The Rotary Club of Madras North, in association with the English Language Teachers’ Association of India (ELTAI), is all set to offer a free intensive programme in English language teaching for 300 government school teachers. The programme comes in the wake of the revelation that the lack of English skill is the prime reason for the abysmal performance of first year engineering students of Anna University affiliates.
A 30-hour programme for six hours daily that includes listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and linguistic skills such as lexical items and grammar is scheduled in the month of June.
“The strategies learnt in the training will help teachers at primary and secondary levels to impart the subject’s rich content through precise usage of the language — the teaching tool,” said Joseph Raja, president, Rotary Club of Madras North, on Tuesday. Announcing the launch of the programme K Elango, national secretary ELTAI, said that the programme was open not only to English teachers, but also to subject teachers who use English as the medium of instruction. “As subject teachers play a vital role in enabling learners acquire the language skills, an awareness on a different teaching approach becomes imperative for producing better literates,” he said.
The rotary club and ELTAI have planned to extend the programme to other places across TN in the next three months. A certificate will be issued to participants, who in turn can conduct similar programmes with the help of Rotary clubs in different cities for teachers in their regions to cascade the training. The training programme will take place at the Holy Cross Matriculation School, Valasarvakkam for teachers in Chennai region. Admission is on a first-come-first -served basis. Interested government school teachers and headmasters can call: 09444257308.