' 'Teachers should be proficient in English' SASTRA Prof. Said!

TRICHY: How a subject was taught is more important than what was taught, said Prof N Seshadri of SASTRA University. The director of distance education directorate was delivering a special lecture on "teacher effectiveness" on the occasion of National
Education Day at Bharathidasan University on Monday.

 National Education Day is held on the birth anniversary of Abul Kalam Azad, the first education minister of independent India.
Seshadri said that a modern teacher must be multi-lingual and should be an effective communicator in English. "I am teaching in
Tamil for the last four decades, but English is of paramount importance in teaching methods and for learning," the professor
said. Talking to the students through anecdotes, Seshadri said teaching mathematics would keep one above all emotions. Stressing that the teachers should never become emotional, he said mathematics would keep one above emotions, and it would kill only the taught, he said tongue-in-cheek to the gathering which was mostly students from the MEd stream.

Advising future teachers not to argue with spouse, friend and a fool, he said that when one was arguing with a fool, it would be difficult to distinguish as to which of the two was the real fool. Coming to teaching, he said what not to argue was more important than what to argue about in teaching. In other words, a teacher would instantly become a fool if he were to argue with his student, he
reasoned. He asked future teachers to be word perfect and not to lose the vitals in translation. The lecture was followed by the students' presentation on Abul Kalam Azad who laid the foundation for the modern Indian higher education. Later the faculty members,
research scholars and others paid tributes to Azad.