Telugu is a Dravidian Language spoken mainly in Andhra Pradesh, India by about 40 million people. It has literary tradition dating back to the 11th Century A. D.
The present booklet aims at providing an intensive course in Teaching Telugu within four weeks. The methodology of teaching and the details regarding the course have been explained in detail in the prefatory remarks by Prof. V. I. Subramoniam. This is only the first part of the book. The grammar and the lexicon will be printed in due course.
The booklet contains 24 lessons. Each lesson consists of five sections: (1) lesson (2) lesson aids (3) exercises (4) classified vocabulary and (5) notes on vocabulary. While preparing the lessons functional words have been introduced with illustrative contexts so that the students can easily remember these items. The lesson aids explain the grammar in brief. This being an elementary course in Telugu it is hoped that the information given in this regard is sufficient, since the writer feels that too many rules of grammar and too many slots and fillers will confuse the student. Undue importance is not given to morphemic analysis: for instance the relative participle suffixin+a can be segmented into the past tense marker in and the relative participle suffix-a. But in this bookletina has been treated as a single segment. Exercises are limited in number. Many of them are substitution drills. Next in importance are the exercises in comprehension. Only marginal attention is paid to exercises on translation, filll the blanks, matching etc. Throughout the course, emphasis is laid on comprehension.
The classified vocabulary which forms the fourth section of each lesson provides information regarding the declension or conjugation the particular item undergoes. The student is expected to learn the vocabulary and decline the items.
It was in May 1971 that the Dravidian Linguistics Association published the book "Intensive Course in Telugu" written by the late Dr. N. Sivaramamurthy and printed in the SB Press, Trivandrum. Due to popular demand the same book is reprinted now after 40 years. It is based on the recommendation made by the publication committee that the Council of Direction permitted me to republish this book now.
I thank everyone associated with the republication of this book particularly Dr T.P. Sankarankutty Nair, Convenor of the Pubication Committee. Needless to say that the management of the SB Press had come toward to print this volume expeditiously.
Any human being who speaks a language should have been a learner as well as a teacher, consciously or unconsciously. If the language is his mother-tongue, he learns it in his early child-hood from his parents, siblings, and members of his society, and teaches it in his adulthood to his fellow beings of his village. If he knows another language its learning will have been more systematic than that of his mother-tongue. His experience in learning languages grows in proportion to the number of languages spoken by him. Learning a language, thus, is an experience shared by all members of the society. This has enabled every one to evaluate and criticise any hypothesis formulated for learning. This again is the reason why any of the existing hypotheses do not completely satisfy any learner.
COMPLEXITY IN LEARNING LANGUAGES
The factors involved in learning a language are many. The language proneness of the individual, his motives in learning, the teacher and his method, the lessons, the opportunities one gets in life by learning a language etc., are a few. Because of the involvement of complex-in some cases contradictory - factors, 'no one educational method is a cure all'.
LEARNING OF MOTHER TONGUE AND OTHER LANGUAGES
Learning ones own mother tongue and learning a language in addition to the mothertongue are two related areas of learning with a difference. In learning once own mother tongue, interference of any other language is non-existent. In learning another language interference of the mother-tongue in the process of learning is a factor to be rockoned with. In the first, only acquisition of a language is involved. In the second, in addition to acquisition, restraint of the mother-tongue is also involved. The number of languages learnt increases the efforts of restraining the languages already learnt, while acquiring a fresh language. The same method of teaching can be employed for both types of learning.
METHODS OF TEACHING
Among the methods adopted in teaching languages one is the grammar-translation method. This involves the grammatical analysis of the language taught, and the categories of grammar being defined in general terms with reference to meaning. The mother-tongue of the student is extensively used in teaching the foreign language through this method. Opposed to this is another method, the direct method, which abhors the use of the mothertongue while teaching another language. Practitioners of this method engage the pupil in conversation and supply meaning by referring directly to objects and picture charts. They make signs or act out the meaning of sentences in order to make the students understand their significance. Grammar is used by some. Others give little importance to it. None of its followers use the grammatical analysis of the native language.
A third method now gaining popularity is the audio-lingual method which admits the use of the mother-tongue to supply meaning to the students. At the same time, it insists on memorizing dialogues and stories. Writing and reading are not used during the initial phases of instruction. Grammatical exercises, drills and changes in sentence patterns by substitution, are practised in this method.
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