[lg policy] Policy Implications for English Teaching and Learning

[Harold Schiffman]

Policy Implications for English Teaching and Learning

November 28, 2009
Posted by Anooja in English for Progress.


It was a pleasure watching the conference sessions live online
yesterday. I urge those of you who wanted to attend the conference but
could not, to use this facility provided by British Council to watch
it live and even take part in it by adding comments. You comments may
get discussed. I tuned in for some of the sessions. Some- like,
‘building skills for employability’- were gripping as well as
hilarious. Especially the speech by Manish Sabharwal; was it eloquence
epitomized!  Some were eye openers–Policy implications for English
teaching and learning. It was quite informative.

‘Policy implications for English teaching and learning’ dealt a lot
with scenario in schools in different parts of India. I guess good
English teaching and learning in schools will lead to ‘building
employability skills’ in the long run!  This points to the lacuna we
have in India in this area. Isn’t that one of the reasons that makes
‘building employability skills’ a necessity now? I have heard private
school principals lamenting about the difficulty they face in
recruiting good teachers. They have to place the good teachers in high
school so that the 10th grade results are not compromised. So most
often the worst teachers end up in the primary section.

Rod Bolitho, Academic Director of Norwich Institute for Language
Education (NILE), raised many questions which I felt are very
relevant.

Some questions, about the shortage of English teachers in India, are
listed below.

How attractive is teaching as a career in India in general?
What is the reason behind the English graduates choosing fields other
than teaching as profession?
Is there any appropriate formulated initiative in India to raise the
number of English teachers in training?
Has the government decided what the probable number of teachers
required to be trained is in order to meet the demand in, maybe, the
next 10 years?
Are there enough institutions training teachers?
Some others, about the quality of English teachers/education, are below.

What is the minimum qualification for school teachers? Is there any
standardisation of qualification for the primary school teachers
teaching English across India?
In some states the minimum qualification set for the teachers of
English is far lower than the others. So is bad English being
perpetuated through the system?
What type of pre-service training do they undergo?
What kind of training is going on in pre-service level and how practical is it?
Are the pre-service training institutions calibrated completely
against the needs of the teachers?
Are the skills of the teacher educator the skills which are needed to
produce methodologically and linguistically competent teachers?

http://britishcouncilindia.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/policy-implications-for-english-teaching-and-learning/

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