LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 10 : 7 July 2010
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.

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Let Us Learn from Our Standard 1 Textbook, Again!
A Brief Note on the New Standard 1 Tamil Textbook in Tamilnadu

M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

New Tamil Textbooks in the Internet

The Government of Tamilnadu has published several language textbooks through their website http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/. This, indeed, is a welcome step. And this initiative has received great appreciation mostly from Tamils living and working abroad, among others, as seen from the feedback the initiative has received in the website. Language textbooks in Tamil, English, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Urdu are available online for "viewing purpose." These textbooks are presented in pdf format.

However, it looks like that this website is not updated and so we do not have access to the most recently produced textbooks for our review here. I went through various links provided in Google search to find out whether the latest series for the current year have been posted. But I could not locate the link, if current year books have been posted.

In view of the above, my comments presented here should be related only to the textbooks series published in 2007. In this sense, this review is rather very late and may not even be found wholly useful.

However, I would like to present the review here with the hope that when I get an opportunity to view the 2010 books in print in September this year, I will be able to make a comparison of the 2007 series with the 2010 series, so that we all can gain clarity of the issues relating to textbook production in complex Indian languages such as Tamil. Languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and Bengali pose many and varied challenges to textbook writers and producers.

The Tamil textbooks, for example, have the imperative need to emphasize the historical continuity with its earlier stages, and with issues such as diglossia (primarily distinctions between spoken and written forms of the language), issues of pronunciation (relating to regional and social variations and first generation literacy, and in relation to Tamil script, etc.) that could change the entire direction of textbooks and the language. In addition, issues relating to code shift and code switching, etc., also need to be taken care of. All these should be considered even as we carefully manage to take care of the current linguistic, cognitive, social, and educational needs of children.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

EAT Expressions in Manipuri | Learning from Movies - 'Slumdog Millionaire' and Language Awareness | Maternal Interaction and Verbal Input in Normal and Hearing Impaired Children | Role of L2 Motivation and the Performance of Intermediate Students in the English (L2) Exams in Pakistan | Problems in Ph.D. English Degree Programme in Pakistan - The Issue of Quality Assurance | Using Technology in the English Language Classroom | Teaching Literature through Language - Some Considerations | e-Learning of Japanese Pictography - Some Perspectives | Is It a Language Worth Researching? Ethnographic Challenges in the Study of Pahari Language | Using a Reading Material for Interactive Reading | Importance of Task-Based Teaching in Second Language Acquisition - A Review | Skill Enhancement Techniques - The Necessary Tools for the Indian Management Students | African American Literature and Ishmael Reed's Novels - Hoodism | Instances of Code Switching in Indian Television Serials | The Role of Compounding in Technical English Prescribed for Engineering Students in Tamilnadu | Polite Request Strategies as Produced by Yemeni EFL Learners | Manju Kapoor's Difficult Daughters - A Saga of Feminist Autonomy and Separate Identity | Reflections on Partition Literature - A Comparative Analysis of Ice Candy Man and Train to Pakistan | Mother Tongue! The Neglected Resource for English Language Teaching And Learning | Breaking the Good Mother Myths - A Study of the Novels of Amy Tan | Effect of Teachers' Academic Qualification on Students' L2 Performance at the Secondary Level | What Is Most Important? Fluency or Accuracy? Is Learning a Second Language a Conscious Process? | Let Us Learn from Our Standard 1 Textbook, Again! - A Brief Note on the New Standard 1 Tamil Textbook in Tamilnadu | Eugene O' Neill's The Hairy Ape - An American Expressionistic Play | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF JULY 2010 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT | HOME PAGE of July 2010 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR

M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
msthirumalai2@gmail.com

 
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