To improve English teaching
G. MAHADEVAN
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The British Council has expressed interest to run its Project English in the State. If introduced, the project can reshape the way English is handled in schools.
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ENGLISH IN FOCUS: Senior Training Consultant of the British Council Geraldine Greenhalgh leading a workshop on Project English of the Council in Thiruvananthapuram recently. — Photo: S. Gopakumar
Amidst continuing concerns about the significantly wide gap between education and employability in Kerala, the British Council has come forward with an offer to run its ‘Project English’ in the State. This project aims to assist State governments to raise standards of English language teaching in schools. Such an improvement, in turn, is expected to enable students to acquire the sort of language and ‘soft’ skills which would stand them in good stead in the crowded job market.
Workshop held
The British Council had recently organised an exploratory workshop in Thiruvananthapuram to try and sell this idea to officials of the Education Department. The Council has promised to do a ‘needs analysis’ in the State’s schools so that it can custom-design the project to suit Kerala’s requirements.
Not incidentally, Project English also aims to advance the British Council’s global ambition for English, which states that “every teacher and learner of English in the world will have access to the skills, ideas and materials they need from the UK.”
For starters, Project English would not deal directly with students. If and when the project is implemented, it would “cascade” from master trainers to teachers across the state. All that the Council would do is to organise a ‘train the master trainer’ programme as per the requirements specified by the State.
Officials of the Council who were present at the workshop in Thiruvananthapuram repeatedly stressed the point that Project English does in no way imply new textbooks or revised curricula.
Training to teachers
All it means is that teachers would be trained to use the existing textbooks in such a way that there is a qualitative improvement in the teaching and learning of English in Kerala’s schools.
The methodology that would be used for Project English was demonstrated at the workshop by Geraldine Greenhalgh, a senior training consultant with the British Council.
Project English would be:
Learner-centred — the trainees participate in a variety of tasks and interactive sessions which they can, in turn, use to develop the skills of their students.
Demonstration-oriented — the trainer will teach parts of lessons or whole lessons as though the participants were his or her students.
Loop Input — the trainer will introduce a new idea or method in such a way that the participants can adopt the method in their class. Individual participants would then be asked modify the method to suit their local needs.
Brainstorming — participants would be asked to share ideas on student problems, different parts of the syllabus, focus on case studies and real-life classroom situations.
Micro-teaching — the participants would be asked to teach a part of a lesson to their fellow participants.
Foster Learner Independence — the awareness and skills of participants would be raised to a level where they can go ahead and cascade what they learnt to any number of teachers.
Customised
In an interview to The Hindu EducationPlus on the sidelines of the workshop, Ms. Greenhalgh pointed out that no two projects could be the same because each State had differing requirements vis-À-vis learning of English. As far as possible, the trainer who trains the master trainer would use the ‘work situations’ of participants. Role-play exercises, group discussions and team activities would be based on real-life situations, she pointed out.
If Project English does take off — an earlier initiative by the State IT Mission to roll out the Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC) test had bombed due to lukewarm response from colleges and students — it could reshape the way English is handled in the State’s schools.
If the cascade of skills does happen in a manner the Council says it would, a student leaving standard 12 would be armed with something more substantial than a certificate.
For college students
That, anyway, is the long term perspective. What about students who are doing their degree programmes in Colleges today? Would the government ask the Council to give it a college version of Project English where there would be adequate emphasis on shoring up the reading, writing and speaking skills of students?
There are many academics who believe that the government can draw up such a programme independent of any body like the British Council.
Such a programme would be much more effective than attempts to infuse ‘soft skills’ in students in a capsule form during the ‘gap’ between graduation and employment.
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