Good day, Parvathy V.. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia.

OK, so I am Parvati. I am from Kerala basically. But I am working now at KL University, Hyderabad at the Bachapally branch. I joined here almost one year, four months back. This is my first job as a teacher. So my professional journey has been fully in one institute which is Gale University Bachapalli. I teach. Primarily B.Tech students, I teach them communication skills and some soft skills.

And we also train them for the Lingua skill exam, which is affiliated, which is affiliated to the Cambridge University. So we have a dashboard for Lingua skill and also the Empower textbook. So by the end of the first year, all students are required to attempt the Lingua skill test. So our training is partially Lingua skill, preparation for Lingua skill, at the same time covering the basics of.

Other like soft skills also. So yes, that is how my journey has been, my career has been so far.

And I've also taught BCA and MCA students. Again, the same same sort of syllabus is covered there as well. For MC students, it was slightly more advanced. We taught them from scratch to write resume and cover letter so that they can be prepared by the end of their second year. Yes, that is how my journey has been. And these are the courses that I've taught there.

No problem.

OK.

My understanding of digital humanities comes a little bit from my PhD, even though it is not fully related to what I did. My PhD was on querying social media narratives. I looked at the concepts of refusal activisms and everyday life. So I am aware of how digital humanities work in that sense, and we were also taught one or two courses during our research methodology course. In in English and foreign languages university where I did my PhD, so digital humanities.

Please share your understanding and experience working within Digital Humanities.

Essentially the books that and the, the text that you get from the digital world and how it it is a, it's a fairly large sort of like theory in which there are a lot of things including medical digital humanities and other variations of it. So digital humanities primarily for me helps you understand how the digital world works at this point in time. To and how it coincides with the other areas of literature.

And how we have to look from that perspective also when now when we're teaching the students to equip them to understand the, the factors that affect digital humanities. I think in a way, my understanding of it is slightly limited because I have not fully like taken a course or understood it holistically. So this is my take on it. I wish to sort of explore it further in the coming days.

Thank you for your honest response, Professor. Moving on, let us examine your expertise in Commonwealth Literature. Could you elaborate on your understanding and any relevant teaching or research experience in this area?

As I said before, my teaching experience is limited to communication skills as of now, but my subject is literature. I have a background in literature. I did my B and MA in literature. So Commonwealth literature essentially means literature that is written by the Commonwealth countries, countries which were once colonized by the British Empire and later on developed their own literature in English.

Primarily using the tools of maybe English.

Literature but also then inspired by their own culture and understanding of the language. So most Commonwealth literature is surrounded by the the effect that the British Empire had on that particular country and its people. So Commonwealth literature has also is an incredible part of the part of English literature when it comes to understanding the post colonial and colonial impact.

That the the Commonwealth countries had at the point at that point in time.

So yeah.

Understood, Professor. Now, let's discuss English Language Teaching. Can you describe the approaches or methodologies you employ to teach English effectively to a diverse group of learners?

So in the university that I am teaching now, we use a variety of methods to teach in, you know, second language learners, English some when in the beginning of a semester, we start with some bridge courses which help students warm up to the language. So we do some activities and games. So initially our like the starting point is through introducing the language through games or activities starting from. Say word chain or sentence chains.

To figuring out the uses of vocabulary in different situations role play these are some strategies we use to help them understand escape talk which is like the escalator talk so these are some activities that we give them initially so that they understand the basic concepts of the language and they warm up to the language they they are then open to learn a lot about the language so methodologically that is the first thing that we introduce them and then. After the initial classes we also.

Ask them to do some listening activities, some some tests for listening. So mostly it is activity based learning because that keeps their interest for longer period of time and they are then invested in learning about the language more. We do activities like jam sessions, group discussions, mock interviews which are some of which are part of the syllabus. But in from the first semester we start doing activities with them including role play.

Like a lot of preparation. So these are some activities that we engage in. So we also depends on the, as you said, if the students are usually a diverse sect of students and we have to sort of, you know, include all of them in the activity. So there are students who are very reluctant to speak in English initially because of the because of lack of confidence maybe. So at that time it is it is our sort of responsibility to sit with them, talk to them and.

And so they also get an understanding of how to talk when they go for an interview or how to give a speech, how to talk about something without.

Slowly build their confidence using some activities. As I said before, I also ask students to listen to certain like good English, native English speakers podcasts, which keeps their interest longer. Rather than reading. I think they're more more interested to learn English through listening and through videos. So we asked them from the beginning to start listening to say, David Attenborough's. Audios or podcasts, and also BBC English and BBC Radio 4. All of these things we introduce from the first semester itself.

