Srinagar, July 24: A three-day workshop on English Language Teaching (ELT) began at the University of Kashmir on Tuesday.
 The workshop is organized by the Department of English in collaboration with the Cambridge University Press, New Delhi in order to “equip college teachers with effective pedagogy, resources, ideas and activities to make the overall teaching-learning process participatory and interactive.”
 The ELT- workshop is a regular feature of the English Department since 2007. According to the organizers, it provides the teachers with opportunities to understand and explore the ways of encouraging student participation and also help them present and practice vocabulary and grammar through learner-centric approaches. “This in turn helps students develop effective listening, efficient reading, powerful speaking and professional writing skills,” they said.
 In her welcome address, the workshop Director and Head Department of English Prof Lilly Want said that the focus of the workshop shall be on grammar-syllabus recommended at the undergraduate level: “The objective is to make college teachers reflect on how to enhance the general communicative competence and the more technical skills of students in their teaching situation,” she said.
 She said the existing pedagogy “has necessarily led to conventional lecture-based sessions on the part of teachers and rote memorization on part of students.” “There is a dire need to integrate lecture-oriented theory classes with tutorial classes for reinforcing learning and creative utilization and for acquiring command over language and enriching the students’ critical and research perspectives to English Literature,” she said.
 In his presidential address, the KU Vice-Chancellor Prof Talat said: “The aim of such workshops should be to encourage high standards of written and spoken English by resorting to the widely-accepted standards of English grammar, intelligible pronunciation and legible writing.”
 While appreciating the teachers and students of Kashmir for their “flawless accent” in spoken English, Prof Talat said “Both the teachers and the students from Kashmir have a very good accent in English language and this is something which is known all over the country. However our students and teachers need to work on their writing skills and participate more in such workshops if they desire to see their works published in international journals.”
 Prof Talat suggested the Department of English to organize more such workshops in future with few sessions on professional writing for the benefit of teachers and students.
 Speaking on the occasion Dr CLN Prakash, who is coordinator of ELT workshops from the Cambridge University Press, said: “Such workshops provide great opportunity to the teachers to hone their skills and review the methods and techniques of teaching so that they remain in tune with the changing times and new trends in the pedagogy.”
 Dr Prakash, who is also the resource person for the workshop, said that the pedagogy of teachers in English literature and language needs rethinking and the present workshop is motivated by this need to provide possible alternatives to the existing rather prescribed pedagogy.
 Dr Nusrat from the Department of English conducted the proceedings of the inaugural event while Dr Tasleem War presented vote of thanks.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 24 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 25 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST