Md. M A H B U B U L Alam (original) (raw)

Papers by Md. M A H B U B U L Alam

The present study is an investigation of the advertisements of Kool shaving foam/cream to find ou... more The present study is an investigation of the advertisements of Kool shaving foam/cream to find out the masculine biases and discourses by analyzing the speeches, linguistic and literary devices, character portrayal and physical setting of the advertisements. Three advertisements of Kool shaving cream, which are retrieved from the YouTube, are taken as samples in this research. Qualitative approach has been adopted to interpret the data. For the findings, analysis and discussion critical discourse analysis (CDA) based on Fairclough"s three-dimension approach is applied. The analysis reveals that while circulating and advertising of Kool shaving foam/cream the advertisers have concurrently disseminated patriarchal ideologies and masculine discourses that have long been being lived out in our society as discursive practices. It is also found that at the end of each sample advertisement it is the veneration of masculinity, not the circulation of the product, which is significantly highlighted. The research carries significance for the academia of media studies, gender studies and other related fields.

Code-switching has become almost an inevitable occurrence during linguistic communications among ... more Code-switching has become almost an inevitable occurrence during linguistic communications among the bilingual speakers. Most notably, the imposing push of social media has made the individual make strong and easy collaboration with the global communities which has offered ample scopes of being bilingual and using more than one language and thus occurring code-switching in both verbal and written communications. The present study critically deals with the occurrence of code-switching between Bangla and English in the advertisements in Facebook. Also, it shows comprehensive details of code-switching, its types, causes and functions. The study reveals that there is massive incidence of switching between Bangla and English languages in the appealing texts of advertisements available in Facebook.

Academia Letters, 2021

Chinua Achebe presents an all-encompassing and meticulous depiction of the pre-colonial Igbo soci... more Chinua Achebe presents an all-encompassing and meticulous depiction of the pre-colonial Igbo society in Things Fall Apart. One major purpose of his writing the novel is writing back to the Europeans or the colonizers who have long misrepresented Africa through their fabricated stories about Africa's long-practiced traditions and cultures. Fakrul Alam (2011) shares the same opinion: "One of Chinua Achebe's goals in writing Things Fall Apart was to correct a whole history of misrepresentations of his people and country in occidental discourse" (p. 5). Achebe objectively depicts various social issues of Igboland in the novel. This paper will shortly review how the Igbo's social harmony unity is shown authentically in Things Fall Apart. Community and culture are interwoven. Ngugi wa Thiong'o (2004) shows how culture evolves through communal harmony-In doing similar kinds of things and actions over and over again under similar circumstances, similar even in their mutability, certain patterns, moves, rhythms, habits, attitudes, experiences and knowledge emerge. Those experiences are handed over to the next generation and become the inherited basis for their further actions on nature and on themselves. There is a gradual accumulation of values which in time become almost self-evident truths governing their conception of what is right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, courageous and cowardly, generous and mean in their internal and external relations. Over a time this becomes a way of life distinguishable from other ways of life. They develop a distinctive culture and history. (p. 1133, 1134) When Europe came in contact with Africa in the middle of the fifteenth century, African societies were tribal and feudal. Those societies were yet to be acquainted with the sense of self-ownership and capitalism since they were self-independent. The tribes were guided by

Research article, 2021

This quantitative study deals with the tertiary level learners' perceptions of learning English t... more This quantitative study deals with the tertiary level learners' perceptions of learning English through online classroom in Bangladesh. The purpose of this study is to determine tertiary level learners' perception towards learning English through online classroom. During these Corona pandemic days, the young under graduate learners are participating in online classes using different virtual platforms. While carrying out their academic courses they need to capture the content in English that is the preferred language of instruction used by the teachers. So, in this new teaching environment how far they can learn the English language is a question. To determine their perception a questionnaire on Google form consisting of 11 questions using the 5-Point Likert Scale was maintained to get the data and was employed on 71 undergraduate students from a public university situated in the sub urban area of Bangladesh. The findings of the research expressed the learners' mixed perceptions regarding various statements of the questionnaire. For example: learners preferred the teachers' use of both Bangla and English in the class, teachers' use of images and videos in the class to better understand the English language. Again, learners possessed negative approach towards developing speaking, reading and writing skills through online class, though they were highly positive in achieving the listening skill. This paper possesses good research significance since the findings will be pedagogically imperative to creating a favourable online classroom during the Corona Pandemic.

