Courses at Language Proficiency Center :

Course Objectives

The objectives of the course are:

• To help trainees develop their own English through interactive uses of English.
• To expose trainees to new teaching techniques, ideas and materials especially to the concept of communicative language teaching.
• To develop trainees’ better understanding of the history, society and culture of American people.
• To give teachers greater exposures and access to a wide variety of language teaching resources and ideas, specially through American English and literary works.

Training Methodology and contents

The training course is designed following a task-based approach. In each session, the participants attend trainer-led workshops, discussions and actively contributing to the development of the understanding of a language use or a teaching learning issue. It is expected that only the experienced and well-qualified teacher trainers will be conducting the training sessions that will be able to play the role of facilitators of the participants’ active learning process. The training course is designed with a special focus on encouraging collaborative learning practices among the participants. The course also puts emphasis on promoting the reflective practices of the participating teachers by enhancing their critical thinking abilities. Teachers will have scopes of observing each other in the micro-teaching phases, sharing feed back, have debates and complete projects to augment their professional development. Other than the pedagogic and methodological aspects of teacher development, the course makes room for developing teachers’ own English by engaging them in lots of interesting and meaningful language practise activities. The component on American Society and Culture also provides the trainees with opportunities for language practices through reading texts, taking part in quiz and watching movies.

Principles of teacher development

The curriculum and syllabus document is based on an approach to teacher training which is based on the following underlying principles:

• The course contents and materials are limited to ideas and techniques that the secondary Madrasah teachers of Bangladesh can apply to their own teaching context.
• All new ideas and techniques are presented explicitly. Wherever possible, the new techniques will be demonstrated and teachers will be given chances of experiencing them directly both within the training room and in their own context.
• The course is committed to a conceptualization of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) that is embedded in the broader context of teaching English in Bangladesh. However, CLT needs to be understood in terms of the educational environment in which it is required, and is not simply a set of trainable skills. For this reason the Training Course should encourage trainee’s direct access/involvement to their actual training environment.
• The target trainees are neither native speaker of English, nor proficient users of English; and this limit their ability to adopt new teaching techniques. An important element in the course is therefore ‘language improvement’. So, the course has separate modules on General English and Classroom English proficiency.
• The adoption of new teaching methods depends on teachers’ developing new insights and attitudes. So the course is concerned not only with practical training but also with teacher education. The teacher education is mainly carried out through the reading and discussions, reflective practices such as critical thinking. The teachers are also educated through the activities which ask them to demonstrate/evaluate certain teaching techniques/ideas.
• The target group of trainees may not find it interesting or convincing to have talks in applied linguistic theory. However, an understanding of such theoretical issues usually have well-developed insights into teaching and learning. Although the ideas and techniques presented throughout the course have their roots in applied linguistic theory and research, they are presented and explained in terms of common sense and day to day teaching practices.
• The success of a training course depends on the extent to which teachers accepts new ideas as ‘their own’. This is more likely to happen if the teaches are allowed to try out new techniques in the relative freedom and privacy of their own class. For this reason each unit of the course aims to lead teachers towards actual practice, through a series of tasks and activities-such a demonstration and practice teaching.

Course format

The course runs for 24 weeks. There will be 3 sessions for each batch in a week. Each session is of 2 hours duration. Therefore, the trainees will have a total of 144 hours (24 x 3 x 2 =144) hours of contact hours during the training course.

The course contains the following modules at LPC:

Moreover, there is ten hours of debating sessions. A module-wise description of the course is given below. Another ten hours will be spent on assessing the trainees during various stages of the course.

A module-wise description of the course

Module LPCTT01: General English (36 hours)

This module focuses on developing the Basic English language skills of the participants. The module is organized with a view to develop the grammatical as well as functional understanding of English so that the participants can use English in everyday situations such as at the supermarket or at he railway sation. The course is designed in a way that the participants can develop their fluency, as well as, accuracy in English. Therefore, maximum participation of the learners in using the language during the sessions is emphasized.

Module LPCTT02: English for the Classroom (12 hours)

This module also aims at developing the English language skills but with specific focus on classroom English. English teachers at Madrasahs need to be proficient in English as they are expected to use English for giving instructions, setting tasks, explaining things, taking feedback, correcting students and so on. This module is based on a compilation of the specific classroom English needed by teachers while teaching a lesson.

Module LPCTT03: Ideas for Better Teaching (40 hour)

This 40 hour module has the aim of developing participants’ awareness of the basic issues related to teaching English. However, the module does not contain much scholarly discussions on pedagogy or language teaching methodology. It, rather, has simplified discussions of the pedagogic practices relevant to the target teachers in their own teaching contexts. The discussions of pedagogic ideas have been kept to a minimum. Only key ideas have been simplified, and summarized with references to the actual classroom needs of the participating teachers. The issues will not only be discussed, but also be followed up by demonstrations of teaching by the trainers themselves.

Module LPCTT04: American Society and Culture (36 hours)

This module is intended to develop trainees understanding of the life, people and society of America. It includes texts, video clips and movies on the great American personalities, events, holidays, celebrations and work of literature. In addition to orienting the trainees on American society and culture the module the trainees develop their English too.

Assessment of trainees

The trainees will be assesses three time during the course through a combination of testing and assessment devices. There will be pre test at the beginning of the course to serve the purpose of needs assessment. On the halfway mark of the course the trainees will have to face a mid-term test. This will be written tests on trainees’ English language skills. Finally, there will be final assessment which will be conducted in the forms of group presentation, micro teaching and written tests.