Topics

1

English / How can we improve our spoken English?

« on: March 22, 2011, 10:01:35 AM »

A lot of students ask from the teacher what is it that they should do to improve their Spoken English. So here is a post to tell them what we feel can improve in English skills.

Thinking about it and realized that we were lucky to be born in a family where, despite being Bangladeshi, Indians, and any other country English was the language of choice.

A lot of people don't have such a family environment. The first language they learn is their mother tongue. The next will be Bengali language (as indigenous people), if they are based in Bangladesh. Then when they reach school they finally learn English as the third language.

As a result, here are a few tips that I have collected to help improve Spoken English.

1. Get comfortable with the language. Read for 20 minutes in English. It can be a newspaper, a short story, a poem, or even a novel.

2. Develop your written language. If you don't have the requisite vocabulary you won't be able to communicate.

3. Start Speaking. Try out your spoken English on anyone who will be able to respond to you. Don't be afraid of making mistakes.

4. Keep your ears open for the accent. Watch the English news on Television. Watch BBC for the British Accent, CNN for the American Accent and NDTV 24/7 for the urban Indian Accent.

5. Record yourself. Listen to your voice and catch your pronunciation mistakes. Make a deliberate effort to avoid them.

6. Grammar is important. The parts of speech, tenses, form of verb, articles and modals all contribute to fluency. Make an effort to learn them.

7. Make the Dictionary your best friend. Familiarize yourself with its meaning and use it in a sentence that very day.

8. Have someone proficient read aloud to you. A storybook or a newspaper article will do. Watch how they move their lips while pronouncing certain words.

9. Learn one, two or three new word a day. To increase your active vocabulary start memorizing the meaning of a word you had heard but were not sure of. Use it regularly to absorb it into your vocabulary.

10. Start writing a Diary. It will allow you to practice the language in a totally non threatening environment. Write one entry of at least 100 words every day.

11. You mustn't be afraid of making mistakes but once you make them you have to rectify them with the help of a grammar book or a dictionary

12. The best way to improve your fluency is to not just speak in English, but think in English, because if you are thinking in your mother-tongue and you try to translate your message to English before actually saying it, you will not only speak in a slow way, but you will spoil that day's English advantage and learning. Just try to speak inside of your mind (think) in English, and it will come out in a more natural way.
 
13. Also, when you're out and about, or even at home, think, and also SPEAK OUT LOUD, the things you are doing, the things you see. And speak to other people! Always remember it's good to make mistakes, because you can learn from them and improve by remembering what you did wrong and improve that.
 
14. It’s a good idea to speak loudly.

15. Listen to English songs as much as possible and try to sing along.

16. Read English articles, books and reviews as much as possible.
 
17. Whenever you come across a new word write it down somewhere and find out the meaning.
 
18. BE CONFIDENT. Give yourself auto suggestions that you have good English

Consequently your Spoken English will improve, but not if you are lacking in commitment. It's all very well to be pumped up today about learning the language and forgetting all about it tomorrow.

Always remember the skills involved in any language are Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.

Good Luck

2

English / Discussion on the poem " Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth

« on: March 06, 2011, 12:04:14 PM »

Poem Discussion:

The composition of Tintern Abbey was inspired by Wordsworth’s two visits and walking tours on the banks of the river Wye in Monmouth shire in England. His first visit was in the summer of 1793 when he was alone and a young man of twenty three. At this time, Wordsworth was greatly thrilled and inspired by the over throw of political oppression by the revolution in France. He like other lovers of freedom expected that this revolution would when in a new era of liberty, equality and social brotherhood. So during this visit every sight and sound of nature appealed to his heart beyond measure because of his happy mood.

Five years have passed since, the poet visited the beautiful river Wye and now he is revisiting its banks, once again he hears the murmur of the river, and sees the steep and lofty cliffs in a wild surrounding which gives rice to the sense of deep seclusion. The landscape, because of its natural beauty and isolation, seems to be as calm and quiet as the sky above. Sitting under the dark sycamore once again the poet sees the plots of cottage ground, the orchard tuffs with unripe fruits, the hedgerows, the rural farms, and the curls of smoke rising from among the trees in silence.

