Monday, February 08, 2010

Learning language the Karadi way



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Learning-language-the-Karadi-way/articleshow/5301832.cms

BANGALORE: A new look and thought have been given to Indian education in recent times. And Karadi Tales is seeing major implications in pedagogy here.

On Friday, C P Viswanath, director of Karadi Tales, held a workshop in Bangalore with English-language teachers from various schools on `Science of Language Learning and Karadi Path'.

Viswanath said: "There is an increasing demand for change in education. We haven't worked out a pedagogy, but contextualised everything which can make the current system more beneficial for learners. The Karadi Path is just one way to make learning language entertaining, rather than following a strict curriculum."

If India's approach to Western education had been effective, he replied: "Western education has failed; the approach to learning language is completely wrong. This tragedy has been passed on to schools in India. You never need to learn a language for the purpose of expressing your thoughts for nine years __ one year is enough. Karadi Path involves only one year and that too for children of Classes one to five."

Karadi Path has three modules -- action path, music path and story path. These approaches use the intuitive processes of the brain and there is no assessment or test, which is why children learn the language with ease as if it were their mother tongue.

He also added: "A child picks up his mother tongue easily, and children who grow up in a multilingual environment pick up all local languages, yet schools take pains to teach language for years together. In a majority of English medium schools in Karnataka, students learn all their subjects in English without achieving proficiency in it, which is why even when they know the answer to a science question, they can't give the answer in English."

Viswanath said as a first step to enter schools in Karnataka, they will take up not more than 100 schools.

Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 135 countries. Get your FREE E-book, “If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" by requesting the title at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Then E-mail me for further information.

2 comments:

kwandongbrian said...

I enjoy your blog and read it on Google Reader; I'm not sure if that is the reason I was able to read your post on Sherlock Holmes- (or someone else's post somehow mixed up).

Anyway, you can delete this comment if you like - it doesn't relate to your Karadi post -although I will read it with interest.

So, three comments about Holmes in the classroom:
one: Morton Downey Jr was (is?) an actor and entertainer -I saw him on a Springer-like show more than twenty years ago. Robert Downey is the star of the current Sherlock Holmes movie.

two: Gutenberg has many of the Holmes texts. I think you are a fan of e-texts so I need say no more.

Three: this one is negative. I struggled, as a child, with 'hansom cab' and the like. Doyle's books are classics and do not contain complex storylines but do contain a great deal of vocabulary that needs to be explained for no long-term gain by the student, in my opinion.

Brian Barker said...

As far as learning another language, is concerned, can I put in a word for the global language, Esperanto?

Although Esperanto is a living language, it helps language learning as well :)

Please have a look at http://eurotalk.com/en/store/learn/esperanto or http://lernu.net