Theory of Catharsis: Various Interpretations and Analyses


‘Catharsis’ is a Greek word. It means “purgation”, “purification” and “clarification”. It has been used only once by Aristotle in his ‘Poetics’ while defining Tragedy, “Tragedy then is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude through pity and fear effecting the proper ‘Catharsis’ of these emotions” Based on the three meanings of the word, ‘Catharsis’ different theories have been evolved to explain Aristotle’s conception of tragic ‘Catharsis. Read More Criticism


(A) Purgation Theory
(i) Medical Interpretation: ‘Catharsis’ has been taken to be a medical metaphor. ‘Purgation’ denotes a pathological effect on the soul similar to the effect of medicine on the body. Some have referred it to Homeopathic treatment with the like curing the like. Thus, pity and fear are roused and form ‘purgation’ of these emotions. Read More CriticismThus, ‘Catharsis’ implies relief. As per Pathological treatment with the unlike curing unlike, the arousing of pity and fear was supposed to bring about the purgation of other emotions like anger and pride.

(ii) Psychological Interpretation: Lucas and l. A. Richards reject the medical interpretation. Lucas says, “The theatre is not a hospital. LA. Richards says that both pity and fear are harmonized and blended in tragedy, and this balance brings relief. Read More Criticism

(iii) Ethical interpretation: In Ethical Interpretation it is explained that Divine law is working to make the universe the best place for living. Read More Criticism The ethical interpretation is a kind of inner illumination resulting in a more balanced attitude to life. Tragedy makes us realize that divine law operates in the universe shaping everything for the best.

(B) The Purification Theory: Humphrey House points out. “Purgation means cleansing”. According to him, Catharsis is an educative and controlling power. Read More Criticism According to ‘The Purification Theory ‘Catharsis’ means that our emotions are purified of excess and defect, or reduced to intermediate state. Thus, ‘Catharsis’ is a kind of moral conditioning.

(C) The Clarification Theory: Neither the ‘Purgation Theory’ nor the ‘Purification Theory’ examines the whole thing. They are occupied with the psychology of the audience. Aristotle was chiefly concerned with the technique of tragedy, not with its psychological effects. Therefore, ‘Clarification Theory’ is more appropriate. Tragic incidents are pitiable and painful. They include murders of dear ones. Such incidents when presented in a great tragedy produce pleasure. Read More Criticism This is the tragic paradox; this is the pleasure peculiar to tragedy. When we see Shakespeare’s plays-Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, we see tragic deaths and murders, yet we get aesthetic pleasure. This pleasure is of tragic variety. Generally Tragedies are more popular on the stage than Comedies. Thus, Tragedy provides the universal truth. Catharsis refers to the tragic variety of pleasure. The Catharsis clause is thus definition of the function of tragedy and not of its emotional effect on the audience.

Thus the ‘clarification Theory’ recognizes the true nature of the ‘Poetics’ as a technical treatise. It relates to the theory of imitation and to the discussion of probability and necessity. By ‘Catharsis’ particular is generalized, individual is universalized. Thus, Catharsis is a process of learning and therefore pleasurable.

  Aristotle’s conception of ‘Catharsis’ is purely intellectual. It is neither didactic nor theological nor is it a moral doctrine. Read More Criticism Aristotle lays it down that Tragedy at all times makes its appeal through emotions- through pity and fear. It can succeed only when it arouses the pity and fear proper to it. The doctrine of Catharsis has been interpreted in many ways. Since ‘Catharsis’ is a Greek word, and every language has its own nature, its own Grammar, and since every word of every language has its own syntax and meaning, the debate over the meaning of ‘Catharsis’ will continue.


Three dramatic Genres in the Greek Classical Theatre: Tragedy, Comedy and Satyr



 " How dreadful the knowledge of truth can be 
When there's no help in truth."-
Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

Tragic drama: Tragic drama which Aristotle defined as an imitation of actions of illustrious men and women, and which aims at the purgation of pity and fear, was by far, the most esteemed of all the genres, and the first to be originated and accorded in the 6th century bc by Attic poet Thespis in City Dionysian. Read More Drama

Tragedy, As Aristotle said, it evolved from the Improvisations of the leaders of dithyramb. Why did the Greeks esteem tragedy over comedy and satyr? The answer is not far to seek. Tragedy was the only genre that provided the people an opportunity to watch their moral philosophy issue forth in actions. Read More Drama The classical Greek people were quite strong and boisterous in nature. They made a lot of conquest over nations and even over nature, and possessed the ability to meet almost any emergency, but they realized that in spite of the seemingly divine element in man, he has his position, very much lower than that of the gods. So, man should know himself. He should, no matter the strength of his wisdom and intelligence, seek to equate himself with gods; else he will rob himself of his life. Another Greek moral principle which tragedy helped to clarify was “nothing in excess”.

