SSA ENGLISH

English ‘medicine’

By Asha P Nair

14th July 2010 12:37 AM

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  Illustration: Vinod Chayam

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Government schools in the city, ailing from dropouts, have been prescribed a new life-saver: English. The language has suddenly gained high stature in schools with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in the district eyeing its potential to rope in more admissions.
Buoyed by the experience in Alappuzha, where an innovative project to ‘increase the proficiency of teachers and students in English’ reaped gold, the capital city has decided to give it a try. ‘HEART’, which was a project tried out in Alappuzha to enhance the use of English in government schools, was an eye opener to SSA officials. If not the name, the South Urban Resource Centre (URC) of the SSA has already started to imbibe the essence of the project and implement it in schools under its purview in the city.
Last week, more than 230 teachers in the district from more than 50 schools were given a three-day training in building confidence for using and teaching English. New-age teaching materials and multimedia modules were employed to impart training, which was done by consultants for SSA in English teaching from Bangalore.
‘‘Use of English in classrooms must be improved and the project, precisely, aims to do that. To begin with, teachers from 12 schools were given training, a tryout was held in those schools, now it’s up to them to share the experiences with teachers from other schools. Students would naturally fall in line,’’ said Noble, South URC Programme Officer.
According to officials, students in government schools are yet to shed their reluctance in using English. They might write and read, but speaking and using it like a second language is still a distant dream, teachers agree.
The training was given to lower and upper primary teachers employing two different methods. Feedbacks  are being collected from teachers presently.
‘‘Knowing English is not enough, teachers must be confident to use it in classrooms to efficiently interact with students. We have given them various teaching materials which is aimed to do that,’’ said Anitha, URC Trainer for UP teachers.
LP and UP schools, including government UPS Karumom, Model HSS Thycaud, Cotton Hill GHSS, Muttathara UPS,  Manacaud TTI, GHS Kulasekharam, GLPS Koliakode, GUPS Chalai and GHS Vazhamuttom, have been included in the first phase of the project. Teachers from these schools have already begun working on the teaching modules they have been given.
In the next stage, children would be urged to use English in classroom interactions and then to come up with creative writings in English. School magazines in English would be more promoted and competitions to test the proficiency in the language would be organized.
asha.nair@expressbuzz.com