So that they get an understanding on how of how English is spoken and how can, how it can be used in communication. What are the different ways in which you can say, excuse me or you know, in conversation? How do you apply it? We also give them enough time to understand business English using some vocabulary games and vocabulary exercises. And along with the PPTS and the slide decks and all of that, we also have some worksheets in which they're primarily doing reading and listening exercises.

And along so we also do Cambridge Lingua skill exercises. So they have a dashboard in which they do writing and listening tasks. Writing, reading and listening tasks are also speaking tasks. So this helps them understand the concepts from the very beginning since it is introduced sooner in the syllabus.

It seems like you employ a comprehensive and activity-based teaching approach to nurture both confidence and language proficiency among students. Moving forward, let us examine your capability to teach both theory and laboratory courses. Could you elaborate on your experience or methodology in balancing these two aspects?

So theory. Usually we have our classes in the lab, but there are some classes for BC and MCA in which we do employ theory primarily and.

It's since I'm not from the early background and from the literature background I do try to include some.

Syllabus In the syllabus, I do try to include some aspects of literature. So for example, recently we learned about the we I made when I was teaching MCI asked them ask the students to read the poem if and like some short stories which which are easy to read. And from that we had a discussion on how very simple language was used to convey, you know, a lot of depth and understanding of the human psyche.

Umm, so whenever literature is involved, it is a task to get them and uh, you know, to sit, ask them to sit and read it. So there is a major difference in which students deal with theory classes and say classes in language labs. They are more interactive sessions and they prefer interactive sessions more than say theory classes. But if, if the subject is introduced in, in an entertaining way, if they're, if they're given examples from the current, like the movies that they watch and the podcast that they listen to the famous.

Personalities they listen to. So there are some activities in which we give them like word for the day or phrases for the day by, you know, getting them to watch videos by celebrities, maybe English, like celebrities who have English as a second language. And we ask them to find out the meanings of the words that they've used and the phrases they've used. We also asked them to do some like, you know, listen, ask them to listen to some speeches by like great people.

Beginning, we asked him to go through experiment with the other forms like listening and watching videos and all of that. And then later on we introduce grammar and other activities which also provide them with the theory strong theoretical background. So once they understand the process of communication and their confidence enough to speak at least, you know, say a few words to if they're really, really reluctant to speak, at least communicate only in English. Then later on we do introduce grammar classes and other, you know. The sort of like there are some classes in which we talk about stress and time management and other soft skills which help them. So they're two different approaches in both the language lab and theory. So theories might be a lecture based primarily, but at the same time we will have something interesting in form of say videos or any sort of activities. There is always a worksheet at the end of a theory class which helps them sort of remember the things that we discussed in class that it's also very interactive. That is how we have classes and that.

And so then it is, it is even in theory classes, I feel like it is better if it's an interactive session. And when it comes to grammar and other aspects of language, it is difficult to get their attention. But we do maintain like a series. There are certain things that we specifically ask them to do in terms of say phonetics of phonology and like tensors and basic grammar conjunctions. All of that are introduced in theory classes and that helps them understand the concepts of English, but we don't introduce it in the.

My method so to say.

So there are different ways in which we evaluate our students. The one is according to the syllabus, there are two semester exams in semester exams and by the end of the semester there is an end semester exam. Also for us primarily the evaluation is based on MCQS with respect to the syllabus. So in the middle of this semester, we have this in semester exam after they've completed the first part of the coursework and then so it goes on like that. At the same time we have to complete 4 alms which is.

Thank you for elaborating on your strategies, Professor. Next, let's discuss your experience in student evaluation and exam duties. How have you typically managed assessments, grading, and providing constructive feedback?

T based learning methods in the in the in one semester. So that can depend on the particular syllabus that we're dealing with in that semester. So this semester, for example, we have 4 active, 4 alms, 1 is group discussion because we're teaching them group discussion. One is resume writing and we also have like listening comprehension and closed tests. So depending on the syllabus that will also change. Alms are a really good way of understanding the.

Efficiency of a student parallel to that, we also ask them to do activities in say written English and listening and speaking through the Cambridge dashboard. And by the end of the semes, by the end of the year, they'll also write the lingua skill test. So Lingua skill test is very similar to IELTS and other like language tests, global language tests, and it is extremely challenging. So our purpose is to make them prepare, prepare for both of this so so while.

Doing the dashboard and the empower textbook, they learn grammar and basics of writing and speaking and listening from the textbook and they do writing and listening tasks from the Cambridge dashboard so we evaluate the dashboard every week and we get to understand how they. Construct their sentences. We also get to know if they're using AI or any other, you know, artificial methods or plagiarism while writing their, you know, their answers. So once we recognize people who students who do use AI, we ask them to construct.

