We have worked with secondary school English subject teachers in Delhi, Chennai, Punjab, Bihar and Maharashtra. Our projects are run in partnership with state governments and range in length from three to five years. The key focus of these projects is to improve teachers' English language and classroom skills to enable them to more confidently teach their classes using more learner centred and communication focused methodology. To enable these projects to reach large numbers of teachers, we work with our state partners to identify and train groups of teacher educators who then take responsibility for delivering direct training to teachers at the district level.
Our interventions include a focus on developing the awareness, knowledge and skills of key stakeholder groups whose engagement will facilitate large scale change: government administrators, head teachers, teacher educators, teachers, parents and learners. We aim to provide access to a variety of opportunities and resources for the continuing professional development of all stakeholders working within the education system.
We advocate a shift in focus away from face-to-face training and onto individuals taking responsibility for their own development needs, using the face-to-face training as a catalyst for this change. In conjunction with our partners, we experiment with different training models and channels of distribution for resources and information to find the best fit for each context.
Our secondary level projects are aligned to the curriculum and textbooks in use within the state. We conduct detailed needs analysis studies at the outset and ensure ongoing planning and consultation with our partners through steering committee and academic team meetings.
We follow an outcomes-based approach to our project design, initially identifying the expected changes in knowledge and skills for all relevant stakeholders and reviewing these during project delivery. We monitor and evaluate our projects against these anticipated outcomes, identified indicators and targets. Our overall goal is to create sustainable, long term impact, improving the teaching and learning of English in all secondary classrooms.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we pivoted our delivery online and have developed resources to enable teachers make a smooth transition to online and remote teaching.
