Before students, govt teachers to receive English training

CHENNAI: More than 1.2 lakh teachers working in government and government aided schools would receive spoken English training starting from December 5.

As part of the Tamil Nadu government’s English skill training programme for students, hundreds of resource persons have been appointed to give English coaching to teachers, who would in turn train more than 40 lakh students studying in Classes 1 to 8 in the State-run schools.

The first batch of training would be provided for primary school teachers on December 5. Similarly, middle school teachers would receive training from December 16. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has been appointed as a nodal agency to give spoken English training to the teachers, an official said.

Stating that an expert resource person would provide in-depth knowledge to the teachers to explore the subject and learn based on the real-time examples, the official said the whole initiative is expected to improve the communication skills of the government school students over the next couple of years. “The training session will also cover personality development, written, verbal and non-verbal communication skills,” he said.

He said once the training session was completed, the teachers would train the students with the help of guides and handbooks. “The videos to ease teaching will also be uploaded in Education Management Information System, a teachers’ platform. In addition, the video of training session will also be aired through Kalvi Tholaikatchi, a 24-hour exclusive education channel run by the government,” the official said.

The State government had recently announced that it would offer spoken English training to students of Classes 1 to 8 as part of the curriculum. Following the announcement, School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan also recently launched class-wise kits for English learning.