Tuesday, April 19, 2011
MAD is Looking for Trainer-volunteers
Make A Difference is a youth volunteer network working with underprivileged children in orphanages and street shelters across 13 cities in India. Its main program is the English program aimed at teaching spoken English to these children to improve their employability. This program has adopted the Cambridge syllabus 'Cambridge English for Schools'.
MAD is looking for competent trainers who can impart Cambridge curriculum and teacher training to our volunteers. The training structure and requirements are as follows:
1 Trainer Orientation - 8 hours
2 Curriculum Training - 16 hours (2 days)
3 Center (orphanage) visits - 4 hours
4 Teacher Training - 16 hours (2 days)
Trainer Requirement:
- Minimum experience 3years in English teacher training
- Knowledge of different ELT methodologies
Preferred:
- Teacher trainers/educators with CELTA, TEFL, TESOL, PGCTE and PGDTE certifications
- Candidates with the requisite experience and TKT may also be considered
If you are interested in working with Make A Difference as an Teacher Trainer, do get in touch with them and do pass on the message to anyone who might be interested. If you are interested in knowing about the network kindly browse through its website (http://makeadiff.in/).
Contact person at MAD: Nitya. Email:englishproject.bangalore AT makeadiff.in
Contact person at MAD: Nitya. Email:englishproject.bangalore AT makeadiff.in
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Analysis of Family Literacy Practices
Found some new concepts by Queesstrokes. To read more follow the link to his blog at the end of the page!
Rogers, A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family Literacy Practices: Power in and Out
Rogers, Rebecca. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family Literacy Practices: Power in and Out of Print. Routledge, 2003. Print.
Quick sum: Gee’s forward offers some valuable insights into the purpose of Roger’s work, mainly, that the disciplinary discursive trend had been to treat division between types of language seriously: between oral and literate, oral that is literate and not, etc. However, such divisions and bifurcations of speakers like the Af Am children cited in his example led Gee to ask, “How could well-intentioned and intelligent people (like teachers) and well-intentioned institutions (like schools) come to define obvious gifts as deficits, clear sense of senselessness, manifest history and culture as non-existent, and clearly normal children as abnormal?” (x). New Literacy Studies began by “acknowledge[ing] that it takes research in linguistics, anthropology, social, political, and critical theory, and education–not as disparate and isolated disciplines, but integrated together–to tackle the sorts of practical-theoretical problems my colleague’s data brought so forcefully to my attention [regarding oral literate children as having narrative deficit]” (xi).
Rogers, according to Gee, merely mimics the central question/problem in this book: “how does the ‘sticky web of institutional discourse’ hold certain sorts of people, often people with the least power and opportunities in our society, ‘in place despite ample commitment, persistence, and cultural capital’ on their part” (xi).
Gee views discourse analysis as an astute approach to answering these problematic questions, a method he describes as, “the analysis of how people actually use and respond to language in context” (x-xi), which he then clarifies as being critical discourse analysis, or “the analysis of how people get helped or harmed by how people actually use and respond to language in context” (xi).
Indeed, we find in Roger’s study of June and Vicky Treader’s literacy practice and perceived abilities alarming contradiction, mislabeling, and anxiety about having and using literacy. Thus, Rogers find that, “the Treaders resisted the cultural narratives that framed them as ‘deficit’ or ‘low-literate.’ This fundamental tension between June’s and Vicky’s literate lives, what they do on a daily basis, and how institutions represent them as ‘at-risk’ ‘low-literate’ and ‘disabled’ is the central theme in this book. June and Vicky have learned to see themselves through the eyes of the institution. They have learned not to recognize and value the successes they encounter on a daily basis with language, literacy, and identity resources. One promise of this book, then, is an illustration of the ways in which people learn to see themselves through the eyes of an institution” (4). Such vision, however, may be worse on self-perceptions than better in the end. This is why she relies on Althusser’s reproduction theory, in which society and capital are reproduced through schools. In addition cultural reproduction theorists like Bourdieu and Foucault focus on class structures, which plays an integral role in literacy production within schools. Thus, Rogers argues that, “Central in understanding the distinction between the two sets of theories [reproduction and cultural reproduction] is how language, as a cultural tool, mediates the relationship between the individual and the social world. In this model, individual agency and power structures are dialectically produced, transformed, and reproduced” (6).
This is also why Gee’s conception of discourse is crucial for her study as well: “Gee’s conception of discourse (with a lower case d) more closely resembled the micro sociolinguistic aspect of language use. Thus discourse more closely resembles a literacy event rather than a literacy practice. (d)iscourse is the ‘language bits’ of Discourses. Gee (1990) defines discourse (little d) as ‘any stretch of language (spoken, written, signed) which ‘hangs together’ to make sense to some community of people who use that language…Making sense is always social and variable matter: what makes sense to one community of people may not make sense to another’…Gee (1992) reminds us of some major tenets of D/discourse systems that are shown in practice throughout this book. First, discourses are inherently ideological. That is, power is embedded in discourse. Second, discourses are resistant to internal criticism. Therefore, members of discourse form preconscious relations with Discourse and consequently are highly unlikely to critique the systems in which they are a part. Third, what counts as ‘discourse’ is defined by relationships with other discourses. In other words, it is impossible to understand the properties, relationships, and values of one community of practice by holding it up to another…Fourth, certain values and viewpoints are valued over others…Finally, Discourses are related to the distribution of social power. That is, membership within Discourse communities may result in the transformation of cultural capital into social profit or social good” (qtd 9).
