Taiz University: Seminar on language learning and language acquisition [Archives:2006/950/Education]

Reported by:
Mr. Abdu Talib, Demonstrator,
Ms Rana Abdul Aziz, Level IV
Ms Eman M. Bashir, Level IV
For the first time in its history, Department of English, Faculty of Education, Taiz University, organized a seminar where papers were presented exclusively by the students of the fourth level on Sunday the May 14, 2006. The venue of the Seminar was the ground floor lecture hall in the Faculty of Law. The initiative for the seminar came from Dr. Mohanraj, a member of the faculty.

The seminar began with an introduction by Dr. Mohanraj who outlined the need for a meeting of the type organized where one could share ideas and mull over them. It also aimed at providing an opportunity to the students to apply the theoretical knowledge they have gained in the classroom to produce papers. He mentioned that he would feel happy if everyone left the seminar with a sense of dissatisfaction that there was so much to know, and there is so little that we have learnt.

In a true Taizian tradition, the formal seminar commenced with the recitation of verses from the Holy Qura'an by Mr. Essam Ali Abdullah. This was followed by a welcome address by Mr. Sameer Abdul Razak. In the course of his welcome, Sameer also introduced the guests who attended the seminar as observers. Prof. S J Singh of Center of Languages, Dr. Jayashree of the Faculty of Arts and Dr. Abid, Chairman, Centre of Languages had agreed to be the observers and give their comments. Apart from these luminaries, members of the faculty from the department of English, and other teachers and demonstrators as well as students of English from the Faculty of Arts also attended the seminar. Dr. Hussein Al Maktary, Chairman of the Department of English, Faculty of Education presided over the function.

There were twelve speakers from level IV chosen to make their presentations. The speakers were chosen based on the assignments they had written earlier. (Mr. Basheer, Ms Merfat, Mr. Ridwan, Ms. Aisha, Mr, Marwan, Ms. Dekra, Ms. Myada, Ms. Ebtihal, Ms. Olfat, Ms. Wafa, Ms. Abeer, and Ms. Faeda in order of their presentations.) Each speaker provided a personal experience of his/her own with acquiring the mother tongue i.e. Arabic vis-a-vis learning English. Each speaker was quite innovative in providing ample examples which occasionally sent the audience bursting into laughter. Sincere efforts put in by the speakers to present their points of view were appreciated and well received by all the listeners. A summary of some of the points put forth by the participants which corroborates the findings of eminent linguists in the field is presented below in a tabular form.

At the end of the presentations the observers expressed their happiness at the quality of presentations and gave their remarks. Prof. S J Singh in his remarks emphatically said that the presentations were excellent and related the papers to the theoretical underpinnings as enunciated by Applied Linguists. He systematically enumerated all the theories and appreciated how well these were incorporated by the students in their presentations. He thanked the organisers and the chairman for giving him an opportunity to listen to such presentations.

Dr. Jayashree in her remarks congratulated all the speakers and commented on individual presentations. She shared her experience of teaching her son certain speech sounds which were non conventional and did not fall into the pattern suggested by Krashen and his associates. She said this was an initial step the students had taken towards developing themselves as researchers and wished them all the best.

Dr. Abid expressed his happiness for being associated with this function. He did mention that the role of the father and other members of the family cannot be ignored in the process of language acquisition. 'Yes, mother is an important figure, but father is no less important.' He specifically mentioned that the language learning environment in Yemen has a poverty of inputs and efforts need to be made to improve the situation. Teachers would be solely responsible for this. He hoped what was begun in a modest way would become an annual feature and grow in its scope and significance.

Dr. Hussein Al Maktary in his presidential address congratulated Dr. Mohanraj for having taken the initiative. He had special words of praise for the organisers and specially for students who had wholeheartedly participated in this academic programme. This was the first co-curricular activity of the department and he wished many more would follow. He congratulated the participants and said such students should be recognised and rewarded suitably. He placed his appreciation on record which was welcomed by all students. He offered some useful tips to the presenters on techniques of presentation. He emphasised that a presentation without eye-contact would fall flat.

The seminar concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Ms Sara Sakaf. Sara was meticulous in acknowledging the help received from every individual and organisation in holding the seminar. The seminar which was a novel experience to the students left them happy and grateful to Dr. Mohanraj for having organised this on their behalf.
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[archive-e:950-v:14-y:2006-d:2006-05-29-p:education]