (1).

Life has no meaning.

Yes, it is meaningless.

Why God, the eternal power, gave me a life only to waste it half-way like a broken fountain pen?

Ha, once I was a golden fountain pen. I had magical wings which could be stretched out if needed. Now, my wings are chopped off. I am fallen. No, I am thrown. Thrown to the dig where stray dogs roamed. Thrown so badly that my wings get detached from my shoulder bones. And it does happen exactly how they have expected. My head too hit on a pointed stone. The stone nearly killed me. No, I shouldn’t say that, coz the stone is innocent. All others except the stone killed me. Now I am lifeless. The buyer extracted my blood and jotted down the laws as he was a lawyer. The laws he wrote remain quiet on the leaves of paper. No one stands up and speaks for me. When I had life, I helped the world to write it's thoughts and claims, and when I lost it, I am thrown as trash. Now I know I have been used as merely an object from the time I was made. So, let me remind you all, don't get fallen off as a fool like me. "Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen" (2).

(1) - Macbeth

(2) - Paradise Lost

...

COMMENTS on ME

Comments on ME in Farewell

🎀 🎁 🎀

During my UG farewell, my teachers and classmates said:

      "You are Active and Enthusiastic.
       You are a Good Orator and Debater.
       You have Strong and Beautiful Voice.
       When you Orate, even the Walls have
                    Ears to your Words."

🕊 📖 🕊

During my PG farewell, my teachers, classmates and hostel-mates said:

     "You are silent, but you are fully focused.
       You are the most Hardworking person
                   among us.
       You have Grit Personality Trait.
       You are a Strong Character who has
                   her own Opinions.
       You have Individuality.
       And you will even Die for keeping
                   your Ideologies."

💐
My reply for both:

       ( I smiled ... ) 

👀

I express my Acknowledgement to God Almighty, Parents, Sibling, Teachers and Friends.
Thanking you All.
...

🕊

DREAM - SPEECH

CONFIDENTIAL ORATION

In a conference, my honourable dream said,

“Very respected dignitaries on and off the dais, other luminaries who are invited for the conference, and all other fellow comrades who are listening to me, at present. A very pleasant dawn to all of you.

Ah… very recently I happened to read a blog on “Marital Rapes”. And that was written by a girl, named … some Greeshma, or Greshma, ah… something like that. Well, when I went through the blog, I felt there is a passion in the author. So what I did is, I immediately google searched the details of the author and found it out. There it showed as, she was an intern professor in some college, in the state of Kerala, and currently she is a post graduate student in some well-known college in Bengaluru. Whatever it is, I contacted the person and we talked for a while. From the conversation, I could easily figure out her true aspiration to see a change in the world. She also told me that there are people in her acquaintance circle who have same thoughts and perspectives. So, now I am planning to convoke such kind of people who have real insight within them, to jointly work on these types of social issues. … And I believe, they can definitely bring a change to the world by eradicating all the social evils from the human society, for ever and ever.

Thank you. Thank you so much, for listening me. And I wish you, a good day.”

NEWS - TODAY'S HEADLINES

MARITAL RAPES

Today's topic of discussion is nothing but, marital rapes. To put it plainly, rape is the most brutal violence, one can do to a woman. According to the statistics, published by Dailyhunt in 2013, "With an estimated of 500,000 rape cases every year, ... [South Africa] has one of the highest rate of Rape Crimes in the world. It is estimated that more than 40% of South African women will be raped in their lifetime." (1) In the case of India, "The number of reported rapes in India, a country of over 1.2 billion people, has gone up to 33,707 in 2013 ... In India, a woman is being raped after every 20 minutes. ... 93 women are being raped in the country every day." (1) All these show the case of women, who got rapped by strangers or by ones who were less known to the victims. Then, what about the marital rapes, happened so far and happening at present. Until a while, no one was even bothered of this beastly crimes. Thus they went on and on and on. Can't help, but say, it's the truth.

Marital rape means the unnecessary sexual acts committed by husband upon his wife without her consent. An article titled, "Data On Sexual Violence In Marriages Shows Why India Should Progress Towards Criminalising Marital Rape", it is stated, "According to the UN Women's 2011 report, out of 179 countries ... 52 had amended their legislation to explicitly make marital rape a criminal offence. India is one such country where marital rape is yet to be even recognized ... Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which defines rape, makes an exception for marital rape by stating, "Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape."" (2) The article continues, "At an all India level, 9 out of every 100 men, agree to the fact that a husband has the right to use force and have sex with his wife even if she doesn't want to." (2) To brief, what does it show ? ... The reality. ... Yes, the face of truth. ... But I pray, not let that fact get mugged up in the shabby skin-torn files, only to get dusty, just as other files got.

