Covid-19 has redefined the way we teach and learn. In fact, we have come to know how effectively we can make use of technology to engage our students. ‘Redefining Career Skills’ is an attempt to evaluate the changing perspectives. This is a collaborative event organised by the Department of English, Sri Ramakrishna College of Arts & Science for Women, Coimbatore in association with The Dawn Journal.
DAY 1: Covid-19 Crisis and Employability Challenges for Freshers | Mr Rajesh Bojan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, The Dawn Journal
Dr. Anandhi M, Head & Associate Professor of English, Sri Ramakrishna College of Arts & Science for Women welcomed the audience and introduced the speaker, Mr Rajesh Bojan, Assistant Professor and Senior Verbal Trainer at Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore.
Mr Rajesh started by presenting an insight on the impact of Covid-19 on various fields. He highlighted on different surveys of various reputed organisations showing the devastating effects of coronavirus on the employment sectors. He went on to explain about how students or employees need to prepare for equipping themselves to face the challenges. He stressed on the importance of making learning a habit and the need for students to be aware of the evolving industry and understand the raising requirements. He emphasized on the fact that employers judge their employees based on what they contribute for organisational growth.
When most employers are merely trying to run the show, employee happiness and productivity has become a question. It is important for freshers to prove their quality and potential. He suggested that everyone must learn to nurture creativity and productivity. The ultimate objective for an employee is to ensure that he or she will become the asset of the organisation in the long run.
According to the speaker, in order to maximise job conversion, it is important for students to always be aware of current openings, have sufficient knowledge about organisations they are applying for. They must know how to stay ahead of others and develop required expertise in their respective domain and related technology. Of all these, they need to show their uniqueness and create few notable contributions in their field of interest.
Mr Rajesh also suggested that both students and employees have to socialise, learn to collaborate and evolve. Students need to be trained to take part in healthy competitions and must be encouraged to opt for multiple employment opportunities like campus recruitment, banking and civil services examination. Besides, he suggested the participants to focus on prioritise their short and long term career needs.
According to him, it is vital to learn to deal with negativity and he suggested few measures. He advised the students to stop seeking for comfortable jobs and instead asked them to opt for challenging roles that would test their skills and make them strong. He spoke on the importance of managing stress appropriately. He recommended techniques to identify one’s progressive traits and workplace efficiency score.
DAY 2 SESSION I: Fluency Matters | Dr Arun Behera, Associate Professor of English at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning
In the second day of our session, Mr Rajesh welcomed the speakers and the participants. Dr. Anandhi M introduced the speakers and moderated the session. Dr Arun Behera, Associate Professor of English at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and Dr Abhilash Nayak, Regional Director of IGNOU Regional Centre, Patna were the resource persons.
Dr Arun Behera gave an impressive lecture on the topic Fluency Matters. Fluency is defined as “being able to speak and write quickly or easily in a given language”. It comes from the Latin word fluentem meaning “to flow”. Fluency in a language means speaking easily, reasonably quickly and without having to stop and pause a lot. He went on to explain about the types and various components. He listed the four types of fluency as Reading, Speaking, Oral reading and Written.
He further stated that Fluency of speech has five components namely:
- Pronunciation (articulation, rhythm, intonation; gesture, body language and eye contact)
- Grammar (appropriate sentences based on the context; avoid miscommunication)
- Vocabulary (single words, compound words and idioms)
- Fluency (speak communicatively, fluently and accurately; express freely without interruption)
- Comprehension (understand what to in the context; make the listeners easily to catch the information)
Strategy for Fluency:
- Provide your students with many opportunities to read aloud the same passage orally several times
- Know what your students have to read aloud so that they are aware of your expectations
- Know how your students can read aloud repeatedly so that their fluency improves
He provided several tips on effective communication.
