S Usha, a lecturer at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), was dismayed during her visit to several government schools in Tamil Nadu when she realized that most students are under the grip of Xenoglossophobia, the fear of learning English and other foreign languages.
Even Class 6 students of a government school in Sivaganga lacked reading sub-skills such as comprehension and summarising. They were talented and had a solid foundation, but they struggled to do well on a reading comprehension test. She noted that because of their language phobia, students were less confident and believed they would never be able to perform adequately.
The 39-year-old DIET lecturer was determined to dispel the fear factor. She developed a method called semantic mapping that could improve pupils' reading and comprehension abilities.
Semantic maps are maps or webs of words that visually display the meaning-based connections between a word or phrase and a set of related words or concepts. The method allows students to conceptually explore their understanding of a new word by mapping it with other related words or phrases that are similar in meaning to the word chosen.
The idea clicked as in order to map the words, the students had to repeatedly read the paragraph so as to understand the terms. The method being activity-oriented, students were very interested in doing the exercise.
The dedicated teacher who is an English graduate hailing from Sivaganga has won many awards including the Abdul Kalam Award (2020). She also won the National Award for Innovation- 2021-22 by NCERT, Delhi for her technique.