RAIPUR: Pramod Kumar Shukla, 42, is an educator who created interest in the English language among the tribal students in the Bastar region through an activity-based unique initiative. He first encouraged the student to overcome the fear of speaking in English and empowering them by helping to minimise the anxiety in the classroom.
Shukla convinced the students of the residential schools that there is nothing wrong with nurturing fear of making errors and lagging behind as learners of the English language.
He is the only teacher from Chhattisgarh and from the 366 Eklavya Model Residential School in operation across the country to have been honoured with the President’s award on Teachers’ Day.
Shukla began carrying out various weekly activities after creating an ‘English Club’ of the students.
The teacher, who is into such unique practice since 2011 in Bastar, asked the students from Class 9 to 12, who are hostlers, to bring to the classes the wrappers of various product packets—food items, toiletries, things of daily use, or those used by them in classes.
“I give each student liberty to speak out initially with their own understanding on what is written on the wrapper (that are useless) in English. With these practices, not just the vocabularies are built but the pronunciation of English words too are corrected. Students were encouraged to share or discuss what they grasped with their classmates. The other outcomes were the students gradually evolved much interest in English words, the associated fear with the language and the hesitation to speak out had all gone. The behaviour change towards adopting the English language remains quite explicit among the students”, Shukla said.
Besides the wrappers, he encouraged the participation of students in storytelling in topics or characters that excited them.
The net result is that not a single tribal student failed in English subject in Class 10 during the past decade. “And in Class 12th, over 98% students passed in the subject they once nurtured uneasiness in Bastar district”, he said.
Shukla, who has been associated with the Eklavya School since 2006, got the President’s award for his focus on activity-based, adopting information communication technology in education and innovation in online teaching. A resident of Mahasamund district in Chhattisgarh, Shukla did his Ph.D. from Pt Ravi Shankar university in Raipur.