Report on Industry Expert’s Workshop and FDP conducted by the Dept. of Languages on March 22nd and March 25th
The Dept. of languages, VIT-AP, conducted two events, 3 workshops by an industry expert for students and a faculty development programme for the faculty members from the Dept. of Languages on the 22nd and 25th March 2019 respectively. Both the programmes were coordinated by Prof. Pankaj Narke. The workshops by the industry expert was titled ‘Role of Language in Media’. The resource person, Mr. Thirumoy Banerjee, was invited from The Business Standard media house, New Delhi. Mr. Banerjee conducted three workshops on March 22nd, 9-11, 11- 12.20 and 2-4 in Einstein Hall and Room no. 409 in AB1.
In his workshops he focused on the norms of the English language that media industry follows, editing process and filtering of the content. Mr. Banerjee provided hands-on training to the participants in editing news items. The highlight of the workshops was his presentation on the opportunities for engineering and management students in the media industry. The content shared by the resource person was highly appreciated by all the participants. While giving feedback on the workshop with the BBA, some participants mentioned:
Participant 1: “The workshop was super good. Ever since we had workshops on different topics and subjects, it is one of the best in them. I really enjoyed the talk and we came to know quite more about media and how we should convey the news by using right and correct words and the choices we must take when 2 huge incidents occurs..”
Participant 2: “We enjoyed and got to know lot of information about what is happening inside the media. We are expecting some more workshops”While talking about the response from the students, Mr. Banerjee couldn’t stop himself from giving high ratings to the enthusiasm and attentiveness exhibited by them. He enjoyed being on the VIT-AP campus and expressed that he would love to visit us again.
An FDP titled ‘Workshop on Syllabus Design and Materials Production for Effective ELT Practices’ was conducted on the 25th March, 2019 at the seminar hall, AB 1. Dr Kishore Kumar, Head of the Dept. of ESL Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University, was invited as the resource person. The focus of the workshop was to
- Discuss standard practice of syllabus design,
- Discuss principles of curriculum and syllabus design,
- Critically analyse learners’ needs,
- Reflect on the language teaching materials (currently in use)
- Discuss new ways of developing and adapting language teaching materials
The workshop was divided into two sessions; pre-lunch (10- 12.30) and post lunch (2- 4.30). In the first session, Dr Kishore Kumar discussed the standard practices of curriculum and syllabus design and how learners’ needs should be reflected in the institutional policy documents such as curriculum.
The second session mainly focused on the adaptation of materials and developing teaching materials that would suit:
- Learners’ interest
- Learners’ level of understanding
- Accessibility for learners as well as teachers
- Cultural and contextual familiarity of materials, and
- Potential learning outcomes
While concluding the workshop, Dr Kishore shared some important online tools that could be used while teaching English language and testing learners’ level of proficiency in the same.
The faculty members from the Dept. of Languages found the workshop helpful as most of their real-life classroom issues were addressed. Dr Kishore Kumar also appreciated the interactive participation by all the participants.