5 Speaking Rules you need to know!
- Don’t study grammar too much
- Learn and study phrases
- Practice speaking what you hear
- Submerge yourself
- Study correct material
7 tips to fluent speaking
- Set a goal and create a learning strategy
- Learn english every day
- Surround yourself in english
- Use powerful learning methods to improve quickly
- Start using the lrrc (listen, repeat, record, compare) method today
- Get speaking practice
- Learn the 80/20 rule (or the pareto principle in language learning means that 20% of the things you learn contribute 80% of your total improvement)
80/20 Rule (the Pareto Rule)
Find your 20% by:
- Creating a list of most frequent words
- Making your goals short term
- Educating yourself
- Looking at past experiences
- Optimising your study habits
- Facing your fears
- Being honest with yourself
- Thinking practically
DAY 2 : SESSION II: Communicate to Conquer | Dr Abhilash Nayak, Regional Director, IGNOU Regional Centre, Patna
Communication is the soul of life, the life force behind any successful individual or organization. Some people become heroes because they are good leaders. They are good leaders because they are good communicators. Irrespective of the background, experience and qualifications a person cannot achieve anything in life if s/he has no command over communication skills. As social animals, we human beings possess an inherent desire to remain connected to members inside our communities, despite the versatility in our values and vocations. At each and every stage in life, we are required to communicate with a large number of people with various backgrounds, abilities and experiences. Unless we handle these communicative contexts efficiently with goof communication skills, we tend to lag behind people who are able and efficient communicators.
The word communication is derived from the Latin word communicare meaning ‘impart, to participate, to share’. Hence it the process of sharing or putting across a message, either an idea, a feeling or an attitude, from one/more individual/groups to one/more individual(s)/group(s). Communication is mainly driven by an awareness of “Purpose” and “Audience. Usually We have the following purposes while communicating: (a) interact (b) inform (c) instruct (d) influence (e) motivate (f) entertain (g) record (h) find out (i) regulate. We should be careful in choosing a topic before we decide to speak or write on it, respect the real or the imaginary audience and anticipate questions, responses, reactions so that we become successful in communicating our ideas to the audience. While talking to an audience we should maintain direct contact with the audience, take feedback from them from time to time and ensure effective communication. As sensible speakers, we should be able to judge whether the audience is in the right mood to receive the message that we are trying to send across. If some of the members in the audience are not in the right mood to listen to what we are trying to say, they will create all possible problems to stop us from putting across our ideas. We should ensure that all barriers are removed before we start the act of communication. If there is constant noise coming from outside, the fans keep making loud noise or the doors bang often on their own, we are likely to be distracted time and again. Hence, we should see that all barriers are removed in the best possible ways to keep the audience ready to receive the message.
Whatever is the purpose of communication, it should always be positive. To communicate means to connect, to bridge the gaps between people in a community, society or organization. The main aim of every act of communication should be positive, even if it involves the transmission of negative, painful and unpleasant messages. The painful and unpleasant messages can also be presented in innovative ways to reduce their negative impact upon the receiver. Apart from this, the language we use inside our homes, in the social circles and offices should be free from all biases. We should carefully choose our words while speaking to people of different caste, class, gender, religion so that no one is hurt by what we say. We should avoid vocabulary which has the potential to hurt the sentiments of people belonging to a particular class or category.
Usually by communication, we mean spoken communication, that too in English. But real communication involves effective use of all the language skills, both the receptive language skills and the productive language skills in any language. Unless we are efficient readers and good listeners, we cannot become good writers and speakers. A good writer should read a good number of books, critically observe the use of words, phrases and sentences, observe the ways language is used to express thoughts, ideas and feelings and use them in his writing in the most productive and efficient ways. Likewise, if you want to be a good speaker, you should actively listen to varieties of listening texts which could include movies in the target language, interviews with great people, panel discussions, speeches delivered by good speakers, carefully watch their use of the vocabulary and sentences, change of pitch and intonation, observe their body language and emulate them in your everyday communication. Moreover, you should make use of English or the language of your choice in everyday communication without bothering about grammatical errors or accuracy in pronunciation. If you think of the grammatical rules or accuracy of pronunciation, you may get scared and refrain from making any attempts. Even if you come forward to speak, your over consciousness of these things will pull you back, you will fumble and make mistakes. This failure in the first attempt will demotivate you and you will try our best to keep yourself away from such attempts in future. We should remember that we learnt our mother tongue in a very natural way, by observing the people around us making the use of language in different situations in response to various communicative needs. We made mistakes time and again, people often laughed at us but that did not deter us from learning the language. Now in course of time we have become masters in the use our mother tongue. The same can happen with English as well. The only thing is that we should dare to practice it whenever and wherever we can. In order to enhance your confidence as well communication skills, you can make small videos of 5 to 10 minutes on topics of your choice, show it to people whom you trust, take their honest feedback and improve upon your performance. In course of time you will grow into an effective user of the language. You can do the same with written communication skills. You cannot swim in an ocean unless you start practicing swimming in a pond. All great speakers and authors were not born great, they spoke to varieties of audiences, made many experiments and mistakes until they grew into famous orators or writers.