According to Bowra, the Greeks loved and admired intelligence whether practical or theoretical, and no doubt felt that they surpassed other people in their possession of it, but they had qualms about its uninhibited exercise and felt that it must be balanced by other qualities of character and self-control. If a man relied solely or chiefly on it, he was thought likely to frustrate even his own ends by being too clever and even fail to understand much that was obvious to the ordinary man (1975:43). Read More Drama This is the case with King Oedipus in Sophocles’ play Odipus Rex, written in 5th century B.C. In this play, Oedipus relied heavily on his wisdom and intelligence. He equated his wisdom with that of the gods and thought that he could solve any riddle of life by means of his wisdom. The second great Greek tragedian was Sophocles. The meticulous construction of his plots and the manner in which his themes and characters aroused both pity and fear led Aristotle as well as other Greek critics to consider him the greatest writer of tragedy. These qualities are especially conspicuous in Oedipus Rex.

Whatever actions Oedipus performed in the play, he did so out of arrogance, misconceived intellect and sagacity. He felt that he had the will power to do whatever he wanted to do. His belief in his willpower made him to be found wanting in contemplative life. As Knox opines, “in the play, Oedipus’ will to action never falters, and it forces Tiresias, Jocasta and the Shepherd, in spite of their reluctance, to play their part in the swift progress towards the discovery of the truth and his downfall” (1984:138). So tragedy was developed to teach the youth, the society’s conventional wisdom. In spite of their boisterous nature, “the Greeks were keenly aware of life’s uncertainty and imminence of death … the swift passing of all that is beautiful and joyous” (Hamilton, 1973:24). Read More Drama This is why the chorus at the end of the play, Oedipus Rex comments: People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus. He solved the famous riddle with his brilliance; he rose to power a man beyond all power. Who could behold his greatness without envy? Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

Euripides, a younger contemporary of Sophocles, was the third great Greek playwright. He wrote about 92 plays, of which 18 tragedies (one of doubtful authorship) and one complete satyr play, The Cyclops, are extant. His works are considered more realistic than those of his predecessors, especially in the psychological insight of his characterizations. Because of this, some critics consider him the most modern of the Greek tragedy writers. Read More Drama His major works include Medea, about the revenge taken by the enchantress Medea on her husband, Jason; and Hippolytus, about Phaedra’s love for her stepson, Hippolytus, and his fate after rejecting her.

Comedy: The Greek Comedy developed much later than tragedy. It was not officially recognized as part of City Dionysia and as such was not granted chorus until 487 B.C. Read More Drama  Although from that time onward, comedy became fully part of City Dionysia, it was to find its true abode in Leneia – another form of Dionysiac festival devoted to merry making. The comedy was a sort of commentary on Greek society, its leadership, literature and above all, the Peloponnesian war. Aristophanes was the greatest of all the classical Greek comedians. A property –owning gentleman, he hated the damaging and protracted war between Athens and Sparta. According to Luis Vargas, “His ideal of Athenian manhood he found in the men who fought a hero’s fight at Marathon to repel the Persian invader and save their country and whose courage and devotion had laid the foundations of Athenian greatness, and had made her the first city state of Greek world”. Comedy in the 5th century B.C. was a mixture of political satire, buffoonery, wit, humour and unbridled fun. Every aspect of social, political, as well as philosophical aspect of life that was deemed bad elicited attention. Read More Drama Nothing was considered sacred, even gods whose activities were questionable were satirized in a bawdy fashion. In a nutshell, the classical Greek comedy exercised great deal of license of tongue. This enabled it to satirize persons, institution and even works of art that were considered sub-standard.

