Learning to Teach English

Workshop in Bangladesh helps teachers overcome obstacles

Imagine teaching English to classes of 70 to 80 students at a time, with six or seven different classes each day. Imagine teaching in tiny classrooms where students sit in rows of rough benches, and the only readily available materials are textbooks, a chalkboard, and student notebooks. Finally, imagine trying to do all this when your own command of English is limited.

Those were the conditions faced by many of the 26 Bangladeshi teachers who participated last June in a 10-day professional development course titled “Training of the Teachers of Secondary Schools for Effective Teaching of English as a Foreign Language.” The workshop was led by International Reading Association volunteers Paige Ware of the United States and Ambigapathy Pandian of Malaysia. Also participating were Rizalina Labanda of the Philippines and Jim Wile and Sakil Malik of IRA’s International Development Division.

The workshop, which was hosted by the Dhaka Ahsania Mission of Bangladesh, focused on five key goals:

To develop competence as a language user.

To develop confidence as a language user.

To learn a framework for teaching English.

To learn and adapt a variety of teaching techniques.

To increase motivation for teaching English.

Many of the teachers were well educated, but they varied widely in their command of English. Furthermore, few of them had been exposed to interactive teaching techniques. With this in mind, participants learned the IRA model, a three-phase framework for teaching:

Phase 1: Activating prior knowledge. Techniques in this phase remind learners of what they already know about the topic or central focus of the activity.

Phase 2: Linking new information to prior knowledge. Techniques in this phase guide learners in the process of constructing meaning from new information.

Phase 3: Reflecting on new information and applying it to personal use. Techniques in this phase help learners reflect on what they have learned.

During afternoon sessions, participants worked in small groups to develop a full three-phase lesson plan as a group. By the end of the workshop, participants taught a 15-minute demonstration and received constructive feedback. They also turned in individually planned 45-minute lessons, which were critiqued by the instructors.

Participants showed creativity and a “can do” attitude in coping with limited resources. One workshop participant, Dina, created her own storybook for children to introduce the theme of hobbies. Another teacher, Bilquis, had her daughter help her write 15 copies of a short text to use as a paired reading activity.

All participants left the workshop more confident in their ability to use English effectively to teach English to their students. They also left with an understanding of ways to use interactive teaching methods in the classroom. Here’s what two of them said:

“I developed competence as a language user and developed myself as a confident language user.”—Anima

“What I have learned within these two weeks will open a new event to my professional life.”—Jharna

“One thing I learned from the experience was that we can’t simply give up on these teachers,” said Rizalina Labanda of the Philippines, one of the workshop leaders. “They really need help in the use of English to teach it both as a foreign and second language. Furthermore, we need more volunteers to reach out to our colleagues, most especially in economically developing countries.”

Following up

Project developers recommended that the workshop participants have access to continued professional development opportunities through the Dhaka Ahsania Mission and through ongoing e-mail communication with the course instructors. They also recommended that seven of the teacher participants be prepared to become master trainers who could then instruct other teachers. In this way, the benefits of the workshop can be extended to many more classrooms and students.

Noting that “the participants greatly benefited from the workshop, as they were acquainted with the modern IRA three-phase method of teaching,” Kazi Rafiqul Alam, president and chief executive of the Dhaka Ahsania Mission, said plans are under way to undertake the same kind of training workshop for more participants and to undertake a training course for the development of proficiency in the English language.

The June workshop was funded 60% by IRA and 40% by Dhaka Ahsania Mission. For further information about the project, e-mail Sakil Malik.

This article is based on the final project report prepared by Paige Ware and Ambigapathy Pandian and on an overview prepared by Rizalina Labanda.

Learning to teach English. (February 2006). Reading Today, 23(4), 15.