Monday, 26 July 2021

Communication Skills - Use and Abuse

       In a country like India, there is always a fantasy attached to English, nevertheless, most of the students have "angrezi phobia" mainly due to the unsolicited hype given to the learning of English. why do students find it difficult or the words: grammar and English sound anathema to them? Ever wondered what will happen if all could speak English fluently?  The best part is that teaching spoken English has become a lucrative job and English coaching centers are found everywhere but sadly, the standard of learning and the quality of the students who hail from those centers is not promising. The only way to learn and master any language is by showing lot of commitment and interest than trying to learn a language by rote. 
Language learning should be made more habitual and pragmatic than just drilling the students on Grammar rules .   If you make it a study or a strict protocol, you will develop a kind of anathema and naturally you will study the rudiments language than acquiring it . English coaching centers are dime a dozen these days that produces programmed speakers of Language who are , most often than never, could not clear the HR interview. the problem is with compartmental learning modules which never takes into account other nuances of linguistic competence and performance.
Communication Skills is not equivalent to Language Skills though it is used interchangeably Communication skills is a broader term that includes soft skills besides listening, speaking reading and writing. Communication Skill is an art and an umbrella term that incorporates sense of place, purpose, proxemics, haptics, gesticulation etc.
Mastering Language skills is indispensable for  developing communicative competence. one cannot undermine listening which is seldom practiced but highly prescribed . Mostly we tend to listen to question and argue than for reception of ideas and knowledge. we love to speak a lot that most of think tank remains unused resulting in poor receptive  

Thursday, 21 July 2016

The Nature of the Individual and His Fulfilment -an Insight

Chinua Achebe presents the two realities of human, the individual and communal and its effect on the culture. The differences in culture depend upon the choice and importance given by people to either of these two realities. Though these realities appear as ‘simple’ factors but the emphasis on either one of these makes the cultures look different and qualitative from the world’s perspective. Any culture has these two components, perhaps, one in a dominant role and the other in recessive role. There arises a pertinent question as to which of these realities is better for a culture or which is more dominant: Individual autonomy or Society? The answer depends on the choice of the people and their perspective of life and standard of living. The western culture has dominated all other cultures and it favours supremacy of individual. Moreover, it has the Judaic tradition fir its support and also the book of Ezekiel of the Bible which favours new code of morality based on individual accountability. The protestant reformation and the advancement in the field of science with the likes of Freud and Jung who favoured the “self” helped the western “Individualism” to flourish and establish its culture which spread rapidly. The western individualism thrived due to its success. The phenomenal success gave the western culture leverage to spread and eventually hailed as the better rather more pleasing and liberal than the communal or the oriental culture.
While Ralph Waldo Emerson favored individualism with optimistic American faith, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville uses it pejoratively limiting individualism to selfishness. Achebe reasons out the success of American individualism to its faltering history of conflict between the church and the state, lack of traditional authority on its territory to contend with and the geographical and social components called for a rugged independence. The west celebrates the autonomy of the individual at the expense of the society.
Achebe draws our attention to philosophy of Aristotle, St.Augustine, Pascal and Descartes who shared same ideals but with different perspectives and modes. The whole shift in the culture is an accident which has mutilated the plan of society and culture. If those scholars were to return to the world today, they would be much inclined towards oriental cultural aspects than the western individualism. The oriental or the non-western mind could not accept the individualistic culture because of geocentricism shown by the west. The well furnished needs and luxuries, provided by the west, remains a long -pending desire or a distant dream for the common man who is shocked rather lured, surprised and strives to find out the secret of western success.
The book Ambiguous Adventure by Cheik Hamidou Kane presents the dialogue between the Europe and the Africa. The Imperial domination of the Europe has affected the future of the colonized. The children were to learn from the masters “the art of conquering without being in the Right”. It is hard for such delicate children to practice the art of experiencing without becoming. This in the due course has made the younger generation of Africa to look down upon their culture or being lost like Ezeulu’s son, Oduche in Arrow of God. The reputation of the native culture has been tampered under the climate of western influence. Every African bush longs for the fruits of western technology like good food, luxury and medicine.
There is a noticeable unrest among the western individualism that fails to find fulfillment. This freedom of individual has failed to be a blessing because when they find total autonomy they get exhausted and lack fulfillment. The west sailed for one hundred and fifty years without any trouble with its individual ideology supported by cranks and artists who favoured individualism just to earn their livelihood. When the young honest minds looked into the real facts, truth was not far from their reach. They came to know that “no man is an island” and civilization cannot be sustained by individual but it is a cooperative will of people who made human civilization.
O. Mannoni, in his book Prospero and Caliban tells us about the word “civilized” used from the standpoint of the western ideals. But the individual autonomy has given lot of achievements but it failed to give the inner fulfillment and happiness which is very much pronounced in the younger generation who are looking for a “change” and alternative styles. They go for oriental meditations and rhythms, natural food, communal living. Too much of anything ends in “nothing”. The excess of either individual or society can end us exhausted, where the greatest boon turns into a veritable curse. The real fulfillment is not self-gratifying or self –centered and short lived pleasure .it is other” centered. Fulfillment comes by service to mankind and growing as a community not by self-gratifying and selfish ends.
Achebe takes a poised stance in advocating a correct balance between individual and communal aspects in culture. He points out that even the igbo culture that favours the hierarchical communal culture gives importance to the individuals .he brings the concept of chi- individual god, unique to an individual alone. The non- western mindset is governed by the forces called “fate/ god or chance. Chinua Achebe recommends that an ideal culture should embrace both individual freedom and safeties of the society. These two are inseparable and loses its sense in isolation. The culture that needs to excel should strike a clever balance between these two realities, individual freedom and social responsibility.