To read the article further, follow the LINK below.
http://queerstrokes.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/rogers-a-critical-discourse-analysis-of-family-literacy-practices-power-in-and-out/
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Scholarships for dalit university fellows
- NAD Invites application for University Fellow see below for detail. You are requested to circulate it. About organization National Academy for Dalit (NAD) is a voluntary organization started by diversified field of young professional in the year 2008. Its main objective is to provide the high quality professional education to the Dalit students.
- Profile: University Fellow
- No of Position: one in each state of India.
- Duration: Two year
- Stipend: Every University Fellow will receive Rs 2,000 per Month for two years
- Role and responsibility The University Fellow will have to write 2-4 articles every month on different aspect of “Dalit and education-Primary and Higher” around the world specially focus to South Asia (Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan). He may be asked to attain the workshop, seminar organized by NAD or directed by NAD.
- Eligibility
- 1. University Fellow must be from Dalit community.
- 2. University Fellow Must be Completed or appeared in Bachelor degree from any stream by 2011.
- 3. University Fellow must take admission in PG/MA/MBA/M.Tech any stream in any Indian university in coming session 2011-12.
- 4. University Fellow must be below 25 year.
- 5. University Fellow Articulate and ability to write in any Indian language (Preferably Hindi and English)
- 6. Understanding of dalit issue is desirable.
- Selection Process Candidates will be screened on the basis of their 1 page write-up i.e max 1000 words and resume for telephonic interview followed by personal interview.
- How to apply Interested Candidate send us their resume along with one page write-up at hr.nafordalit AT gmail.com on or before 1st June 2011. Women candidates are encouraged to apply. --
- National Academy for Dalit
- Email: nafordalit AT gmail.com
'Learning with Kabir' Workshop in Bangalore
- Those who can't pay to meet workshop expenses are also welcome to participate in the workshop.
- Learning with Kabir - 2011*
- ‘Learning with Kabir’ is a four-day residential workshop for educators, offering a lyrical and critical immersion in the poetry, songs and ideas of Kabir, the 15th century mystic whose voice speaks in powerful ways to our contemporary worlds. The intention is to bring together a diverse group of educators who are seeding and growing ideas for journeying with Kabir into a variety of learning contexts—schools, colleges, universities, non-formal education and children’s publishing – to explore ideas related to mystic poetry, folk music, oral traditions, the politics of knowledge, the divide between self and other and the power of direct experience as opposed to received truths.
- While being an immersion in the poetry of Kabir, we also want this workshop to be a platform for educators to share with each other their explorations with Kabir in the classroom. We are aware that each learning context has its own flavour, strengths and challenges; yet we hope there will be synergies by interactions with a wider community of fellow educators. While participants would primarily be persons/institutions who are already partnering in some way with the Kabir Project (www.kabirproject.org), we are equally excited about making new friends and partners.
- The workshop will combine structured group exercises with spaces for quiet individual reflection, and there will be lots of singing!
- Workshop Facilitators – Shabnam Virmani & Chintan Girish Modi
- Invited Folk Singer Resource Person – Mahesha Ram ji, Rajasthan When: May 18-21, 2011
- Where: The School of Ancient Wisdom, Devanahalli, Bangalore
- We would like to limit the number of participants to 20 in the spirit of keeping it intimate and interactive, so please mail us at the earliest saying why you would like to join in, along with a brief paragraph or two about your interests, work, and expectations from the workshop.
- Mail Chintan at chintan.backups AT gmail.com, or call up at +9-97427 15913
- Travel expenses to and from Bangalore will have to be borne by the participants. Participants with institutional resources to support workshop expenses are encouraged to contribute.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Short Course on Researching the Contemporary @ CSDS Delhi
July-August, 2011
The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) invites applications for its two-month Course on 'Researching the Contemporary'. This cross-disciplinary Course will critically examine the formation of the contemporary and its multiple histories, ideologies, forms and affects. The three courses offered will enable participants to familiarize themselves with concepts, theories and methods that help analyse the contemporary. These include:
Reassembling Contemporary Social Thought
The course attempts to approach contemporary social thought in its broadest sense - without the baggage of what is generally understood as 'theory'. The purpose is to open new lines of inquiry by including within the fold of theory - experiences, reflections, conceptualisations from different intellectual traditions. The attempt here will be to treat concepts and categories - such as state, modernity, secularism, subject, time etc - as dynamic and indeed, destabilised by the longer, divergent and repressed histories of the 'object' they were once supposed to refer to, particularly at the moment of their 'originary' enunciation in the West. In a sense, then, the course will look at theorizations of modernity, the political and the social; and notions of time and subjectivity other than those that have come to us from the specific experience of the West, although the latter necessarily remains an extremely important reference point.
