“The EIA Good Morning and Goodbye songs are not only sung in the classroom; they are sung in the countryside in the afternoon, when the cowboys [students] go to fetch the cattle from the field.” Primary Head Teacher, Chokoria Upazila, Chittagong

“These days we do not face problems when teaching rhymes to the children – they love to sing along with the EIA audios.” Assistant Teacher

These interesting stories were shared with other teachers during the teachers’ second English in Action (EIA) cluster meetings, held across Bangladesh in October 2012. These are the experiences of just a few of the 4,500 teachers who began their EIA journey back in June and July this year. Similar stories have been heard during the reflection sessions of all the other 210 second cluster meetings which took place.

The launch of EIA mobile and print materials, through wich communicative teaching techniques are promoted, has made a great impression on both the teachers and students. The mobile phone materials have been well received and highly appreciated by the teachers. Mobile learning (or ‘M-learning’) is very new to the Bangladeshi teachers and students. Even though there have been a few initial problems in adapting to the new devices, already the teachers have seen some positive changes in the classroom in using the EIA approaches.

Some teachers have already reported better rates of student attendance, more interactive classrooms, more enjoyable English classes, quicker learning from students, as well as increased contentment in themselves. They have also had to address large classrooms, time management, cope with new training materials, and charge the battery-ran speakers in places where there is no electricity – these are all very common initial challenges reported by teachers.

Despite these, the faces of the EIA teachers’ are illuminated with new hopes of overcoming the obstacles in order to become successful digital English teachers.

Shahanaj Parvin, Core Trainer, English in Action