CHALLENGES AND ADAPTABILITY OF LANGUAGE TEACHERS TOWARDS VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS DURING COVID 19

The outbreak of COVID 19 has locked down entire country and created a crisis situation. It compelled all Educational Institutions to close down. To keep teaching-learning process continuing, massive shift is being observed from physical classrooms to virtual classrooms. Language plays a key role in learning. Hence meaningful language learning is a must. Creating a conducive learning environment to teach languages effectively online, necessitates the use of virtual classroom by Language Teachers. However, it may create various challenges, unless the mindset of the teachers is positive and ready to adapt to new situations. Present study aims to find out challenges faced by the language teachers and their adaptability towards online teaching during COVID pandemic. The researcher used descriptive survey method. The sample of the study included 51 language teachers teaching at college level in the state of Maharashtra. The sampling technique used was snowballing through known contacts. The tool used was questionnaire. Data was analysed through descriptive and inferential statistical techniques such percentage, mean, standard deviation, graphical representation and ‘t’ test. The findings of the study revealed that there is significant difference between the challenges faced by urban and rural language teachers. But no significant difference was found among urban and rural language teachers in adaptability towards virtual classroom teaching. Though teachers tried to adapt to online teaching voluntarily, proper training in the use of e-learning platforms, apt digital tools for language development and development of new skill set are recommended to adapt to the new normal effectively.

On Latin mundus and Sanskrit muṇḍa

Thanks to its variety of meanings, the word mundus had already aroused the interest of classical authors. It is in fact widely attested throughout the history of the language both as an adjective and as a noun.The adjective mundus, -a, -um means primarily ‘propre, d’ où soigné, coquet, élégant’ (DELL, 420), but is it also found used in the rural language when the act of cleaning is involved as is proved by the occurrence in this context of the derived verbs commundō, emundō, and by the expression mundus ager. The definition given to the adjective as mundus quoque appellatur lautus et purus (in Festus, cf. DELL, 420) accounts for this particular meaning because we find expressions describing earth ready for farming as humus subacta et pura ‘earth (which has been) worked and cleaned’. The relevance and wide distribution of this meaning of the adjective in the spoken language is made apparent by the occurrence in the Romance languages of numerous derivatives, such as Italian mondo ‘cleaned, purified’ and mondare ‘to husk, thresh, weed’, or French monder ‘to clean by separating something impure’ and émonder ‘to remove dead branches, to lop a tree’.