THE ‘NOVEL EXPERIENCE’: AN ENSEMBLE OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCIES

The discouraging output of English language teaching in India in terms of learner proficiencies and their linguistic competencies owes to the absence of ‘Intriguing reading content’ in most of the teaching pedagogies we follow today. While general reading is itself a misnomer in the present education scenario, absorbing reading material is a veritable rarity. Though reading forms part of the four cardinal skills of human communication, this golden habit is being fast replaced by practices like surfing, browsing and googling brought in with the advent of internet. While reading entails certain eligibility criteria, it ensures specific outcomes like a fundamental awareness of standard sentence patterns, apt and ingenious use of vocabulary as befitting the context, very elevating and exhilarating ideas and concepts of life and also, more importantly, it knocks at the dormant creative impulses in readers. In this context, the ‘novel’ is the most enticing literary form which can stir optimal interest in readers and drive them towards surprising levels of linguistic comprehension, usage and proficiency. This paper strongly recommends enhanced emphasis on reading skills, especially loud reading by students, in teaching learning tasks and also novel as the main ingredient in reading materials.