The anguish experienced by the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore almost a century ago at the world torn apart by regional, communal divisive forces is still relevant today. There is an urgent need for raising the voice of sanity, championing the cause of One World. It was this noble ideal that led to the establishment of Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan (Abode of Peace). Synthesis of different cultures and the catholicity for inviting the rejuvenating winds of cultures from outside is the positive feature of globalized world. That will make us wake up into ‘The Heaven of Freedom’ Gurudev dreamt of. In another area of impact of globalization, the growing need of English as language of professional and academic opportunities calls for development of innovative strategies for imparting training in the four linguistic skills of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The problems of teaching English as a Foreign/Second Language are similar in India, Malaysia and Algeria, as demonstrated by the papers included in the present issue. The revival of realism in Indian Fiction in English, presenting pitilessly the plight of the marginalized dalits and women, engages the attention of writers like Manju Kapur and Aravind Adiga. Arabian Desert is experienced imaginatively by poets like Wordsworth, while to the one who experiences it physically it is a mixed bag of dry sands and alluring nature. The perversion of noble American Dream into a nightmare on account of the sway of the slogan, “Dough anyhow!” has disturbed sensitive writers like Steinbeck and Miller over the years.

In the present issue, we have offered six papers dealing with the aspects of literature and five papers on the problems of ELT to reflect the balance of interests of our journal.

In the first paper, “Tagore’s Multiculturalism: A Road Map to the Heaven of Freedom” the author, Nibir K Ghosh, shows how Tagore was a real drashta, who could foresee long ago the need for cultural synthesis and One World, where people of different nations, communities and religions live together in peace.

Jalal Uddin Khan, in his paper, “Wordsworth’s ‘Arab Dream’: My Intertextual Acquaintances with the Arabian Desert Through Literature and Personal Encounter”, traces the imaginative references to the desert in Lady Macbeth’s ‘perfumes of Arabia,’ in analogous Egdon Heath and Browning’s desert imagery, apart from Wordsworth’s Arabian dream in “The Prelude” and the evocation in “The Solitary Reaper.”

GRK Murty, in his paper, “Uttararâmacarita of Bhavabhuti: Readings into Catharsis and Rasa”, makes a perceptive study of the evocation of karuna, the chief Rasa in Bhavabhuti’s much neglected play and brings out similarities between Rasa and the Western theory of Catharsis.

Sita Devi and Surender Dalal, in their paper, “Portrayal of Protagonists by Arthur Miller”, trace the circumstances of Miller’s life and the social and economic scenario of the Great Depression period in America, which led to the pursuit of material success, without concern for the kind of means adopted, and study them as the leitmotif in three plays of Miller—The Crucible, After the Fall and Death of a Salesman.

The rise of reading public during the Victorian period necessitated the presentation of life realistically, and that is reflected in the use of dialects by novelists like George Eliot. Pr Mortad-Serir Ilhem, in his paper, “Warwickshire Dialect in Eliot’s Silas Marner”, brings out the different levels of dialects used by different characters in the novel.

In the light of predominance of realism in the works of Mulk Raj Anand and R K Narayan during the 1930s, P P Sajeev, in his paper, “Revival of Realism in Indian Fiction in English: A Study of Difficult Daughters and The White Tiger”, examines the return to realism in the novels of Manju Kapur and Aravind Adiga.

Chirag M Patel, in his paper, “Innovative Methods of Teaching English Language to School Students Using Teaching Aids”, believes that use of technological tools enhances classroom interaction and ensures participatory learning. He lists teaching aids like Video-Audio Equipment, Language Lab, Smart Board, and LCD Projector.

Drawing on the findings and feedback from a Workshop for Training of Trainers conducted by her University, A Ratna Malathi, in her paper, “Integrated Communicative and Functional Approach to Teaching English Proficiency Course”, suggests that when the approach is learner-centered, the results are encouraging. She discusses the WHY, WHAT and HOW of the approach, which aims at ensuring language proficiency of 90% of the learners after a hundred-hour program.

Detailing the experiences of teaching Writing at the Djillali Liabes University of Sidi Bel Abbes in Algeria, Melouk Mohamed, in his paper, “New Technological Tools and EFL Writing: The Case of First-Year Master Students of English at Djillali Liabes University of Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria”, attempts a critical analysis of the advantages of using the tool of language lab. He finds that students feel more empowered, that the lab adds a context and purpose for their learning and that the lab relieves them of classroom boredom.

Discussing the rationale for teaching Reading at the advanced level, K Narasimha Rao, in his paper, “Teaching the Rationale of Reading Critically at the Advanced Level”, argues that reading is not a mere process of decoding but is a creative process of comprehension and the students should be taught strategies to read effectively through guessing the context, defining expectations and skimming.

In their technical paper, “An Alternative Approach to Classification of Phrasal Verbs”, Abdolvahed Zarifi and Jayakaran Mukundan, offer an alternative approach to classification of Phrasal Verbs, depending on the varieties of combinations of Verb + Real Particles, Verb + Preposition and Verb + Adverb.

-- S S Prabhakar Rao
Consulting Editor