To Liberate the Mind from the Bondage of Scripts

Language workshop with Ramakant Agnihotri: 19th - 24th March, 2013 @ Jaipur
                                            - An individual Reflective learning

·         Children have an innate cognitive capability to learn languages. These ability develop with their exposure and experiences.

·         Children can have fully functional language even at the age of 3 years.

·         Reading is a lifelong skill in which the meaning and interpretation of the written texts depend on the readers' context and experiences.

·         The intended message of the author is interpreted by the interplay between Context, Reader and Text.

·         Seeing sentence in pieces is a problem and it is simply decoding when we take reading as only identifying letters.

·         Reading without understanding the meaning is not Reading.

·         The pedagogical implication with reading is that a teacher has to respect the interpretation of the child.

·         Only words or sounds or sentences do not make a language. Eg. She mouth her an apple with eats.

·         There have to be rule of grammar for sentences to make meaning.

·         It is important to know the structure of languages - CVCV (Consonantal and Vocalic sound in sequence).

·         In English, there can be three sequence/cluster of Consonantal sounds (the limit) but only starts with the letter "S". For example, SCRIPT.

·         The cost of language is free/zero with the CVCV structure (it makes it easy) but once a person messes up with the structure, then they have to pay the price for it. It is difficult to say a word with more than three cluster of consonantal sounds , thus constraints arise. 

·         Any language can be written in any scripts with minor editing- Devnagiri or Roman etc.

·         Knowledge of one language helps understand another language.

·         Consonantal sound can be produced for a short time while vocalic (vowel) sound can be produced for longer period of time.

·         Consonants cannot exist alone. It always come with Vocalic sound. For example, "B" for "Be", "F" for "Ef".

·         Vowels can be a word but consonant cannot be a word. For example, "आ".

·         What is Diphthong? It is not a sequence of vowels but a word which glided with Vocalic sound. For example, Kite as KAIT where K and I are highly dominated by AI.

·         There are released and unreleased consonantal sounds - For example, the "P" in Pak is released thus hold more value. But the "P" is Kap is unreleased.

·         If the last letter in a word is long with vocalic sound, then the previous consonant letter is affected. For example, कमला to be written as KAMALAA is written as KAMLA (KAM_LA_).

·         Words like "Come" and "Go" form complete sentences because the subject "You" is embedded with them.

·         Certain sounds of language do not exist for another languages but that does not make that language superior. For example, "ड़" for me.

·         The pace of the sounds of languages is much faster than the script thus the problem with different sounds for the same script over the ages. 

·         There is no such thing as Received Pronunciation in practical as it depends on the context of the speakers. what people learn does not apply when they reach home. For example, a person being taught "School" with a pronunciation 'Skul" will still say "Iskul" when he interacts with the community in the context of Sirohi.

·         In understanding the pronunciation of others, one has to be as natural in speaking and bring them to their intelligibility to grasp the pronunciation and meaning of others.

·         One cannot live without language. It is as important as the air we breathe and the water we drink.

·         Learning language is essentially a process of unlearning. It is about fitting in the structures.

·          What is Syllabic peak? Syllable is the shortest word a person can speak and we need a syllable peak in order to speak. The sounds in reading "No Highway Cowboys" is an example of Syllabic peak. If there is no vocalic sound, there is no Syllabic peak. Syllable is Universal.

·         Language capacity is a very special ability of all human beings have unlike Sports, Music or dance.

·         Hindi language has complexities in making plural because of its gender sensitivity. Every noun will have definitely different plurals.

·         Because of the system of abstract knowledge, the plurals will automatically come if we know the singular in languages. 

·         Knowledge of Language and Knowledge about Language is a completely different thing.

·         In India, only Khasi language of Meghalaya have followed the same pattern of Subject Verb Object (SVO) like English. The rest of the languages have Subject Object Verb (SOV) pattern in India. Therefore despite is diversities in language, India is known as a Linguistic area because of its SOV pattern. 

·         A sentence in all the languages is negated by making the negative stay close to the main verb. In English, it is done by putting "Not" between the Auxiliary (helping verb) and the main verb which is in the main clause. The tense of the sentence go according to the Auxiliary. If there is no Auxiliary verb, then it has to be created. For example, "I go there" is written as "I am not going there".

·         Questions are asked by adding a word either at the end or at the beginning.

·         The blind, deaf and dumb also have fully functional languages like other languages. For example, Sign language is fully translatable therefore it is a language. 

·         Some sensory input is required to activate the languages in a person. 

·         Every one spent atleast 80% of our time to talk to ourselves.

·         The presence of Universal Grammar is proved by knowing that all languages follow the same/common structure.

·         Poverty Index of language? Isolation of an individual destroys languages but flourishes with the company of other languages.

·         Metathesis? When "Caku" is said as "Kacu", and "Darwaza" as "Darzawa". These mistakes will be learnt with time and exposure.

·         Plato's problem -  "How come given so little children acquire so much".

·         Literature is another kind of language.

·         Children take time to process the input they received. There is lots of gestation period between comprehension and production therefore the Input--> Intake--> does not ultimately result in Output.

·         Pedagogical implication - Give children a text which make sense to them.

A Teacher's growth simply defined by Rabindranath Tagore

“A Teacher can never truly teach unless he is

still learning himself. A lamp can never light

 another lamp unless it continues to burn

 with its own flame.”

By Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

EUREKA - An answer to a question of many

I have...Have you?

Have you ever been bothered by certain questions in your head? Or tried to find answers to why the person next to you is the way s/he is? Why certain people are so least bothered about what's happening around? Why some are such a philosopher? Why others made their presence easily felt in a group while some others always happen to be right and you exclaimed, "Damn! yet again"? 

It's not that difficult. I have found an answer for you, my friend.

There are four temperaments in human beings that we are gifted with - 

1) People in the first category are best in dealing with people enthusiastically, in expressing thoughts with     excitement, and in up-front positions of attention - THE TALKER.

2) People of the second temperament are best in attending to details and in deep thinking, in keeping records, charts, and graphs -THE THINKER

3) The third group are best in jobs that require quick decisions, in spots that need instant action and accomplishments, and in areas that demand strong control and authority - THE DOER

4) The last group are best in positions of mediation and unity, in storms that need a calming hand, and in routines that might seem dull to others - THE WATCHER.

Now, have you been able to identify yourself which category you belong to? There are also negativity in each temperament that comes along with the package, which are innate in us. 

Sometimes, you get annoyed that people are so talkative, messy, and easily volunteers for work yet never could stand till the end? In the meantime, you also may come across people who are so organized, philosophical and independent that they are highly intolerable of others. Also, there are those who are highly unemotional yet exudes confidence as a born leader and has no need for friends? Among such people, there are also these type of people who are easy going and are happily reconciled with life as they are inoffensive in nature. 

Isn't life just beautiful with the different types of temperaments? How boring would it be if one day we wake up and find that we are all the same, having the same personalities and similar pattern of thinking and doing things? I can't imagine life that lifeless, can you?

"We were all born with our own temperament traits, our raw material, our own kind of rock. Some of us are granite, some marble, some alabaster, some sandstone. Our type of rock does not change, but our shapes can be altered."

PS: Just thought it's too precious not to share. For more information, you can read "Personality Plus" by Florence Littauer.

LIFE, Please DON’T …

Please don’t stop me when I spread my wings

Instead nurture my Strength

You do not know what I have gone through

The bits and pieces of it

And sadly here I am to inform you

“You may never notice those underneath the weary eyes,

Or the deep Unspoken words.”