Besides verbal skills, we should take care of the non-verbal communication skills like eye contact, gestures, postures, personal appearance, facial expression, space distancing, time, silence, artifact and environment to be effective communicators. We should know that 65% of our everyday communication consists of non-verbal communication. It is not only important if we can speak well or write well, we should be able to exhibit the right kind of behaviour in different communicative contexts. Many of the young people aspiring for jobs fail miserably due to lack of appropriate communication skills. If you want to conquer the world, you should master your communication skills. You should be able use language to meet all the communicative needs of your personal and professional life.
DAY 3: Improving Interpersonal Communication | Dr Sankarakumar, Assistant Professor of English, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore
DAY 4: Investing in Language Skills for Career Advancements | Dr Anandhi M, Professor & Head, Department of English, Sri Ramakrishna College of Arts and Science for Women, Coimbatore
As English is the global language investing in it can certainly help anyone get ahead in their career, making an effort to master the global lingua franca can be actually a stepping stone to make the leap in your career. Individuals who have a perfect mastery over their language skills have ample chances of promotions and in business it helps to expand their territories.
Language skills quite literally opens the doors for new opportunities, thereby helping you to comprehend the global market place better as well as understanding the wants and needs of international customers, suppliers and partners.On an International level, research surveys shows that countries where a high proportion of workforce speaks english, have a higher proportion of their GDP from international trade.When it comes to the wages we also see that it is directly proportional to the employees’ language ability.
Language skills are coveted by employers looking to build a competitive business and are sought after when interviewing for the next step in your career.Everything comes down to effective communication. Proficiency in a second language makes networking more effective, allows you to make the most of opportunities and begin potentially profitable conversations.
As we move up the executive ladder, the importance of communication skills become even more pronounced. Improving English skills would thus be particularly important for someone managing a team of people who may well speak better English than they do. As a report shows, a high level of English proficiency correlates with higher GDP, higher average income and innovation on the national level. It goes without saying that, countries with stronger language skills – particularly in English – are stronger and more globally connected. Thus it becomes increasingly important to work on language skills as strong language skills coupled with communication will help one advance in their career.
All Comments
The session was fruitful. Kindly organize this kind of webinar more in future.
Overall session is good. Eminent speakers and thought provoking webinar.
Very useful session
It was more informative
Thank you Aafrin
The session is really good and very useful
All sessions very informative.
Excellent Sessions and incredible
It was a wonderful 5 day session….
The 5day webinar series on redefining career skills was really fruitful
It was a five day wonderful sessions
It was wonderful useful session
Excellent sessions.
Very informative programme
it was informative session
The 5 days webinar was really useful and knowledgable.
All five sessions were well organized and very much informative
Thank you Durairaj
The session is very fruitful and highly informative
This session was very useful.Its is very useful for grain knowledge.Thank you for arranging this.
very informative
All the speakers presentation was very informative and fruitful. All the five days was insightful sessions
It was very informative and useful
Very informative sessions. I congratulate all the organizers.
Thanks Archana
The session was so interesting and it was useful to me.Thank you for conducting those sessions.
Thank you Imrana
Informative session.
The 5 days session was really informative and helpful. Thank you for giving such an opportunity for us.
We are very happy to know this Suhita thank you.
First of all, I express my gratitude to the Dept of English, SRCW, Coimbatore for providing us such an extensive insight on the Career Skills in the pre and post COVID 19 times, in association with The Dawn Journal. Hoping to get invited for more such sessions.
Thank you Annapoorni
It was a wonderful session for about 5 days .Thank You very much for arranging the fruitful, purposeful session l like this. I once again thank organisers who stand behind to organise this informative session .
Thank you Dharanipriya
Very informative session.. I would like to take up another session in future
The session was very helpful
It was an awesome experience.
Thanks Shifa
It was a useful and informative session. A Very interesting session as well one which has not bored. I thank my professor for arranging this useful one.