Course Instructors: Rakesh Pandey, Prathama Banerjee, Aditya Nigam.
Capital, Consumption, Markets
The idea behind the course is to begin thinking about the history of capital beyond its conventional Western trajectory and its very provincial debates on 'transition'. It will keep the larger global history of markets and trade as the continuous backdrop of the rise of capitalism in the West. The course will be divided into two parts comprising four lectures each. Part I will cover the history of capital and the idea of private property, going beyond the conventional histories of the 'transition' and will also explore the relationship of capital with the modern state-form and governmentality. It will also discuss the reification of markets and the emergence of economics as a discipline. Part II will revolve around contemporary capitalism – exploring notions of post-fordism, the thesis of postmodernity as the cultural logic of late capitalism, questions of consumerism and 'consumer-society'.
Course Instructors: Prathama Banerjee, Aditya Nigam.
Disciplines, Methods And The Research 'Object'
Unlike a traditional course on research methodology, this course will approach 'methods' by analyzing the shifts in how disciplines have engaged their 'object' of research and the ways in which these link to significant transformations within each discipline. Anthropology, history, literary studies and political science will provide the main disciplinary frames of reference with each standing in for a different method. By exploring each method through a history of the discipline, this course hopes to move away from the idea of methods as a fixed set of techniques, to understanding this as more contingent, open-ended and continuously grappling with challenges thrown up by the research 'object' as well as by theorizations in other disciplines. In addition, this course will engage in a close reading of a text produced within each discipline around a common thematic (violence, caste etc.), and through this open-up the intrinsic relationship between research questions, methods and most crucially exposition.
Course Instructors: Sarada Balagopalan, Uday Kumar, Rochelle Pinto, Awadhendra Sharan, Yogendra Yadav.
This is an intensive Course with compulsory readings and class discussions. Course materials will be made available. Participants are expected to write research papers upon completion which will be presented in a workshop subsequent to the Course. A participation certificate will be awarded upon successful completion.
The course will be conducted over 8 weeks between July 1 - August 31, 2010. Classes will be held at CSDS on week-day afternoons, Tuesday to Thursday, from 3-6 pm.
Applications are invited from M.Phil/Ph.D students as well as independent researchers. As part of your application please submit your C.V. and a 1000-word description of your research question/topic.
Out-station participants shall be provided with roundtrip travel expenses (3-tier AC) and a stipend of Rs.20,000/.
Out-station participants will have to take care of their own accommodation.
Deadline: April 3, 2011.
Applications may be sent to: teaching AT csds.in
For further details check: www.csds.in
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
UGC-Sponsored National Seminar on Resistance Studies
23 -24 August 2011
Theme: Speaking of the Subaltern: Exploring the Past; Anticipating the future
Organized by The Department of English, Pallagatti Adavappa First Grade College, Tiptur, Karnataka
Venue: Kalpataru Vidya Samsthe Campus Tiptur, Karnataka, 572202
e-mail: pacseminar2011 AT gmail.com
About the Seminar: A group of Indian scholars brought this term into much popularity and made it focal point of research, investigation, critical scholarship and publication through their Subaltern Studies. The Subaltern studies published nine volumes on South Asian history and society, particularly from "subaltern perspective" during 1982-1996. From then onwards this term attracts the attention of many researchers and scholars especially of social scientists and theologians. The geopolitical, economic, historical, political and social maps of the highly backward Indians of the rural and urban regions guided by their 'subaltern consciousness' make us alert to recurring famine, drought, starvation, malnutrition, disease, superstitious belief, bonded slavery, sexual exploitation and humiliation as the by-product of elite society.
Papers are invited for presentation from researchers and teachers on the following areas and related topics (but not limited to):
· Discrimination by Caste/ Class/Gender
· Historiography of India
· Comparative subaltern movements and cults across the globe
· Distribution of Power and Wealth
· Role of physical coercion of the state
· Ideology of nationalism and class
· Double colonization of women
Abstract
The abstract in softcopy not exceeding 250 words, with title and author's name as it should appear in certificate, typed in Times New Roman on A4 size, in MS-Word Format, double line spacing should be submitted as an attachment only through e-mail on or before 10th April 2011, to:
For more details, please contact Dr UdayaRavi at udayaravi.shastry AT gmail.com
Monday, March 28, 2011
Male Madeshwara: A Kannada Oral Epic - Bookshare - Accessible Books for Individuals with Print Disabilities
Male Madeshwara: A Kannada Oral Epic - Bookshare - Accessible Books for Individuals with Print Disabilities: "K. Keshavan Prasad and C. N. Ramachandran and L. N. Bhat"
Sunday, March 27, 2011
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