One of the greatest comic poets was Aristophanes, whose first comedy, Daitaleis, now lost, was produced in 427 bc. Using dramatic satire, he ridiculed Euripides in The Frogs and Socrates in The Clouds. These works represent the genre known as Old Comedy. Later Greek comedy is grouped into two divisions: Middle Comedy (400-336 bc) and New Comedy (336-250 bc). In Middle Comedy, exemplified by two later works of Aristophanes—Ecclesiazusae and Plutus, both written between 392 and 388 bc—personal and political satire is replaced by parody, ridicule of myths, and literary and philosophical criticism. The chief writers of Middle Comedy were Antiphanes of Athens and Alexis of Thurii, who were active in the 4th and early 3rd centuries bc; only fragments of their works are extant. In New Comedy, satire is almost entirely replaced by social comedy involving family types, plot and character development, and the themes of romantic love. Read More Drama The chief writer of New Comedy was Menander. His comedies had a strong influence upon the Latin dramatists of the 3rd and 2nd centuries bc, notably Plautus and Terence. One complete play by Menander, The Curmudgeon, is extant, and extensive portions of other plays survive as well.

Satyr: Information on satyr is very scanty. This is because apart from the Cyclops written by Euripides, no other play of satyr tradition is extant. Read More Drama From available sources, the satyr genre was named after the mythical, goatish and half-human companions of Dionysus. The satyr came between heavy tragic episodes in order to help reduce tension. It was a highly wild play filled with exaggerated dance.

A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 83




A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers
UGC NET ENGLISH QUESTION BANK

 1. The term “Negritude” was coined by :  Ainee Cesaire and Leopold SenghorAime Cesaire in his poem Notebook of a Return to the native Land 1939 first coined the term. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
2. Bertolt Brecht’s concept of theatre was influenced by:  Irwin Piscator .In fact, Brecht had collaborated with Erwin Piscator, father of political theatre. Piscator's theatre was utilitarian.  Just like Brecht, Piscator's theatre was a direct response to the events taking place around him.
3. The relationship between Othello and Iago is an example of:  inversion .Inversion (thetre), a rearrangement of the ideas/ characters of a drama, or a reversal of position or order in a sequence of incidents. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
4. A metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is:
  iamb.
5. The rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is:  abab, cdcd, efef, gg . A theme is developed and elaborated in the quatrains, and a concluding thought is presented in the couplet. Sonnet 116 is typical of the form and excellence of the poems.
6. Using “the Bench” for the judiciary is an example of:  metonymy
7. Four feet, comprising a monosyllable, trochee, dactyl and first paeon is often called:
  sprung rhythm.  Hopkins’ The Windhover, Pied Beauty, Duns Scotus' Oxford, and Henry Purcell exemplify this. These lyrics are attempts to capture the uniqueness—or inscape, as Hopkins termed it—of natural objects, by the use of internal rhyme, alliteration, and compound metaphor and by the use of “sprung rhythm.” This verse structure, so named by Hopkins because it seems abrupt in contrast to the running rhythm typical of the poetry of his time, approximates the stresses of natural speech. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)     It differs from the conventional system of a regular number of stressed and unstressed syllables per foot.
8. Apart from the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary in Chaucer’s works is recognizable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time but Chaucer, with his ear for common speech, is the earliest manuscript source. Acceptable, alkali, altercation, amble, angrily, annex, annoyance, approaching, arbitration, armless, army, arrogant, arsenic, arc, artillery and aspect are just some of the many English words first attested in Chaucer. These words are still in use and have influenced the diction of prose fiction over the years. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
9. Which of the following is not a Revenge Tragedy: Volpone or The Fox is a comedy by Ben Jonson.  Gorboduc or ‘Ferrex and Porrex’ is the first English tragedy by Thomas Norton and Sackville in 1561.  Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of king Gorboduc. The best of Jonson's comedies are Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610). Professing themselves his disciples, the dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher collaborated on a number of so-called tragicomedies (for example, Philaster, 1610?) in which morally dubious situations, surprising reversals of fortune, and sentimentality combine with hollow rhetoric.