Paulo Freire in his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed rigorously condemns banking model of e... more Paulo Freire in his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed rigorously condemns banking model of education, which implies the learners' receiving knowledge passively as empty vessels from the teacher , who is supposed to be store-house of knowledge, in the traditional teacher-centered classroom. This article presents relationships of banking education with some other learning theories, i.e., tabula rasa and nativist theory, Derrida's logocentrism, CLT and post-method pedagogy, and lastly it explains the socio-cultural root of banking education and, therefore, the difficulty of replacing it by other pedagogical innovations.

Literature is a productive and viable medium in the language classroom. The English for Today tex... more Literature is a productive and viable medium in the language classroom. The English for Today textbooks at the secondary and higher secondary levels of education in Bangladesh have significant number of literary works for being used for achieving linguistic skills. But unfortunately, things in the real ELT classroom are utterly frustrating. Both teachers and students try to avoid the literary contents included in the textbooks. Thus, both of them are being deprived of the pleasure and possibility of exploiting literature for acquiring language skills. Again, most of the researches carried out in this field in our context have avoided this issue and have gone through the possibility of using literature in ELT class, not considering the practicality. This study has shed light on the practical ELT field and tried to find out the causes of avoiding the literary contents included in the textbooks and suggest the language policy planners of Bangladesh in this respect. Introduction In the English language classroom English for Today is the much used coursebook prescribed for the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels of education in Bangladesh. This text is continuously modified to suit the current realities in respect of both national and global concerns in the arena of the English language. The government of the Peoples' Republic of Bangladesh has appointed an efficient body of ELT experts for the development of curriculum, syllabus and textbooks. No doubt, the experts have tried their best to make English for Today suited to and useful for the English language learners in Bangladesh considering their (learners') needs, level of proficiency, socio-cultural contexts etc. The English for Today textbooks at the secondary and higher secondary levels of education include some literary contents for developing various language skills. Literature is a feasible medium of developing language skills. It can help both the teachers and the learners enhance their linguistic competence. It can be utilized to attain all the linguistic skills since it provides the learners with the scope of authentic materials-a significant requirement of the much talked about and widely used the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach. Sadly, the present classroom scenario reveals that both teachers and students do not take the literary contents in English for Today seriously. They rather try to avoid them. The present study will deal with these issues and discuss the reasons behind avoiding the literature part.

This paper attempts to expose the stereotyped images of women presented by the Facebook users in ... more This paper attempts to expose the stereotyped images of women presented by the Facebook users in their statuses. It shows how their statuses, in the form of jokes, actually render stereotyped pictures of women in our society. Secondly, it tries to point out what are the socio-cultural effects of gender stereotypes occurred in Facebook. For fulfilling the purpose of the research, 183 samples of Facebook humors were collected. Later, they were interpreted and analyzed thematically to search for their having relevance with the traits of gender stereotypes. Qualitative research approach was used for data analysis. The result shows that the samples collected from Facebook contain ample evidences of the presentation of women as stereotyped beings. The study bears the significance that the result found through it will contribute positively to further studies in social science in relation to the interaction between gender ideology and social media.

Since the English language is now on the peak of her dominance all over the world, we, the Englis... more Since the English language is now on the peak of her dominance all over the world, we, the English language teachers, though using English as the Second Language, are supposed to ensure our learners’ error-free performance in English as much as possible. The present study critically deals with error analysis of some cadets in their English written scripts, in the subjects of the non-English departments only. The investigation into the cadets’ errors shows that they possess still bounty of limitations in mastering the English language. In this research, the errors, most of them being linguistic and some being non-linguistic, have been analyzed. Finally, this paper tries to persuade the readers why the findings are pedagogically momentous.

