Introduction: This paper intends to build up the four primary skills in students in the academic as well as in the wider domains of use like public offices. The books recommended only provide guidelines for what to teach, and the list is in no way exhaustive. Teachers must be free and resourceful enough to collect teaching materials on their own, and even use newspaper clippings as teaching materials.
This is an activity-based, goal-oriented, functional course in English Communication, which
aims to make the students able and efficient communicators by helping them to be self-reflexive about English. This course has a pre-defined context of being supportive and complementary to the core courses in various disciplines. Therefore, unlike most other courses in English Communication on offer, it does not seek to build facile fluency that passes off as communicative competence. Rather, it intends to equip the students with the relevant skills of presentation and expression needed in the academic as well as in the professional domains of communicative use. While reading skills exercises are meant to promote the acquisition of analytical and comprehension skills, writing skills exercises are centered on sentence construction, paragraph development and précis writing. Teachers must be free and flexible enough in relation to teaching materials, using newspaper clippings, non-conventional and multi- media resources in the classroom. There is ample scope to build the speaking and listening skills of students in the way the course is planned with an emphasis on interactive learning and articulation.
UNIT 1: Introduction (i) What is communication? (ii) Types of communication (Horizontal, Vertical, Interpersonal, Grapevine), (iii) Uses of Communication, Inter-cultural communication, Communication today: (iv)Distinct features of Indianisation, alternative texts of language learning, global English and English in the print and electronic media in India.
UNIT 2: The Four Skills and Prospect of new material in language learning (i) Listening-Passive and active, Speaking effective, intelligibility and clarity (ii) Methods and techniques of reading such as skimming, scanning and searching for information; Reading to understand the literal, metaphorical and suggested meaning of a passage, (iii) Identifying the tone (admiring, accusatory, ironical, sympathetic, evasive, indecisive, ambiguous, neutral etc.) of the writer and view-points. (iv) Cohesive and Coherent writing
UNIT 3: Grammatical and Composition Skills
(i) Doing exercises like filling in the blanks, correcting errors, choosing correct forms out of alternative choices, joining clauses, rewriting sentences as directed, and replacing indicated sections with single words / opposites / synonyms, choosing to use correct punctuation marks, getting to understand and use formal and informal styles, learning to understand the usages of officialese, sexism, racism, jargon. (ii) Learning to understand information structure of the sentence such as topic-focus relationship; strategies of thematization, postponement, emphasis, structural compression (deletion of redundant parts, nominalization, cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences, elliptical structures etc.), Logical Connectors between sentences, Methods of developing a paragraph, structure of an essay and methods of developing an essay
UNIT 4: Exercises in Written Communication
(i) Précis writing (ii) Note-taking skills (iii) Writing reports (iv) Guidelines and essentials of official correspondence for making enquiries, complaints and replies (v) Making representations; writing letters of application for jobs; writing CV, writing letters to the editor and social appeals in the form of letters/pamphlets.
Reference Books: Ways of Reading: Advanced reading Skills for Students of English Literature. Martin Montgomery et al. London: Routledge, 2007. Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life: A Practical Introduction. Dainton and Zelley, http://tsime.uz.ac.zw/claroline/backends/download.php? url=L0ludHJvX3RvX2NvbW11bmljYXRpb25fVGhlb3J5LnBkZg%3D %3D&cidReset=true&cidReq=MBA563 Literature and the art of Communication, Cambridge University Press. Vistas and Visions. Orient Black Swan (writing and grammar exercises at the end of lessons are recommended) ‘Writing skills’, Remappings :An Anthology for Degree Classes Orient Black Swan. Indian English through Newspapers (Chapter 4,5 and 6), Concept, New Delhi,2008. Contemporary Communicative English, S Chand Technical Communication: A Reader Centred Approach. P.V. Anderson. Wadsworth, Cengage. A University Grammar of English (Chapter 10,13,14) Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum : Pearson Education, India
