A Day of Awakening

The usual Thursday is the most awaited day of rest and relaxation, chores and social visits for most English faculty in the FP and CAAS but most importantly it is a day of not setting the alarm clock. The Thursday of 22^nd October, however, the alarm clock did ring and it sounded a new awakening.  It was a day of self discovery and a new beginning.

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) organized a workshop on Thursday 22^nd October ‘To Write that is a Right All Right’.  It was a rewarding experience in which the 34 participants from the FP and 6 from CAAS were kept usefully engaged in a session that discussed all aspects of writing.  The Director of CTL, Dr. Basma Jadayel, was the presenter and she showed effectively how a writing lesson could be staged step-by-step and how the whole process could be geared towards getting maximum output from students.

Correcting students’ writing is always considered a tedious job.  No doubt making sense out of those unintelligible words and syntax is cumbersome.  Dr. Basma showed us how this could be done in a meaningful way to make a difference to the students.  An easily comprehensible, simple, one-to-one written feedback can go a long way to boost a student’s confidence and push him/her to take that extra mile rather than leaving a ‘bloody paper’ with red marks all over. Marking samples of students’ writing using the Six Trait check list and the rating scale was an eye opener and it made the participants realize the reliability and validity of such tools to ensure fair marking.

The food analogy used from time to time in the workshop was quite a garnish. The hamburger model of a paragraph, the rice cake words and Salsa words were really appetizing. On the whole the workshop left the participants professionally satiated.  It was a worthwhile professional day!

By Mahija Nambiar