This article attempts to study Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart from the perspectives put ... more This article attempts to study Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart from the perspectives put forward in Aime Cesaire's anti-colonial text Discourse on Colonialism. For this purpose various thematic key-issues found in Discourse on Colonialism are studied first. These thematic key-issues include old African societies, representation, colonial effects, colonial Christianity, decolonization, flaws of civilization etc. In the text Aime Cesaire has strongly dealt with these issues. Then, in this paper each of these issues is thoroughly attempted on the basis of their having treated in Things Fall Apart. Finally, this paper shows that Things Fall Apart can well be analyzed by considering all the thematic concerns voiced by Cesaire. Abstract-This article attempts to study Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart from the perspectives put forward in Aime Cesaire's anti-colonial text Discourse on Colonialism. For this purpose various thematic key-issues found in Discourse on Colonialism are studied first. These thematic key-issues include old African societies, representation, colonial effects, colonial Christianity, decolonization, flaws of civilization etc. In the text Aime Cesaire has strongly dealt with these issues. Then, in this paper each of these issues is thoroughly attempted on the basis of their having treated in Things Fall Apart. Finally, this paper shows that Things Fall Apart can well be analyzed by considering all the thematic concerns voiced by Cesaire.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been innovated in the secondary (and the higher seconda... more Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been innovated in the secondary (and the higher secondary) level of education in Bangladesh by drastically devaluing the principles of the long-practiced traditional Grammar Translation Method (GTM). The present study was carried out on some rural secondary high school teachers in Bangladesh about comparative acceptability of GTM and CLT in respects of achieving four skills, accuracy/ fluency, translating activity, group/pair works, and classroom language. The result of the study reflected their mixed attitude to GTM and CLT, though all of them put emphasis on language learning through translating activity in group/pair works. Their tendency and claims were in favor of the multi-syllabus. On the basis of the data findings this paper also presents some suggestions for appropriate methodology in ELT in Bangladesh. Abstract-Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been innovated in the secondary (and the higher secondary) level of education in Bangladesh by drastically devaluing the principles of the long-practiced traditional Grammar Translation Method (GTM). The present study was carried out on some rural secondary high school teachers in Bangladesh about comparative acceptability of GTM and CLT in respects of achieving four skills, accuracy/ fluency, translating activity, group/pair works, and classroom language. The result of the study reflected their mixed attitude to GTM and CLT, though all of them put emphasis on language learning through translating activity in group/pair works. Their tendency and claims were in favor of the multi-syllabus. On the basis of the data findings this paper also presents some suggestions for appropriate methodology in ELT in Bangladesh.

The place of a coursebook in an EFL classroom is of ample academic significance and worth. Englis... more The place of a coursebook in an EFL classroom is of ample academic significance and worth. English for Today is the common title of the English coursebook prescribed for primary, secondary and higher secondary levels of education in Bangladesh. This coursebook is the harbinger of Communicative Language Teaching. The present study analytically sheds light on the practicality and unattainability of this coursbook prescribed for the higher secondary level based on the only the criteria like-language skills, learners' activities, inclusion of literary and stimulating contents and cultural representation. This paper shows, how the criteria are dealt with in the textbook and to what extent they maintain close proximity with the academic reality of our ==================================================================== Language in India www.languageinindia.com

English teachers are struggling with multiple challenges in dealing with English for Today (EFT),... more English teachers are struggling with multiple challenges in dealing with English for Today (EFT), the nationally prescribed English course book recommended for the learners of the secondary and the higher secondary levels in Bangladesh. Though the course book is written by a group of venerable scholars, the teacher confronts challenges coming from diverse angles. The English for Today textbook is designed in line with the key concepts of CLT, the representative of western pedagogy-rarely applicable to the eastern academia. Inductive presentation of grammar and other linguistic contents, suggesting too much classroom activities, not having direct relation with the national testing system etc. are responsible for creating a huge crack among teachers, textbook and learners. Besides, lack of properly trained and skilled teachers is a burning issue in English language pedagogy now. Grammar-Translation Method (GTM) was the learning method of most of the English teachers to whom the activities, instructions and teaching contents in the EFT are mostly alien, because GTM is no longer practiced now. Though in the EFT text there is renovation of replacing foreign cultural contents with that of local ones, even the teachers are not being able to cope up with it. As a result, the EFT is still alienated from both teachers and learners. The present study will critically point out why the course book English for Today is still an alien; sometimes object of fear, to both teachers and learners. It will also shed light on some recommendations to minimize the EFT's gap with the teachers and learners.

Chinua Achebe's magnum opus Things Fall Apart reflects authentic presentation of the Igbo society... more Chinua Achebe's magnum opus Things Fall Apart reflects authentic presentation of the Igbo society. Various social, political, economic, religious, psychological and personal issues of the Igbo people have been put forward by the author in this ethnographic novel. Achebe has depicted these issues from the perspective of both an observer and a critic. The ethnographic depiction of the Igbo life indicates that Chinua Achebe has tried to maintain his objective stance in the novel. He is not biased at all. It is evident in his contrastive presentation of the culture and beliefs of the Igbo; in one hand, he presents the constructive and rational side of the Igbo, on the other hand, he highlights their follies and irrational beliefs too. Achebe as an original Igbo expectedly presents the riches and potentialities of the Igbo society. But at the same time he is not uncritical of the limitations of his society where he belongs to. The present study has dealt with Achebe's audacious attempt to present the limitations and follies of Igbo life in Things Fall Apart. Abstract-Chinua Achebe's magnum opus Things Fall Apart reflects authentic presentation of the Igbo society. Various social, political, economic, religious, psychological and personal issues of the Igbo people have been put forward by the author in this ethnographic novel. Achebe has depicted these issues from the perspective of both an observer and a critic. The ethnographic depiction of the Igbo life indicates that Chinua Achebe has tried to maintain his objective stance in the novel. He is not biased at all. It is evident in his contrastive presentation of the culture and beliefs of the Igbo; in one hand, he presents the constructive and rational side of the Igbo, on the other hand, he highlights their follies and irrational beliefs too. Achebe as an original Igbo expectedly presents the riches and potentialities of the Igbo society. But at the same time he is not uncritical of the limitations of his society where he belongs to. The present study has dealt with Achebe's audacious attempt to present the limitations and follies of Igbo life in Things Fall Apart.