Great thank you Sarumathi
All the sessions were very useful. It helped us develop knowledge on different topics.Thank you for making this quarantine a useful one. Looking forward to more webinars in coming days. Thank you.
Thank you Sneha
We are glad to hear this. Thank you.
This session is very usefull & kindly organise this kind of webminar in future
Sure we will thank you
Sure we will thanks Krishnapriya
These sessions were very useful. Kindly organize this kind of webinar in future.
We will surely do thank you.
Very interesting sessions and useful. Need more session like these.
Thanks Kamalee.
the 5 days of webinar was really useful and i learned lots of thing from different persons thankyou so much for all the sessions
Thank you Kamala Kumari.
Very informative session.. I would like to another session in future
You are most welcome Janaranjani. Thanks.
The session was more informative as well as interesting in these 5 days. I gained more knowledge from all the resource persons. Hearty thanks to Rajesh sir to organise this webinar.
Thanks Abirami it is our pleasure.
It was a wonderful session.
Thanks Madhupriya
Wonderful Session
Thank you Nirudhi
The session was awesome. Kindly organize this kind of webinar more in future
Definitely we would love to. Thanks Rashmika.
It was a informative session
Thanks Nivya
All the topics of this webinar series are very relevant and interesting. I am much enlightened by all the lectures delivered by the Resource persons. I extend my thanks to the organizers as well as the Resource persons for conducting a wonderful webinar series.
Thank you lots Dr Anita Konwar we are happy to have you with us.
It was a wonderful session…
Thank you Gnaneshwari
Thank you for providing us with useful sessions on all the five days. Looking forward to more such webinars in future.
Thanks Sneha.
We came to know about the effects of Covid-19.The speakers covered many aspects.
Thank you Brundha
The session was very helpful
Thank you Ishwarya
The session was very nice and helpful
Its very useful to us
Nice to know that Sadhana
Informative session
Thank you Dhanushya
It is very splendid session
This section is very usefull
Thank you so much for conducting such a wonderful sessions on redefining skills. These sessions were very helpful and informative. Thank you once again.
It’s very useful Webinar
These sessions were useful for us. It is very helpful to learn. We are proud to be an SRCWian.
It was great to be part of the webinar series. Sessions were informative and Kudoos to the organisers.
The session was very useful for me
Very informative session
This session was very useful. It helped me to learn new things. Thank you for arranging this.
It was great to be part of the webinar series. Sessions were informative and kudos to the organisers.
It was very much useful for me and i have got more ideas from this 5 days of webinar. Happy for it. Thank you so much for your speech and for the interesting and useful things
Its a wonderful and useful session.
It was an informative 5-day session. During this pandemic, this type of webinar has really helped me to be on track. It helps us to enrich our knowledge. Thank you so much for the organizers for organizing this fruitful session.
All the sessions was very helpful for our future education. Thank you to everyone for giving such a wonderful sessions like that. Once again thank you.
We are glad to contribute some value to your career. Thank you Dharani.
Highly resourceful and insightful sessions. Thank you for organising one such.
Thanks Ida we are striving to offer you the best always. We are glad to know you have enjoyed the sessions.
Thank you for the 5 day webinar mam. It’s was very useful and informative sessions mam. Through these sessions I could get to know about many things mam. And also I came to know that fluency is very essential while talking. Thank you so much mam
We are extremely happy to have helped all of you to some extent. Thank you Mythrayee.
This session was very helpful. I participated with interest and gained knowledge.
Thanks Anushiya we are happy you did.
Very informative session. Thank you for the organizers.
We thank you too Archana for being a part of the learning process.
The sessions were informative and interesting.Thank you!
Thank you Jainab for the warm note.
The session was very helpful and useful
Glad we did something beneficial Sivapriya.
Thank you for the enlightening session
Thank you we are thrilled.
Had a great session for five days
Informative sessions
Thank you Nobil for the positive note
The session was very useful and clear
Great to know that Shobika.
Very fruitful session
Thank you Akshaya for the feedback.
All the sessions were very informative
Thank you Vellachi. We hope that we did our best.
It was an informative session. It helped us gain more knowledge. Thank you for the organizers.
Thanks Haritha it means a lot to us.
Wonderful and informative 5 days for us. As we can impart these things in our students.
Thank you Dr Lalita Pandey. The real objective is only fulfilled when we as teachers are able to influence students with what we have learnt and experienced.
