Successful communicative English teaching rests on the ability of a teacher to engage students in the class and capture their interest. Simple and easily available materials can be turned to teaching aids which can be used to enhance students’ interest that results in more participation in the class leading to more learning.

Story of Pinky

This is a story of such a teacher, who, through her creative thinking and blending EIA’s training techniques, has made a difference in classroom learning. Pinky Rani Roy from Fhulpur, Mymensingh, goes the extra mile to encourage her students to participate more in the classroom. From her teens, Pinky enjoyed spending time with children; that’s why, she chose to be a teacher. She has now been teaching in Bashati Government Primary school for the last five years.

Pinky attended EIA’s training in 2014. EIA provided a SD card, which is loaded into her mobile phone.  This enables her to see the videos provided by EIA, which demonstrate best practices for communicative language teaching and help her professional development. The SD card also hosts classroom audio materials, like songs and rhymes, linked with Bangladesh’s English for Today textbooks.  These can be used in the classroom with the help of a speaker arranged by respective schools.

New ideas converted into action despite challenges

Pinky’s school couldn’t manage to buy the speaker due to the lack of sufficient funds. But this did not stop Pinky! The unique ideas, which she experiences through EIA’s professional development practices, have led her to make a change in her classroom teaching. Apart from ensuring that students engage and interact in English in the class, she learns the rhymes and songs by herself from her mobile and then practises those with her students in class, so that students can learn the English words relevant to the lesson.

She uses her creative ideas, inspired by EIA, to make lessons easy and fun for her students. She uses toys, like lion, tiger, ball and bag, pencil and tables, and turns them to teaching aids. “I try to use small things to teach a lesson, making it easy for the students to grasp. For example, when teaching lesson on the prepositions ‘In, On, Under’, I use these kinds of toys and place them under the table, or in their bag or on the bench. In this way, I help students understand what ‘In, Under and On’ means, and how they can use it”.

Students are more eager to learn and feel connected with their lessons. Now they not only enjoy the classes, but also learn quickly by relating the content with their own context.

Continued learning, improved teaching

Pinky stresses EIA’s contribution to make her think out of the box. “By watching other teachers practising different activities in the videos, I can continue to learn and explore. I have realized, even the simple things, like using real materials: pictures, flash cards, gestures and postures, play an important role in learning and teaching English.”

Across Bangladesh over 30,000 teachers now practise EIA approaches, which is changing the perception of English lessons for millions of students in over 10,000 schools.