Major boost for teaching English

Indian trained teachers arrive :

Dharma Sri Abeyratne

The first batch of English teachers who have undergone the ‘Communicative English’ scholarship programme in India returned to the country last week.

This is an initiative of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to arm the younger generation with the knowledge of English and Information Technology (IT) needed to cater to the requirements of the local and international job market.

The batch consisted of 40 English teachers who had been selected under provincial basis. They have undergone a three month crash programme in communicative English at the English and Foreign Language University at Hyderabad.

“These trained English teachers are considered as master teachers and they will be utilised to train other English teachers in Government schools. For that purpose course content and course materials are being prepared by the trained teachers. Finally, the new method goes to the school children who are badly in need of communicative English,” Advisor to the President and the Project Leader, Information Technology and Communication to the Presidential Task Force Sunimal Fernando said.

India is leading when considering communicative English and IT sectors.

Since Sri Lankan youths are lagging behind in the job market as a result of not having a proper knowledge of communicative English the Presidential Task Force considered getting the assistance of the Indian Government. “India was rather keen on assisting us to train our English teachers.”

Therefore India eagerly expressed their desire to offer scholarships to train 40 English teachers each year. In addition, India has taken steps to set up an English Language Centre at Peradeniya aiming to train English teachers.

The lectures will be conducted by Indian lecturers while the latest teaching equipments and methods will be used. All expenses will be borne by the Indian Government including lecturers fees. In that aspect the Indian assistance is highly appreciated, Fernando said.

The group who underwent Indian training represented all communities even though they had been selected on a provincial basis. Two teachers had been selected from each province while three from Western and Central provinces so as to spread the knowledge they gained throughout the country.

“After successfully launching the programme our youth will receive many job opportunities when the highly effective English teaching methods are used. Unlike the previous era we never want to draw back mother tongues. Sinhala and Tamil will remain at their usual places as mother tongues,” Fernando added.

It was a different approach since earlier grammar and writing were focused on by almost all training programmes. Less attention was paid on spoken or communicative English. The ability to speak English will bring job opportunities for our youth.

“We haven’t been given such an opportunity until President Mahinda Rajapaksa showed us the path,” Indrani, an English teacher who has benefitted from the Indian training programme said.

“India uses a realistic way of speaking English unlike we Sri Lankan get used for a long time. We are fortunate enough to learn valuable methods, ways and means which we can definitely use to mould Sri Lankan students. This new Indian approach will definitely help our students to overcome the difficulty in communication in English and it is very important to achieve success especially in the job market,” Dharmaweera, who has been serving as a teacher trainer at the Regional English Support Centre at Warakapola said.