In this situation, what we have to do is, we have to take immediate action against these crimes and check all sorts of violence, both sexual and asexual, upon our daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, aunt, niece, and even our friend. Remember, ... if we shut our eyes towards these crimes, one day we too may fall as victims of such crimes. So, think. ... Sorry, we barely have time to think. Thus, we should start working to eliminate the crime even from the corners of the world of mankind.

Another aspect of this case is, though at one side, there is a category of people, like us, who continuously urges the world not to commit such crimes, in the other side, there are people, both educated and uneducated, who forcefully push their own children to married lives, at very young age. As the article, "India Has the Highest Number of Child Brides in the World: How Do We Deal With It", says, "Child marriage remains a social evil that India has seemingly had a hard time eradicating. ... Despite all the ... conversation about protecting our young girls ... certain influential politicians and lawmakers in Madhya Pradesh continue to condone and support such the pernicious practice of child marriage. According to a recent report by the Dainik Bhaskar Post, hundreds of young girls were married off across mass wedding ceremonies in the Rajgarh district of Madhya Pradesh, on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya ... What was even more shocking was the presence of leaders from both the ruling and opposition parties at these mass wedding ceremonies. These leaders reportedly even blessed the couples. The district administration estimates that nearly 1000 minor couples were married off on [that single day]." (3)

By deviating from the crisis of 'child marriage', if we move to the case of matured women, it is not better enough, and more pathetic, i would say. In a country named Kyrgyzstan, in a native community, there is a custom of 'bride kidnapping'. In the details section of a YouTube video titled, "Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan", it is mentioned, "In rural Kyrgyzstan men still marry their women the old-fashioned way: by abducting them off the street and forcing them to be their wife." (4) According to the video, due to that weird custom of bride kidnapping, lots of young women, soon after their forced marriages, committed suicide.

In short, all these data show that marriage has become a sort of curse in the life of every woman. At this time, one must remember, whatever action, if it is forcefully done upon someone without the person's consent, then it is a crime. This is a fact, known to all. But no one is ready to take a chance to keep things in order. Then what to do??

There are people who speak and write about the want of stopping all those crimes, but they themselves lag behind when they deal their own family matters. For instance, we all say it is one's freedom to choose whether to marry and a lead a responsible family life or to remain as singleton and lead a carefree life. But when this perspective moves to the wing of family, or society at large, the so-called morality holders or keepers insist the poor girls to marry at a certain age even though the girls really don't want. ... Here, where is the morality and where is the freedom?? In a comment written beneath a YouTube video titled, "Fighting forced marriages and honour based abuse | Jasvinder Sanghera | TEDxGöteborg", Afifa Iran notes,

"I'm 26 and my parents somehow just want me to be married off. They think I'll not survive without a man. I am a dentist currently working to take an exam that will lead to specialization. I am not ready or interested in marriage. And i can honestly relate to her. My dad does pressure me but he doesn't throw a tantrum. My mom loses her calm over my marriage. Worst part is when all these families come in to 'see' you to get you into an arranged marriage. This is quite screwed up. Mostly female peers question me and pressure me into settling down. I am not ready for marriage and i don't want it anytime soon. But my parents ignore it like it's a pointless thing. They say "oh she'll be fine once married". Well hello no i won't be! If I'm not ready and you marry me off even to the best guy in the whole wide world, i won't be able to appreciate him and just walk out of it! I wish our mothers could break free of their own fears!" (5)

As a girl or a woman, I felt empathy towards the girl, who posted the comment. Her words stand for the voice of the entire womenfolk. Her words give voice to the voiceless.

To conclude, if we keep on voicing our rights and establishing our status of being human rather than a piece of flesh to chew upon, one day the graph of the above statistics falls down to the level of zero. And I strongly believe, that day is not so far. The count down started. ... (rape, violence, abuse, discrimination, injustice, ......... 3, 2, 1, 0 ......)

1. https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/east+coast+daily+eng-epaper-eeastco/here+s+the+list+of+countries+with+highest+rape+crime+rate+in+the+world-newsid-90811949
2. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/kumar-rajesh/latest-data-on-sexual-violence-in-marriages-shows-why-india-should-progress-towards-criminalising-marital-rape_a_23367102/
3. https://www.thebetterindia.com/138496/india-child-brides-marriage-law-posco/
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKAusMNTNnk
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Xh5MXA7yY&list=WL&index=178&t=294s

Penned by,

      Ms. Greshma Clement

(I apologize, if anyone gets hurt due to this write-up.)

.