The long absence of five years could not wipe out his memory of this beautiful scene. The beautiful objects of nature that he observed on the banks of the Wye have induced in him ‘sweet sensation’ to comfort him and sustain him during the period of mental and moral crisis. He is grateful to them for offering him an exalted mood in which he can perceive the reality above and beyond the earthly existence. The nature and the world seem to be incomprehensible but when the poet is in a calm and joyous mood, he feels somewhat relieved of the burden imposed on his mind by the riddle of the universe. In the moments of deep meditation the poet forgets his physical existence and his soul is illuminated to such an extent that he can see harmony in all the creations. This faculty of seeing harmony in the universe and the ‘deep power of joy of the Wye for consolation.’ has developed his insight which helps him understands the inner soul of the objects of nature.
The poet believes strongly in the healing power of the sweet memory of the Wye when he has passed his time in a gloomy mood on when his peace of mind has been disturbed by the sufferings of the world and the dull business of life, he has often turned to the ever sustaining memory of the Wye for consolation.

Nature has a special significance for Wordsworth. It does more than give temporary pleasure; it affects his whole being. The poem itself a’ recollected in tranquility’’ of the 1798 visit to the Wye ;in addition, the memory of the 1793 visit, and the memories retained during the five year interval. One vision is associated with another, and all are joined harmoniously within the poem. But nature has still another value for Wordsworth. It has the power of transmitting’’ feelings too/Of unremembered pleasure’’, moral feelings which are ‘’that best portion of a good man’s life’’, moral feelings which derive from forgotten events, or go back to a pre-existent state when the entire soul was pure, an innocent and moral essence. These feelings too, although’’ unremembered’’, constitute the’ best portion of a good man’s life’’.
Above all, Wordsworth believes the’ ’beauteous forms’’ of the Wye landscape bestow.
Another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened………………… (38-42)

Nature provides solace for man; it lightens his burden of humanity. The ‘’beauteous forms’’ of nature lull the human passion into state of repose so that the poet may’’ become a living soul’’, a pure soul which can penetrate the corporeal forms of things and’ see into the life of things’’. It is through a power in nature, then, that the poet transcends nature’s material forms and contemplates a higher, more divine state of being.

That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.(66-67)

The poet’s description of the three stages of man’s life and his three stages of awareness is given in the next lines(65).During his first visit to the Wye, he had been a youth, still much like a child in its first state of awareness. His response to the scene was sensual, almost erotic,’ ’when like a roe/I bounded o’er the mountains’’. But as a youth he also had a second state of awareness; he was restless and troubled—‘’more like a man/Flying from something that he dreads’’. In 1798 visit is made by an older, wiser, quieter man ’’who sought the thing he love’’. He now knows the pleasures of youth (my boyish days) are ‘’coarser pleasures,’ ’experienced by the senses only, characterized by ‘’animal movements’’, with thoughtless and undifferentiated responses.

To me was all in all.-I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
There colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite………………….(77-82)

The powers of awareness accompany maturity, and a sympathetic understanding of the saddening condition of man is acquired. A new sense sublime replaces the corporeal fire;thought it is apprehended the greet soul of the universe, a power which dwells in ‘the light of setting sung,/And round the ocean and the living air.(99-100) Therefore the third stage of life carries pleasure with it pleasure in the knowledge that the soul is activated by nature and the experience of the sense, which together instruct and guide being moral of the poet.

Turning next of his sister Dorothy, whom he address as my dear, dear friends’’ Wordsworth acknowledge his sense of loss and prays that his younger sisters whose pleasure in nature is still carefree and wild, may help him remember ‘’former pleas user a little which longer. He affirms his belief that nature is so designed as to lead man from ‘’joy to joy’’ and protect him from evil. Therefore, he may wish that Dorothy’s youth be blessed with nature’s joy. Later,’’ These wild ecstasies shall be matured/Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind/Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms/They memory be as a dwelling place/For all sweet sounds and harmonies…………..(141-145) But now, in her ‘’wild eyes.’ there can be seen still the instinctive joy of the soul newly arrives in the human world’’ these gleams/Of past existance’’ (151-152) .Later, these memories of early joy will comfort the girl grown old. Wordsworth urges his sister to remember always that the woods and cliffs of the Wye valley were even more dear in his second trip than on his first for the mature pleasure which the poet found in nature itself and for the memory of ‘’former pleasures.’’ Which Dorothy’s ‘’wind eyes’ ’recalled to him.

