Teachers turn students, learn better ways to teach English

 In a bid to improve the quality of performance of Class X students in English language in the forthcoming public examinations and also to increase the pass percentage in the same subject, a workshop has been organised for 160 teachers by the School Education Department of the Tamil Nadu government.

The teachers are from government and aided schools from all over Kancheepuram District. The workshop is being held at Sekkizhar Government Higher Secondary School in Kunrathur near Tambaram to motivate the teachers so that they can teach students better and inspire them to excel in English.

Senior teachers of the language in different government schools said they attended a 10-day programme in Tiruchi a few weeks ago. In the programme, they were exposed to modules prepared by Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Regional Institute of English, Bengaluru.

These teacher-resources persons will train English language teachers from all government and aided schools. In the five-day workshop that began last week, teachers handling this subject were drawn from all Panchayat Unions (Development Blocks) of Kancheepuram District.

Many teachers opined that compared to the previous year, the syllabus in English had become more ‘advanced' and so had the pattern of the question paper. Another unanimous opinion among the teachers was students appearing for the class X public examinations should also have ‘aural oral' tests at the school level itself, similar to practical examinations in laboratories for science subjects. Students appearing for class XII examinations are already subject to these tests and twenty marks are allotted for it, the teachers pointed out.

The basic objective behind the workshop was to create a reservoir of skilled teachers and to create an awareness of the trends in English language teaching and teacher training. Other thrust areas include improving the language proficiency of students

According to the resource persons, the pass percentage in English among class X students in the public examinations in 2001 was around 70 per cent. With students all set to appear for an entirely different type of examination based on a new syllabus, it will have to be seen if students were able to adjust to the new method over the conventional one followed for decades.

NCC to hone cadets English skills for easing recruitment

Jaipur: With an aim to make cadets more confident and raising their chances to get recruited in defence services, NCC is now looking to set up 'language labs' in its units.

"We must have language labs where we can give training to cadets on languages particularly English so as to improve their confidence level and making them more capable," DG NCC Lt Gen P S Bhalla told reporters  at NCC complex here.

The NCC's motive is to promote the cadets to join armed forces and a good command over English will surely help them, he said.

"Such labs do exist in some places but these are in schools and colleges and we are sharing with them. The number is around 25-30 but we need to have more than 100 and in next 6-8 month we plan to increase the existing number," he said.

Emphasising on the enrolment of girl cadets, Bhalla said,  current percentage of girl cadets in Rajasthan is only 18 against the national percentage of 25 and NCC plans to increase it to 30-33 per cent in the next 3-4 years.

"It is important for giving equal opportunities for girls and for that we are raising another girls unit in Rajasthan. We will raise three units in the state and one of them will be for girls," he said.

Currently, there are two NCC units for girls in the state including one in Jaipur.

"The new unit could be in Jaipur or Jodhpur depending upon the number of girls," he said.

Bhalla said, NCC will increase its strength to 15 lakh from present 13.4 lakh cadets and improve training structure in next three years.

He said that the NCC has a plan to raise 5 Group HQs and 60 units in the country in five years out of which 1 HQ and 12 units have already raised last year.