Differences without the help of AI and then maybe ask to edit using AI. So we try to integrate that as well in our evaluation when we are trying to you know, evaluate dashboards. So there is less theory in in the institute that I'm in right now, we have less theory paper corrections primary primarily it happens through MCQS and LMS based exercises.

We also asked them to do drag and drops and listening. Listening is given importance, especially in the first few semesters.

And so everything is the evaluation is based on the students performance throughout the semester. Internal marks are given, you know, in each of the semester and the alms. So this semester we also have resume, which is video resumes. So they have to take a video of themselves and then upload it, say their qualifications and their achievements and you know, extracurricular activities and then upload it to the LMS we have here. So it gives again, it gives us an understanding of what, how they present themselves.

On camera. So within the span of like 3-4 months, which is 1 semester, we get a holistic idea of the students and their proficiency. And by the end of the year they are also do the lingua skill test. So then we know specifically how their language skills are, specifically speaking. Speaking is the most difficult I feel in linguist skill tests. I had also taken the test in the last year and I got C1 proficiency. So it's very difficult for students to get C1 proficiency in lingua skill, especially speaking. Speaking is the most difficult of it.

So we tried to introduce speaking at from very from the first class. We asked them to speak just to us personally and to their friends. We only answered in English when they talk to us. There is a lot of the students do have a tendency to speak in their mother tongue in their native languages. So our evaluation tries to sort of give them a holistic understanding of the language with enough activities and alms so that they understand how to use.

Language in that way is when we do group discussions especially, it is easy, easy to understand how students approach it because most of them approach it as a debate. So then it becomes difficult for us to handle, for them also to handle their energy. So there is a lot of training that we have to put into asking them to be calm and to not overpower others, to build their listening qualities to understand the point and then react. To the you know, to to others.

So that is how we try to evaluate their sort of proficiency in a way we are able to understand how they speak alone and how they speak in Group, how they do their projects and what sort of language they use to introduce themselves. They also ask them when whenever there is a writing task like e-mail writing or essay writing, we ask them to send it to the instructor as well. So that is a good way of understanding if because in class when you explain it to them in theory class, they will say they will not their head and say.

I understand everything, but when you ask them to write an e-mail, attach a document, it becomes very confusing for them because you're not, they don't know enough about this is they have not had to use it enough. So then it becomes like another task that they have to do. So it is not enough. Theory classes are not enough to understand or assess a student. Evaluation happens when they do it in class, you know, and when we get an understanding of how they perform in class and how they do the activities.

So yeah, this is our evaluation component essentially.

Could you repeat that question? Sorry, the second part I could not hear.

Thank you, Professor. That provided a comprehensive view of your approach to evaluation. Next, let's move to your ability to guide student projects and research. Could you share how you typically mentor students in their academic or research endeavors?

Certainly, Professor. Could you share how you typically mentor students in their academic or research projects?

There is, I have served the experience that I have with research scholars is in when I was doing my PhD and I had to assist some of my faculty to with their with like new topics and things like that. That is that is what my experience is in the institute that I'm teaching now. We don't since I recently got my PhD in.

So as of now I'm not handling any research scholars.

November 2024, I have not been allotted any new fact new research scholars as of yet. So I don't says technically have that experience. I think I should say that.

Thank you for your honesty, Professor. Let us now evaluate your communication skills and structured teaching approach. Could you describe how you plan and deliver a lecture to ensure clarity and engagement?

Sorry to interrupt, we're down to the last 5 minutes.

OK. Could you repeat the question I got this time?

Of course, Professor. Could you describe how you plan and deliver a lecture to ensure it is both clear and engaging for your students?

Yes. So if I'm taking a lecture on say idioms and I want to make the students understand how idioms are used in common English like conversations, I will in. The initial task for me is to prepare a slide deck which is very clear and accurate and is also interesting for students to look at. It will involve videos.

In a common, commonly used idioms which students might not know, For example, once in a blue moon, we have commonly heard it, but we don't know if they know the meaning of it and how to use it. All these things should be understood through the course of that study. So having a primary task would be to have a really good slide deck in which all details are mentioned and at the same time it is interesting to look at. There are some videos. It is all my people.

In which, you know, people who have like people who are popular.

We'll be talking about, say, some phrases which are very common.

These are always interactive. It contains enough like videos and other some exercises which might be useful for the students. So head in the head in the clouds is one other idiom which again which is commonly used now in social media and other platforms. So I regularly use Shashi Tharoor's videos and even Priyanka Chopra's videos which help students to connect with the celebrity so that they will then, you know, fold up whenever they hear an idiom they will have to they.

Want to sort of look into what it means and you know, with the root words and all of that, that is that is an interesting approach. I felt starting the class with vocabulary is a it's a good way of catching students attention and keeping them like interested in the rest of the class. So if we ask them to find out some mediums which are commonly used. Then that is a good starting point for students to sort of figure out how whether they use such idioms in regular conversations.