Useful and wonderful session for about 5 days
We are delighted to have this series of lectures as well. Thanks Samyuktha.
It was really great listening to the different views of resource personas. They threw light on uplifting the career path of both rural and urban students. Thank you for arranging such fruitful session.
Thanks Monisha we are glad that you were part of this.
The session was interesting and informative. Eagerly waiting for more in future. I would like to thank The Dawn Journal and SRCW (Department of English) for offering this great session.
Thank you Dharshini we would be happy for that.
These sessions was very useful and informative. I think these information are essential for an English graduate to lead a better life than a normal person .
Thanks Monali. As long as you learn and flow with the tide, we keep growing and evolving.
Good afternoon Sir… You people did a great job… Am much beneficial to attend this 5days Session… Very interesting and informative and useful sessions… Please do organize such programs… FDP’s on Research Methodology…. Thank you very much for being very patient and understanding the participants nature…Thank you organizers….
We are so much delighted to learn how much this collaborative event has helped you all. Definitely we will consider your suggestion on FDP. Thank you very much Vasanthamullai.
All sessions are useful. They are informative. Thanks to the organizers.
Thank you Ollala Srinivas
All five days useful sessions. Thank you organisers.
This collaborative event organised by SRCW and The Dawn Journal was really informational and the sessions was very useful and wonderful. Thank you
Thanks Prabavathi
The session was very informative , we gained more knowledge. These 5 days we have learnt the essential skills that are needed for career development, the speakers have enlightened us with more interesting things. I’m glad to attend such a stupendous session. A special thanks to The Dawn Journal and Department of English SRCW for this wonderful session.
Thank you Jeevitha we are very happy to help you all.
An awesome work. Content was relevant and well presented. Look forward to the next one.
All the sessions were very useful and valuable. I learnt lots of information in these days. I proudly say I am part of this. Thanking you.
Thank you Vigneswari
Good evening,
First of all I would like to thank the organisers for conducting wonderful sessions with great speakers. All the sessions from day one speaker Rajesh Bojan sir to the last session Dr Venkat Reddy sir all where very informative and fruitful. It is useful to us as well as to our students. Special thanks to all the speakers who very patiently answered all the questions. Really, I am very happy to attend this webinar. Thank you very much.
Many thanks Maryanna the great thing about this series of lectures was how you all received it and kept us engaging. We are happy for all the participants.
The sessions were really awesome and useful. I learned a lot from these sessions we need this kind of sessions.
It was purposeful and informative session for about five days.. Thank you so much mam and sir.
Thank you Jayadevi.
Its was useful session and informative one.
Thanks Kanimozhi
Useful and Informative Sessions. It was interesting and worthy webinar serious during this Pandemic time… We have gained lots of information through this programme… Tq for the Organizers…
Thanks Rajkumar we are glad to know this.
All the sessions were very informational.
Thanks Umaa Devi
The sessions were really awesome and useful.
Great to hear that Monali. Thanks.
Very informative for students. I hope it will make a huge impact on all the people who attended.
Thanks Sruthi for the positive remark.
The five day webinar was very useful and interesting…. The presenters speech and their information given was informative and fruitful during this lockdown…. Thank you one and all for this valuable session during these five golden days….. Thank you…
Thank you lots Harshavardini
The sessions were really awesome and useful
Thanks Raghavi
Excellent session
Thanks Ramya
This five day webinar helped me to gain a knowledge about different aspects of communication, new ideas in innovation. Thanks for organising this informative session
The session was very interesting and helped me to learn more about communication, thanks for organising the session
Thanks for the positive remarks Jerlin
Megha
Ramakrishna College of Arts and Science for Women
Very useful sessions and I am happy that I have been part of these eye-opening sessions.
Thank you Megha
It was More Informative & Effective . Gained Much By This 5days Webinar
The session was very informative. Please continue to do many programs like this. I have gained much information from the resource persons. Thank you so much
We are so happy to know this Saeeda thank you.
The sessions were really informative and helped me sharper my knowledge more. Thanks for organizing such valuable sessions. I would be very happy to attend any future sessions that you organise too. Thanks again
Thanks Aisvarya looking forward to your participation.
Very useful sessions. I learned a lot. This seminar helped me improve my knowledge and skills in many ways.
Thank you Joelin we are very happy to know this.
Well organized