Short-term Training and Continuous Feedback:A New Approach to Train English Language Teachers.

Abstract

Even though the universities, teacher-training colleges, and other higher education institutions in Sri Lanka produce trained English language teachers annually, they are unable to fulfill the country‟s entire education need. Shortage or absence of trained English language teachers in the primary classes in certain parts of the country affects the language learning processes of students, which could ultimately lead to the collapse of the entire system of education. This paper elaborates an action research which was carried out in Mulaitivu district with the purpose of examining the new ways of producing English language teachers in the rural areas of Vanni Region. Ten villages in Mullaitivu district which have very limited facilities for education were considered, from which fifteen school leavers and four graduates who were awaiting employment were selected. It was confirmed that the selected individuals had an enthusiastic background in education, especially for learning English language, with at least an “S” pass in English language obtained for G.C.E Ordinary Level Examination. The school leavers and the graduates were given one-week residential teacher training which enabled the instructors to teach English language from the alphabet to the level which enables students to produce small sentences in their day today life. The four major language skills were given importance throughout this training programme: listening, speaking, reading and writing. After the training, they were appointed as Centre Coordinators in their respective villages in order to gather and coordinate the school children in those specific areas. Centre Coordinators‟ main responsibilities were to coordinate the school children from their villages and duplicating the language items for the students taught by a master teacher during his or her visit. This research was conducted for two years with two, one and a half hour classes each week. Centre coordinators were payed to be motivated. Each month they were given one-day teacher training which covered classroom management, English language teaching pedagogy etc. and their teaching practice was monitored by the researcher continuously with feedbacks where necessary. To evaluate the validity of the study, qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. A written examination was conducted for the teachers once a month to evaluate their progress. Through participatory observation, questionnaire, and interviews with the trained teachers and their students and parents, the study proved its effectiveness. In this way, all the villages of that region gained trained English language teachers and the students in those areas became enthusiastic in learning English as they had dedicated English teachers in their own villages. Thus, this study recommends this new approach to train English language teachers in the areas where shortage or absence of trained English language teachers is experienced.