Or if they've observed others using it. And it is also important to know that when we teach them idioms, they should know that this. It does not depend on the meanings of individual words that are given there, it depends on the total context. Primarily because it might have been used historically in a situation where the actual meaning might have had some.

Relatability to the context that that they were in, for example on the limelight, is 1 very commonly used idiom.

Like people are, you know, they got the limelight or which is not, which at this point we don't have the cultural context for it. But earlier when in on stages during dramas and theater, people had to use line like a particular chemical which was later called.

Activities along with say a good set of PPT and videos so that their interest is maintained is how I would.

Start my lecture.

Interesting approach, Professor. Lastly, as you hold a PhD in Indian and World Literatures and have published in academic journals, could you briefly discuss how your research contributions align with contemporary trends in the field?

My research does actually contribute greatly to the contemporary fields of education because I my thesis, as I said, is on querying social media narratives. I have focused on the literary, I have considered some social media profiles as literary texts and I've evaluated their presence on social media and outside the ground level activism that these profiles and these groups have done. And also it also gives you a, an in-depth analysis.

Of how social media is then now going to evolve into something else and how so, which is why a little bit of digital humanities also comes into the research. So an understanding of the system and the format more so than anything else and how it changes and fluctuates, but at the same time keeps like the use of say Alexa or other digital humanities, sorry, AI tools, which we now use for research and for like regular purposes. So it also delves a little bit into that.

So I think my research is in that way relevant to the society and it also is something that I can study further in the coming future.

The time is now.

I think the timer has stopped. Should I continue?

OK.

I'm so sorry you're breaking off, I'm not able to hear.

Could you repeat the previous like 2 sentences that you said? I think I missed that.

Umm, I think the traditional lecture, umm, system method has some limitations. The most challenging thing I find about the lecture method is that you're not able to retain the students. Students are not able to retain their attention for say 2 hours or one however long the lecture is. And umm, for if you're teaching literature specifically, then maybe umm, A lecture method will help to an extent. Uh, but to TH communication skills and to teach business English it.

Certainly, though I hadn't started asking questions yet. Let me go ahead now: Could you share which teaching environment you find most engaging—whether it’s a traditional lecture-based setting, a seminar-style forum, or another format entirely?

To session in which we include like 50% of the class should be interactive sessions and activities and games so that their interest is maintained because English for them is not a core subject. So for them to be invested in the language and to get to holistic idea of what the language is, how to use it, they they have to find an interest from the activities that they learn. It is also easier to learn when you're given some activities like word chain for example, is one of the first activities that we give them and they. Without even realizing they will find some words.

Which they know, but they might not be aware that I know this word. There was one activity in which we were teaching them synonyms. And so we had a worksheet, a really good worksheet in which synonyms and antonyms were taught. And we are talking, we were teaching them gradable antonyms. So we asked them to find the grades between hot and cold. So when you when you first ask them, they're not able to find any, any grades in between. They're not able to find the degrees in between hot and cold. But later on when you.

When they brainstorm a little bit with a little bit of push, they will find some like maybe lukewarm or tepid and cool frozen, you know, all these things in betweens in between the tasks. So an interesting worksheet is also I feel like it is also good activity for them to have. And again, when we're teaching them language and accent and all of these things to listen to a video of of an exceptional English speaker and then to sort of trace the words, understand what words they've used whether.

Be able to follow what they've, you know what they're saying. All of these exercises help. So I feel like exercises and activities and games should be primarily.

Important along with lecture, along with giving them theory classes, this is also important. So I feel like I if I am teaching a class it will have to be interactive unless it is literature. Even then, literature is best understood through its adaptations as well. Not best, but yeah it requires its adaptations to fully for us to fully understand.

The variations, the multiple readings, interpretations of it. So it has to be interactive. And even though I do like lecture classes, I feel like for the students who are so used to visual culture now, interactive sessions with videos and listening tasks and podcasts, all these would be much more helpful for them to learn and to easily understand the language and literature.

The level and the.

Interesting perspective, Professor. I notice you've emphasized interactive approaches quite a bit. Let’s focus on bridging your research expertise with your teaching philosophy. Your PhD is in Indian and World Literatures from the English and Foreign Languages University. Could you describe one key aspect of your research that you find particularly relevant to classroom teaching? Specifically, how would you adapt it to engage students who view English as a supplementary subject rather than a core discipline?

So one correction that I would like to make is I did my PhD from the Indian and World Literature's department in English and Foreign Languages. University Indian Literature department is an interdisciplinary department and my The title of my thesis is querying social media narratives, refusal activisms and everyday everyday narratives in Kerala. That is the title of my research. My research, therefore is relevant nowadays because.

Time