10. Miracle plays are based on the lives of: Saints
11. The Red Cross Knight is Spenser’s Faerie Queene represents: Truth Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
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12. The line “Present fears/Are less than horrible imaginings” appear in:  Macbeth  .
 Macbeth (play), tragedy in five acts, written by English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. First performed in about 1606, the play was originally printed in the 1623 edition of Shakespeare's works known as the First Folio. The author’s principal source for Macbeth was Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577) by English chronicler Raphael Holinshed. The play’s title role is loosely based on the career of a King Macbeth of Scotland. A commander under King Duncan I, Macbeth murdered Duncan in 1040 and claimed the kingdom for himself. After a rule of 17 years, Macbeth was killed by Duncan’s son Malcolm, who later became King Malcolm III.
Horace was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus in December 65 bc, the son of a freedman, in
13. Which of the following is not a work by Dr. Johnson :
(A) Preface to the English Dictionary (B) Preface to Shakespeare
(C) Lives of English Poets (D) Cowley Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), English poet and essayist, was highly regarded as a poet during his lifetime. He adapted the style of the ancient Greek lyric poet Pindar to form the English Pindaric ode. He is best known for the cycle of love poems The Mistress (1647) and for Miscellanies (1656), containing “Pindarique Odes,” also love poems, and “Davideis,” an unfinished epic on the biblical king David. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
14. Moll Flanders of Daniel Defoe was considered to be the best by E. M. Forster.
15. Edmund Burke denounced the French Revolution in: Reflections
16. An epic has been generally described as a long narrative poem, on a grand scale about the deeds of warriors and heroes, kings and gods. It is a polygonal heroic story incorporating myth, legend, folktale and history. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    Epics are mostly of national significance, since that they embody the history and aspirations of nations in a lofty or grandeur manner. An epic is a culture mirror with a fixed ideological stance, often reflecting the best noblest principles of nation’s ethos.
17. T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland and Thomas Mauve in The Magic Mountain have both told the death knell of heroism, divinity, love and all nobler virtues in the post war modern world which portrayed, rightly enough, as a fragmented, hellish insubstantial circle of spiritual vacuity and ideals .
18. Old and Middle English alliterative poems are commonly written in form of four-stress lines. Of these poems, William Langland’s The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, better known as Piers Plowman, is the most significant.
19.The Pearl is an elegy for the death of a small girl. However the girl is the Christian symbol of innocence, heaven and love. Optimistically, thus, the work ends with an impressive vision of heaven, from which the dreamer awakes. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
20."Hamlet" is one of the best revenge plays in English Literature. However, T. S. Eliot considered Hamlet to be an artistic failure. Of all the plays it is the longest and is precisely one on which Shakespeare spent most pains, yet left on it superfluous and inconsistent scenes.
21.About the year 450 A.D members of various tribes—Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians - from around the mouth of the Rhine river invaded Roman Britain.
22. The Britons had been speaking the “Celtic” language (related to modern Welsh, Breton, and Irish and Scots Gaelic) before being conquered by Rome.
23. The Anglo-Saxons were pagan: they worshipped a collection of gods that included the war god Tiu; Woden, the clever one-eyed leader of the gods; thunder-hammering Thor; and Freya, the seductive love-goddess. Four of the modern days of our week are named after these gods: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
24. Faithful Observation, personal detachment, and a fine sense of ironic comedy are among Jane Austen’s Chief Characteristics as a writer.
25. Wordsworth’s verdict about Blake (on his death) was that "There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)    
26. The predominant almost exclusive theme of W.Blake's short poems is based on the feeling of a child's unpassioned soul; the tone is simple while the emotions possess a pure ardour.