Language performance of human beings is inseparably related to their brain. There are some specif... more Language performance of human beings is inseparably related to their brain. There are some specific areas in the brain that are responsible for language understanding, organizing and producing. Broca's area and Wernicke's area are two such types of crucial areas of the brain which are, if affected or injured, responsible for linguistic problems, respectively known as Broca's Aphasia and Wernicke's Aphasia. Aphasia is a disorder of communication that impairs a person's ability to use and comprehend language. Broca's Aphasia is recognizable when the person affected has a difficulty in speech production, writing and finding specific words. A patient of Wernicke's aphasia may produce normal speeches but they are nearly nonsensical and irrelevant. His/her difficulty is in comprehending others' messages. The present study has investigated the linguistic behavior of some patients of Broca's Aphasia and Wernicke's Aphasia in Bangladesh and shows proximity of the empirical findings with the theoretical claims. Abstract-Language performance of human beings is inseparably related to their brain. There are some specific areas in the brain that are responsible for language understanding, organizing and producing. Broca's area and Wernicke's area are two such types of crucial areas of the brain which are, if affected or injured, responsible for linguistic problems, respectively known as Broca's Aphasia and Wernicke's Aphasia. Aphasia is a disorder of communication that impairs a person's ability to use and comprehend language. Broca's Aphasia is recognizable when the person affected has a difficulty in speech production, writing and finding specific words. A patient of Wernicke's aphasia may produce normal speeches but they are nearly nonsensical and irrelevant. His/her difficulty is in comprehending others' messages. The present study has investigated the linguistic behavior of some patients of Broca's Aphasia and Wernicke's Aphasia in Bangladesh and shows proximity of the empirical findings with the theoretical claims.

Various factors lead Achebe to write Things Fall Apart, which has acquired the status of a classi... more Various factors lead Achebe to write Things Fall Apart, which has acquired the status of a classic; among them, the most noteworthy one is his indignation at European representations of Africans in fiction. One such European representation of Africans in fiction was Joyce Cary's novel Mr. Johnson which depicts exterior picture of Africa. Hence, Things Fall Apart is a counter discourse and the project Achebe adopts in it explains his position based on the interiority of original local contexts. Achebe has declared that he wrote Things Fall Apart "in order to reassert African identity and as part of the growth of Nigerian nationalism" (O'Reilly 2001: p. 61). The present study intends to analyze Things Fall Apart from the perspective of the various issues of a postcolonial text.

In Untouchable the writer presents the character of Bakha as vulnerable to collapse due to the pr... more In Untouchable the writer presents the character of Bakha as vulnerable to collapse due to the practice of the tyrannical ideology of the chauvinistic society where he by no means can cope up with the surroundings, especially with the people who belong to the higher strata. Bakha's life is accursed caused by the unavoidable conflict between the individual and the society. Society as an oppressive weapon always looks down upon him and constantly reminds him of his lowest origin that results in his complete alienation and identity crisis. Thus Bakha becomes a nonhuman and stranger to the society, family and even to himself. This paper attempts to analyze the character of Bakha in terms of the facts behind the conflict between individual and society.

Learners' learning style preference is one of the vital issues in the EFL (English as a Foreign L... more Learners' learning style preference is one of the vital issues in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) arena. Different learners learn English differently. But there must be a close proximity between the teachers'preferred teaching style and the learners' favored learning style. The present study was done on 145 senior cadets of Sylhet Cadet College. The situation of English in cadets is no doubt good. But there are still some teaching systems that must be reconsidered and therefore renovated teaching styles based on cadets' style preference should be introduced. To conduct the survey a questionnaire was followed. The findings show that various cadets belong to various categories of learning style. A brief analysis of the findings is presented. Besides, this paper offers some suggestions for the teachers based on the findings of the survey.

Academia Letters, 2021

Research article, 2021