The launching of the project came at the most opportune time. From the time of its inception, the Regional College of Education, Mysore was experimenting with a variety of concepts useful for improving teaching and learning process in the classroom. These ideas were getting modified through the experiences gained in each year. As a matter of fact, the recent publication of the paper on the Development of Cognitive Model of Learning by Dave (1972) was the result of collective thinking and continuous experimentation on the subject in the college. The basic work which was necessary for undertaking such a project was ready and available and consequently the opportunity was welcome to the personnel at the college. It will be clearly seen later as the details of the methodology of developing the Bridge Course and planning, designing, executing and testing its effectiveness are reported in the following pages, how step-by-step the suggestions made in the theoretical schema have been followed.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRIDGE COURSE

SELECTION OF PASSAGES
Definitions of skills:The first step taken was to define the five language skills in operational terms. After a considerable discussion among the experts, the following definitions were developed and accepted as a frame of reference for preparing the Bridge Course and conducting the experiment.

What is listening comprehension? (LC)
It is the ability to listen to and comprehend a lecture in Kannada and to answer questions, oral and written, on the lesson comprehended.

What is listening and note making competence? (LNC)
It is the ability to listen to and comprehend a lecture in Kannada; to take down notes of the important points of the lecture; to summarise the content of the lecture; and to answer questions with the help of the notes that have been taken.

What is reading comprehension? (RC)

It is the ability to read a given passage in a specific time and comprehend it; to prepare notes while reading; to answer the questions with the help of the notes within a specified time; and to locate the correct answers for questions in the passage.

What is guided composition? (GC)

It is the ability to develop a passage with the help of the points given in a limited time; to write a passage on a given title on the model of a given passage in a limited time; and to substitute or fill up the gap with a suitable idiom or phrase or word in the given passage in a limited time.

What is epitomizing an English passage into Kannada?(EP)
It is the ability to read and comprehend a given passage in English in a specific time; to prepare a rough translation of that passage into Kannada, and to reduce it into one third of its original length.

The task of collecting different types of materials was entrusted to the Sub-Committee appointed by the Expert Advisory Committee (see Appendix I-B). The definitions stated above and the details of the procedure for the selection of materials were communicated to the members of the Sub-Committee. Accordingly, they scanned and screened a variety of sources for collecting appropriate and suitable materials pertaining to the subjects included in the P.U.C. syllabi for Science, Commerce and Humanities. They were Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Astronomy, Botany, Zoology, Geology, Geography, History, Politics, Logic, Economics, and Literature. In addition to the above subjects were added the materials from the areas of general interest such as Sports, General Education and General Knowledge. The sources from which the initial selection was made were popular magazines of science and literature, textbooks, newspapers, encyclopedias and reference books (see Appendix II). Having gathered a large quantity of language materials, they sorted them out with respect to the five skills. Then, the materials under each skill were examined, and the final selection of 3 to 5 passages per skill was made. These passages were sent to the CIIL for further scrutiny.

It must be admitted that the Institute received only 40 passages with the stipulated time. A preliminary analysis of these distribution into different skills indicated an imbalance in the distribution of passages and, consequently, an appropriate reminder was sent to the concerned members to select passages related to specific skills. In order to facilitate the selection of the right kind of passages, a questionnaire (see Appendix III) was also sent to them along with some college lecturers engaged in teaching through Kannada medium. It must be noted with satisfaction that the experts expedited the matter and, at the final count, 96 passages for the Bridge Course and 8 passages for the pre-test were collected. These passages were again scrutinized by a small expert team at the Institute. Although most of the passages were kept in tact, it was found necessary to modify some, shorten a few and retouch a very small number of them. The final distribution of these passages with reference to skills and subjects is given in Tables 1 &2.

Table 1

Sl. No.	Subject	LC	LNC	RC	GC	EP	Total
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14	Physics Chemistry Biology Astronomy Geology Mathematics History Politics Economics Geography Commerce Philosophy (Logic) Linguistics General	2 3 2 3 - - 1 1 2 - - 1 1 -	4 3 4 2 2 1 4 1 - - 4 - 2 -	5 1 6 2 1 1 1 2 2 - 2 3 1 -	- 2 1 - - - 3 1 1 1 3 - - 3	1 1 1 - 1 - - 2 1 - 2 - - 2	12 10 14 7 4 2 9 7 6 1 11 4 4 5
	Total	16	27	27	15	11	96

Table-2

Grading : In the theoretical discussion as well as in the statement of objectives, it was pointed out that attainment in language learning may also follow some sort of hierarchy. This necessitated the classification and arrangement of the passages according to the decree of difficulty. Thus, it was very important to get independent judgements of experts on the difficulty value of the passages. This was done by using a grade sheet (Appendix IV). Although the preliminary selection by the expert was made keeping in view the average level of attainment in language skills of college entrants, it was felt that further verification should be done to raise the reliability of the initial selection. Therefore, the selected passages were again graded for each skill independently by a team of two members of the Expert Advisory Committee and the other, consisting of two research assistants working specifically on the project, one wit education background and the other with linguistics. The grading was done with reference to three criteria, namely, complexity of language, difficulty of content and length of the passage. A set of ten passages was sent to the expert at a time for grading. Although no rigorous process of computing reliability was followed in determining the agreement or discrepancy between the judgements of these experts, it was found that not more than 20% of the discrepancy between the judges was evident. However, it should be readily conceded that no statistical test was applied for determining reliability. In the event of disagreement, the passages were again scrutinized by an independent language expert at the Central Institute of Indian Languages using he same criteria and his judgement was accepted as a arbitrator's judgement I making the final decision about grading. It should be mentioned here that this grading was done first by dividing the passages into three categories, i.e., having low medium and high difficulty value for each skill. Further the passages within each category under each skill. Further, the passages within each category under each skill were ranked independently, thereby resulting in a rank order of difficulty for all the passages. These passages, 96 in total, divided into different skills, graded properly and then arranged in the order of difficulty, constituted the material for the Bridge Course.