Ref: 1. History of English Literature- Albert     
2. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature
3. UGC NET OLD QUESTION PAPERS

One Checklist That You Should Keep In Mind Before Attending Teaching English As Foreign Language (TEFL): Teaching of English Grammar


"I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose."
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

Learning or teaching of English grammar in the class is quite contrary to the way the child learns grammar in their mother tongue. A child at the age of 4 or 5 can speak his mother tongue fluently without knowing the rules of language. Read More Teaching English Research into grammar by academics at different stages suggests that a significant proportion of language speakers are unable to understand some basic sentences.   Regardless of educational attainment or dialect we are all supposed to be equally good at grammar, in the sense of being able to use grammatical cues to understand the meaning of sentences. The target language can easily be understood through social sphere if it is a mother tongue but English for TEFL Students can be rather misunderstood without the knowledge-base of grammar.

George Bernard Shaw’s "Man and Superman" is 'a Comedy and a Philosophy' — Trick for Getting the Public to Listen Shavian Theory


"He identified genius with immunity from the cravings and turpitudes which make us human. Hence his regime of sexual continence which so confused and dismayed the women he persisted in loving, and hence too his abstinent diet of grated vegetables."
Michael Holroyd

Frequently the subtitles of George Bernard Shaw’s plays are just as informative as the prefaces. They are often just as clever; they are always more to the point. Such is the case with Heartbreak House, which is subtitled A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes; Fanny’s First Play, An Easy Play for a Little Theatre; and  In Good King Charles’s Golden Days,  A True History that Never Happened. So, too, with Man and Superman, this is subtitled simply but significantly a Comedy and a Philosophy. For Man and Superman, though it was written early in Shaw’s career, represents the culmination of Shaw’s theory that the drama is but a device—a trick, if you like—for getting the public to listen to one’s philosophy: social philosophy, political philosophy, economic philosophy, Shavian philosophy. With the possible exception of Back to Methuselah, Man and Superman is Shaw’s most philosophical play.

In its simplest terms, the philosophical meaning of the play is that in the war between the sexes, woman always emerges conqueror, even if man, her antagonist, be a superman; that in a battle between instinct and intelligence, instinct always wins.  Read More Victorian Period  To develop this theme, Shaw claimed to have written a modern, philosophical interpretation of the Don Juan story, which means that Don Juan is reincarnated as a Shavian hero in England at the turn of the century. Read More Drama   The closest resemblance between Shaw’s hero and the libertine celebrated in music and literature lies in their names: John Tanner, Don Juan Tenorio. Any other similarity is purely coincidental, for Shaw transformed literature’s most notorious libertine into a man of moral passion, a Nietzschean superman who lives a life of pure reason in defiance of the traditions of organized society. As a Shavian hero, Tanner is, of course, impeccably moral, even chaste. The philosophical meaning of the play arises from the fact that Tanner, representing the good man, is unsuccessful in defending his chastity. Pitted against a scheming female who embodies the sexual, maternal drive, Tanner is forced to surrender his control of sexual instinct. He capitulates and marries. Read More Drama    In effect, he commits moral suicide by succumbing to conventionality.

On one level, this theme is worked out in a contrived, almost trivial, but nevertheless hilarious plot. In his will, Ann Whitefield’s father appointed Jack Tanner and Roebuck Ramsden joint guardians of his daughter. Ramsden objects to sharing the guardianship on the grounds that Tanner, as the author of The Revolutionist’s Handbook and Pocket Companion is an anarchist and profligate; Tanner objects on the grounds that Ramsden is a prig and a hypocrite. Both, however, accede to the wishes of the deceased, little realizing that Ann had dictated the terms of the will in an elaborate scheme to make Tanner her husband. Upon realizing that Ann has designs on him, Tanner flees to the continent, is detained by bandits, is ultimately caught by the pursuing Ann. they agree to marry.

George Bernard Shaw
On another, more esoteric level, the philosophical implications of the theme are developed at length. Tanner has a dream—a play within the play—which turns out to be no less than a Platonic dialogue: “Don Juan in Hell.” Read More Drama   In this scene, four of the principals are re-embodied as historical or mythical personages and are universalized as moral forces. Tanner appears as Don Juan, the man of moral passion; Ann, as Dona Ma de Ulloa, the eternal maternal female; Ramsden, as Don Gonzalo, the man of pleasure; and Mendoza (leader of the bandits), as the Devil. These four engage in a debate which Don Juan, speaking for Shaw, monopolizes with a series of lengthy monologues. Herein the theme of the play is recapitulated in abstract but certain terms—the subject is Man. The end of man, Don Juan argues, is the cultivation of intellect, for only by exercising it dispassionately can man discover his purpose, and discovering it, fulfill it. Therefore, the good man, the man of moral passion, will eschew anything that subverts the life of reason. Women, however, will not be eschewed, and It Is woman, with her relentless desire to propagate, and marriage, the instrument by which she domesticates, that undermine man. If man surrenders in woman, he is doomed.

The conclusion of the play is, then, a gloomy one for George Bernard Shaw. By marrying Ann Tanner admits that woman, bolstered by the “Life Force,” is bound to triumph, that man, even the superman, is bound to abandon the pursuit of his own goal to serve woman in her goal of perpetuating the race.

Although the ending is gloomy and the dreamplay verbose, the prevailing tone play is comic and light. In spite of its philosophy, the drama is playable including the dream play—principally because Shaw succeeded in making his characters gloriously human and therefore funny.  Read More Victorian Period Tanner, for instance, is moral, intensely moral but he is fallible, even a bit ridiculous, as Ann delights in proving when she punctures his eloquent utterances with the charge of political aspiration. Ann herself is as engaging a heroine as any in Shaw’s plays. An incorrigible liar, an inveterate hypocrite, she is charming because she is thoroughly female.