The End

3

English / Romantic Poets

« on: March 06, 2011, 11:56:55 AM »

Romantic poets of this age:

Perhaps no single age produced so many great poets as did the romantic age-William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834),Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824),Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), and John Keats (1795-1821) whose works are counted among the world’s best writings.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge (1772-1834) was one of the most remarkable personalities of a remarkable movement. He had the one of the most brilliant minds of his age, and one which delved into all areas of human learning and experience. Coleridge’s poetry represents the culmination of romanticism in its purest form. The Ancient Mariner and Christabel mark the triumph of romanticism as fully as Wordsworth’s narrative poems mark the triumph of naturalism. It is by virtue of these poems that he has been called by Saints bury’’ the high priest of romanticism.’’
On the other hand, Coleridge was only intermittently successful in his poetry, and a comparatively small number of poems written by him have achieved lasting fame. Those which have are remarkable and unique. The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and Christabel are Coleridge’s best poems.

Lord Byron

Byron(1788-1824) has arguably received rather less critical attention in recent years than some of the other poets covered here. He was the son of a wild and lawless family. He inherited his title unexpectedly, and was launched to instant public fame by the publication of Child Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812),a partly autobiographical long poem based on his European based on his European travels. Byron reputation is based on Child Harold’s Pilgrimage, Beppo (1817) The Vision of Judgment (1822) and Don Juan which began publication in 1819 and which was never finished. Don Juan is generally regarded as his greatest work.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley (1792-1822) was the son of Sussex aristocrat. He was ‘sent down’ expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing a pamphlet advocating atheism. Out of all the Romantic poets Shelley has perhaps received the most interest from modern criticism. Shelley’s first major poem was Queen Mab (1813), and in it he displays many of the features that can be seen as typical of his poetry. Shelley was a revolutionary. She was obsessed by the manner in which society, institutions and conventional morality destroyed and corrupted mankind. A frequently quoted line, Power like a devastating pestilence Pollutes whatever it touches’, shows both the depth of his feeling and his loathing of conventional authority. Shelley had a strong belief in an absence of original sin, and that humanity could attain perfection. This, and his hatred of authority, she was a far more accurate and precise political and social thinker than was actually the case. Shelley’s ‘’Ode to the West Wind’’ is the great poem in modern literature.

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is probably the most famous of the romantic poets, and may be the best. He was born in the Lake District of the United Kingdom, in what was then Cumberland; his love of the wild, mountainous English Lakes never left him and remained to the end of his life a major influence on all he wrote. He was greatly excited by the French Revolution (1789), seeing in it the chance for a whole new order in the world. When the French Revolution turned towards tyranny, and England declared war on France, Wordsworth suffered mental anguish that brought him near to collapse. His ideals were divided between England and France, the collapse of a revolution that had seemed so noble and liberal tormented him, and his child and its mother were beyond his reach in France.
Wordsworth suggests the truth of this idea. In his early years he wrote a significant amount of the poetry by which he is remembered, and although he lived until 1850 much best work was written by 1802 Wordsworth stated explicitly some of his poetic philosophy in the various prefaces to these lyrical Ballads (1798) which he wrote in company with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The preface to the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads is essential reading for any student. A main plan of his philosophy was to move the language and the subject of poetry away from the clichés and stylized, elaborate fashion of the eighteenth century.

William Blake

William Blake (1757-1827), the greatest visionary poet in English literature. Blake was more a poet than an artist or painter and he was, furthermore, a poet after the tradition of Shakespeare and Chaucer with regard to the lyrical splendor of his works. His poetic career can be seen to have been facilitated by the linguistic medium he chose. He wrote many poems in his early age such as ‘The Lamb’,’ Nurse’s Song,’ The Chimney Sweeper, and ‘The Tyger, etc. He shows in the book’ Songs of Innocence and of Experience “the two contrary states of the Human Soul.

John Keats

Keats (1795-1821) belongs to the second generation of romantic poets. He is essentially a romantic poet despite his great love for Greek myths and literature. All romantic poets love beauty but romantic poetry imparts strangeness to beauty. This is the special contribution of romantic poets to the sphere of beauty. All the romantic poets had great love for nature. Keats also enjoyed the sensuous aspects of nature. He wrote many poems in his period there are-‘Ode to a Nightingale’,’ Ode on a Grecian Urn’,’ Ode to Autumn’ and ‘Ode on Melancholy ’etc.
Keats is a romantic poet because of his love of nature, of superstition, of fine phrase and music, of melancholy and middle ages, and of wonder and mystery. He is intensely subjective and emotional; he loves art for the sake of art. In his poetry, however, there is a balance between the formal perfection of the classics, and the emotion and imagination of the romantics. Keats was a true romantic poet. In fact, we find in Keats’s poetry the quintessence of romanticism.

