As part of its 50th year celebrations,the Regional Institute of English (RIE) Sector 32,organised a symposium on Two decades of Functional English and its significance for college teachers on Thursday. While discussing the Functional English course curriculum,Sharda Kaushik,director of RIE,spoke about the relevance of the course that has built up a strong knowledge base of the discipline,in this case,electronic and print media. Raghavachariya,HOD Broadcast Journalism at IIMC,Delhi,stressed the need for integration of its different forms including social media that need distinctive writing styles. While emphasising the need to make social media a part of Functional English,he added the new media had an active role to play in journalism now. Also,the panel experts talked of possibilities of expanding the range of functions in the Functional English course. Pushpinder Syal,English professor at PU said,There is a need to evaluate the whole programme. The teachers can conduct a survey on students who pass out and are working,which can be published in the RIE journal. Another panelist,Deepti Gupta from PU,projected the need to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to teach the subject. Also,the need to bridge the gap between theory and practical training,extra workshops and summer training for students was discussed.
