Teachers of English
I wholeheartedly echo all those expressing the urgent need for extra training for the teachers of English. But no one seems to be talking about some of the practical obstacles:
1. At first I was horrified by the negative attitude of school authorities to further teacher training but then I understood. A high percentage of those whom schools generously send on special training courses, giving them time off from their school responsibilities to do so, promptly leave to get a better job elsewhere! I have served Bangladesh education for nearly 9 years and have seen many teachers leave . How can schools be expected to support such courses if it is recipe for losing some of their best teachers?
2. Courses put on by individual schools, to which they invite others from other schools, can be treated as opportunities for 'stealing' teachers. The response to such invitations is usually a hollow laugh and "You must be joking!"
3. Some teachers that have been 'properly' trained or re-trained report that, in their first job or on returning to their schools, they are discouraged and even mocked by other staff and so feel under pressure to go back to teaching in the Bad Old Ways. There is such respect by 'junior' for 'senior' teachers in this culture that, unless the training scheme demands a commitment by the head of the school to encourage such staff on their return and stop the older staff behaving badly, it is, in fact, useless.
4. The best option is 'in-service' training but few schools have the time or talent to do it effectively and anyone who could provide a 'pack' of suitable materials for individual schools to use that actually started where working teachers are 'at' would be doing a great service.
While I was teaching up on the border, I was in touch with the district organiser for the English Language Teaching Improvement Project - ELTIP. The organiser told me she could not wait to get back to university to do research. “What in?” I asked. “The impact of teacher training,” she replied, “because I do not think it has any!” It was she who told me that one of the few methods that had any effect, was 'cluster training' the training of teachers in schools near one another because, afterwards, they often kept in touch with one another, encouraging one another and arranging further sessions.
The most effective organisation I have come across, for Dhaka, is BELTA, the Bangladesh English Language Teachers' Organisation, which is run, altruistically and effectively, and its sessions are really helpful to those of us actually in the classroom, rather than telling other people what should be done in the classroom! (I am seriously worried about how many people in 'education' in Bangladesh including in teacher training - have had little or no classroom experience!)
Those wishing to be on the mailing list of BELTA the sessions are free should contact belta04@yahoo.com
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