Knowledge
Whatsapp is the latest English learning tool of government school teachers
The DEO of the Ranga Reddy district of Telangana has taken to Whatsapp to reach out to 10,400 government school teachers to take away the fear of English language by sending in daily titbits of English along with Telugu translation.
A general tirade against mobile phone users is the deteriorating level of English language due to increasing usage of abbreviations, some official some made up. But in Ranga Reddy district of Telangana this notion is turned on its head by the District Education Officer (DEO) G. Ramesh, who is actually trying to teach English to government school teachers.
Every morning around 6:30 am the inboxes of government school teachers are flooded with innocuous English sentences like ‘Children be regular to school’ or ‘Srinu why did you beat Mallesh’ and ‘Venkatesh, why didn’t come to school yesterday’ followed by their translation in Telugu language.
These messages are part of a new experiment by the DEO to create an English speaking atmosphere and make the teachers comfortable with the usage of these simple sentences if they are to teach English skills to the children in the upcoming academic year. “Since every teacher uses a smart phone and invariably WhatsApp as well, we decided to use it as a tool to prepare the teachers in learning the English through simple sentences and pass onto the students,” Mr. Ramesh said.
All the teachers get a fix quota of 5 sentences along with 5 words and a few proverbs along with their Telugu translation and the context they are used. The teachers are in turn asked to share them with their students in the class.
This initiative is carried out in a massive network of 10,400 government teachers in Ranga Reddy district and they are neatly segregated mandal-wise for easy delivery. It is naturally getting viral as teachers are sharing them with their friends from other districts.
Mr. Ramesh feels that if the teachers were to confidently impart English speaking skills to the students then first their own fear of English needs to be thwarted, especially in case of vernacular educated teachers and students.
“Students fear the very presence of books in English while teachers are reluctant. So learning these few sentences daily using the social media tool will increase our confidence,” says Ms. Jyothi, who teaches Telugu at ZPHS, Uppal. This activity has been planned as a 50-day exercise which, Mr. Ramesh feels should give the teachers a boost in their confidence. It will continue once students come back from the summer vacation as well.