The minor characters were just as obviously invented to fit into the thematic framework of the drama, but they too contribute to the fun. Both Ramsden and Mrs. Whitefield represent the authority of the old order which Tanner is trying to overthrow; both, however, have distinctly comic personalities. Believing that a man’s duty lies in protecting the weaker sex, Octavius serves primarily as a foil to Tanner but provides many laughs as a lovesick youth. Mendoza, the bandit; Straker, the impudent chauffeur; and Malone, the senile American millionaire—all figure in George Bernard Shaw’s design. All, moreover, as humorous persons, relieve the tedium of that design.

Considered as a whole, with the “Epistle Dedicatory,” which serves as a preface, and The Revolutionary’s Handbook, which is an appendix of sorts, Man and Superman is one of Shaw’s most important plays. It is not Shaw’ masterpiece, nor is it his best play. It is too obviously a piece of propaganda for such accolades. It is, however, central to George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy, and philosophy is always central to Shaw’s plays.

Ten Common Difficulties in Teaching English to TEFL Students




" I pay the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys that educate my son."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
The teacher of English generally faces certain difficulties in connection with the teaching of it. A TEFL teacher artificially constructs an environment to teach and to serve this purpose. The most famous and widespread artificial way is to mimicry the western standards. As today, English is used in more countries as an official language or as the main means of international communication than any other language, the real TEFL  teacher as well as real institutes is a rarity. The TEFL teacher and the academic authority, while laying down the principles of teaching English, shall take into consideration value education, fuming up child’s knowledge, potentiality and talents; Development of physical and mental abilities to the fullest extent; Learning through activities, discoveries and exploration in a child friendly and child-centred manner;  Medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in English; Comprehensive and continuous evaluation of child’s  understands of knowledge and his or her ability to apply the same.

But instead the teachers face these problems en route to his/ her goal accomplished.

(i) English as a foreign language differs to a great extent from any of the Indian languages, for example, in various respects. So a special method is required for its teaching. But for a long time there was the want of the right kind of method for the teaching of English and this made the teacher’s task very difficult. Read More Teaching English

(ii) With the introduction of various subjects in the reorganize pattern, and change in the medium of instruction, the time available for the teaching of English has been very short. Moreover, since the other subjects in the curriculum are too bookish and theoretical, more time is required for their teaching.

(iii) In most of the cases the teacher has no clear idea about the standard of achievement in the subject. He does not know what type of work should be done and what method should, be followed at a particular stage. The standard to be aimed at is generally pitched very high. As a result, there is an unnecessary wastage of time producing most disastrous result.

(iv) The old speech habits in the mother tongue generally interfere with the formation of new speech habits. So it is very difficult to form the new speech habits in the children. In reading or speaking English, words are pronounced in the peculiar way in which the words in the mother tongue are pronounced. So it is very difficult for the pupils to practice pronunciation, phrasing, accentuation, intonation etc, peculiar to English. Read More Teaching English

(v) The modes of expression in the mother tongue sometimes influence the modes of expressions in English and as a result the pupil has a tendency, to fall back into vernacularisms e.g. leg-fingers for toe. He says good English for they speak good English which are very difficult to eradicate.

 (vi) There is still a great dearth of specially prepared text books containing suitable subject matters, vocabulary and sentence patterns with proper gradation and arrangement.

(vii) The defective system of examination encourages cramming in the children and forces the teacher to discard the modern techniques of teaching and fall back upon the stereotyped method.

(vii) The strength in the class is generally so large that it is practically impossible for the teacher either to give individual drill or to correct the composition work of the children.

(ix) The standard of achievement in English, specially is rural areas, is very low and in most of the cases the unqualified teachers in the hands of whom the task of teaching English is placed in the early stages, are greatly responsible for it. Read More Teaching English

(x) despite of the goal of Making the child free of fear, trauma and anxiety and helping the child to express views freely, English become the subject of fear due to lack of good teaching or follow up process(tabooed).

Thus while Teaching English to TEFL Students, A school-based continuous and comprehensive evaluation system be established in order to  reduce stress on children, make evaluation comprehensive and regular, provide space for the teacher for creative teaching, provide a tool for diagnosis and producing learners with greater skills. The entire process should be simple, flexible and implementable in any type of school from the elite one to a school located in rural or tribal areas.

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