The End

 
 
 

4

English / Assignment On 'Helen"

« on: October 14, 2010, 08:30:01 AM »

ASSIGNMENT ON “HELEN”


Helen of Troy and the Trojan War were central to the early history of ancient Greece. Helen is the object of one of the most dramatic love stories of all time and one of the main reasons for a ten-year war between the Greeks and Trojans.

In the history of Greek mythology and English literature, Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world. Helen of Sparta was better known as Helen of Troy. She was the daughter’s of Tyndareus, king of Sparta. Her mother was beautiful Leda, Queen of Sparta.

One tale says that Helen was daughter of Nemesis, goddess of retribution, who in the form of a goose was ravished by Zeus in the form of swan. Nemesis laid a blue and silver egg, which somehow came into Leda's possession. When the egg hatched, Helen was born. Leda brought the girl up as her own daughter.

On the other hand, Clytemnestra was the sister of Helen, the daughter of Tyndareus. Helen had two brothers, Castor and Pollux. Pollux shared a father with Helen, but Tyndareus was the father of Castor. The two brothers are called the Dioscuri.

 After that Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each reached for the apple. Zeus proclaimed that Paris, prince of Troy and thought to be the most beautiful man alive, would act as the judge. Hermes went to Paris, and Paris agreed to act as the judge.

Hera promised him power, Athena promised him wealth, and Aphrodite promised the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris chose Aphrodite, and she promised him that Helen, wife of Menelaus, would be his wife.

 In Sparta, Menelaus, husband of Helen, treated Paris as a royal guest. However, when Menelaus left Sparta to go to a funeral, Paris abducted Helen (who perhaps went willingly) and also carried off much of Menelaus' wealth.

She was so beautiful that all the princes of Greece wanted to marry her. At that moment in Sparta, Helen meets the Mycenaean King, Agamemnon, who is immediately taken by her attractiveness. During the wedding Helen is kidnapped by two Athenians, Theseus and his friend Pirithous. They take her to Athens, where Helen falls for Theseus, before her brother Pollux raids Athens and kills him. As he is vanishing, Theseus stabs Pollux. In Sparta, Helen's father Tyndareus rages at his daughter, blaming her for losing his successor.

It became an unsafe problem for Tyndareus, king of Sparta. He announced that all the princes to come to an agreement that all of them would protect Helen and her would be husband, whoever it might be, if and when necessary. All of them agreed upon the condition. Meneleus was selected as Helen’s husband.

This abduction caused the first war on account of Helen to break out. For her brothers the Dioscuri came to Athens with an soldier, demanding back their sister. And when the people of the city insisted in saying that they neither had the girl nor knew where she had been left, the Dioscuri resorted to war.

After a decade or so of married life, Helen was run off with Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy. Menelaus called on the other suitors to fulfill their oaths and help him get her back. As a result, the Greek leaders mustered the greatest army of the time, placed it under the command of Agamemnon, and set off to wage what became known as the Trojan War.

After the fall of Troy, Menelaus took Helen back to Lacedaemon, where they lived an apparently happy married life once more. There were a number of different accounts of Helen's relationship with Paris. In some, she was truly in love with him, although her sympathies were mostly with the Greeks who besieged Troy.

Finally, the real Helen was reunited with Menelaus after the Trojan War.


                                                                                                                   The End


Prepared By
Souren Chakma
ID: 072-10-375
Batch: 11th
Department of English, DIU

5

English / Discuss on "The Wild Swans at Coole" by W. B.Yeats

« on: October 10, 2010, 11:08:01 AM »

“The Wild Swans at Coole” is a wonderful poem written by Irish poet William Butler Yeats as known as W.B.Yeats. The poem was published in1919. In this poem has a regular stanza form: five and six line, first and third lines are tetrameter, second and fourth lines are trimester and fifth line is pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is ABCBDD. It is a very pleasing poem in the twenty century English literature.
 In the poem ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ William Butler Yeats uses many reverberation techniques and literary plans in order to communicate the intention of the poem such devices are rhyme, metaphor, repetition, alliteration and personification. The Wild Swans at Coole” belong to the early romantic ‘period. ‘Coole’ refers to the ‘Coole Park’ at the place in Ireland where W.B.Yeats grew up. Here, Swan is a symbol of love, beauty, race and serenity.
I think how much beauty and life there is in the poet's life. The swans might also signify a place Yeats might have observed them in Ireland. Yeats was away from Ireland a lot and missed his home in a romantic way. This poem might be an allegory of his longing to be in Ireland, and perhaps his angst about the swans flying away has something to do about when he returns there, and the beauty, such as the swans, will be gone, and the Ireland he knew will also be gone, perhaps forever.
Please anyone help me!