Fictive Testimony and Genre Tension: A Study of ‘Functionality of Genre in Manto’s ‘Toba Tek Singh’

Toba Tek Singh by Manto is one of the finest short stories that capture the mood and the anxiety of the partition while still being satirical and ironic. This short story poses problematic questions when it is called a 'fictive testimony'. This article attempts to deal with the problem of genre classification and how this genre category needs to be understood without being completely ignored. A genre label is not seen here as a final verdict about what the text should be or a cage within which a piece of literature is once and for all locked. Rather, it tries to look at the genre label as that which highlights a function of the text thereby reiterating the fact that a work of literature stands beyond the genre categorisation. The label ‘Fictive Testimony’ is therefore interpreted as underlining a function that the short story serves to accomplish – giving voice to the voiceless

An experimental study on the influence of instructional mobile applications in enhancing listening comprehension of rural students in India

IntroductionMobile learning (M-learning) is integral to language education, offering accessibility, portability, and diverse resources. It offers real-life language use with synchronous learning, flexibility, and an opportunity to engage with the global community. It allows learners to practice language skills from anywhere. This study aims to evaluate linguistic instructional mobile applications' effectiveness on listening comprehension among Indian rural students.MethodsPedagogic mobile applications were employed in an experimental study with 149 tertiary-level students from rural colleges in Tamil Nadu, India. Participants were divided into control (n = 75) and experimental (n = 74) groups. Pre and post-tests assessed listening comprehension levels, considering demographic variables. Different types of audio files were used in the intervention to improve the listening skills of the experimental group.ResultsStatistical analyses, including paired t-tests, independent t-tests, and ANOVA, revealed significant improvement in listening skills for the experimental group. Gender, locality, and parental income were considered as significant variables, showing that students from diverse backgrounds benefited from mobile applications.DiscussionThe results indicate that M-learning effectively aids rural students in overcoming language barriers, emphasizing the potential of mobile applications in language education

Movie Reviewing - A Prospective Incidental Learning Approach in English Language Acquisition

In applied linguistics, the practice of incidental learning i.e., learning without conscious purpose of committing the learning instructions to memory, is broadly recommended for effective Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Besides, the advent and applications of new technologies provide immense opportunities to promote and endorse incidental learning in L2 classrooms. In recent interdisciplinary respects, the integration of media studies in tertiary level English language learning curricula is reckoned to be a sensible interdisciplinary approach with potential outcomes. And, observing the long-term consumption of media, it is also quite perceptible that Indian consumerism to cinema and its offshoots is naturally on the rise. With this understanding, this research article explores the areas for English language skills development taking into account of the perks of incidental learning particularly through learners’ regular experience with movie reviews