Films of real teachers in real classrooms. © British Council
Multilingual education in practice
This series of three films was developed in response to initial findings from the MultiLila research project which has highlighted the ubiquitous use of multilingual approaches in the classroom. These films aim to enable a wider understanding of both current practice and experiments with using language in different ways in the classroom. The three teachers involved come from very different schools in Hyderabad, India: a low-cost private English medium primary school; a private Waldorf education-inspired school on the outskirts of the city and a government-run primary school with a large tribal population. The teachers show how they are integrating their learners’ languages into their day-to-day teaching. Their lessons illustrate how multilingual approaches can be adopted alongside a target language, with a range of subject content. Several of the ideas and activities demonstrated in the films are also described in the recent publication Using Multilingual Approaches – Moving from Theory to Practice. The film series was funded by the University of Cambridge under the UKRI GCRF Global Impact Acceleration Account 2018-19 award, and the REF Unit of Assessment Fund
Bihar Language Initiative for Secondary Schools
The Bihar Language Initiative for Secondary Schools (BLISS) project, in collaboration with the Department of International Development (DfID) United Kingdom and the Bihar Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad developed a series of Teacher Development films which were launched in July 2015.
Filmed in different locations in Bihar, English teachers teach reading lessons to secondary school learners. They demonstrate a variety of techniques that can be used in diverse contexts such as large classes, low resource classrooms and in classrooms with fixed furniture.
The films can be used as a self-access learning resource for teachers who may not be able to attend face-to-face training and wish to further their professional development and enable their students become more effective readers.
The accompanying workbook is available in the downloads section below.
Tamil Nadu Teacher Education and Development
The Teacher Development films developed as a result of a successful partnership between the British Council, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Government of Tamil Nadu and Unicef to help Standard five Government school English teachers develop their confidence and improve their teaching delivery in the Tamil Nadu Teacher Education and Developement (TN TED) project, initiated in 2009 . The 900 Master Trainers who were trained in 2009 will cascade their training to 120,000 teachers who in turn will impact up to 5 million children across the state.
The accompanying workbook is available in the downloads section below.
English Language Initiative in Primary Schools
English in the Primary Classroom is a teacher training series that shows teachers in Maharashtra using learner-centred techniques, games and activities to teach English. The series has fifteen clips that focus on vocabulary learning, using flashcards, drills, pair work, and developing learners’ speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.
In these clips, you can see teachers and learners doing activities that are based on the vernacular medium My English Book (standards one to four). These activities show how teachers can use and adapt their textbooks in learner-centred ways. The four teachers are working as lower primary teachers in vernacular medium schools (standards 1-4). The clips were filmed in their classrooms with their learners from urban, rural and tribal schools in Maharashtra.
The accompanying workbook is available in the downloads section below.