“Experiences about the desired change in students behavior by implementing the guidelines acquired through ETF meetings”.

     

INTRODUCTION:

Maharashtra Government and RAA Aurangabad have taken an initiative of creating English speaking eco_system in school campuse. English is taught in schools for many years. The importance of English language in 21^st century is undeniable and one must know this language. English is a global language.It is a language of commerce and trade. It is a language of higher studies. It is a language of science and technology. The importance of knowing this language has increased two folds. Keeping all this points in mind, if we observe our students and our society, especially Marathi speaking community we find there is a great scope to develop language skills.

ETF MEETINGS:

The ETF meetings have been arranged for the interaction between teachers of English language from secondary schools. The effectiveness of such meetings is  immense. Teachers from different schools come together and discuss on various things that can be useful for conducting classroom activities. The punch line of this is “creating English speaking eco system” which I think is very apt. We live in pure Marathi speaking atmosphere so that we don’t get enough practice to listening and speaking of English language. This is the reason why Marathi speaking people are lagging behind. So that CHESS project came into existence,Creating tremendous opportunities to teachers of English language.

                                       We have taken part in four meetings so far. Each meeting was useful and important.we all teachers from our taluk took part in those meetings very enthusiastically. We aim at creating English speaking eco system in schools. That is why the responsibility upon us is equally important. It is said that the charity begins at home,meaning the desired change should start from yourself. We kept this in mind and discussed various ways so as to students increase intrest in English language. The first thing we learnt was to increase students talk time. for that we discussed on various ways to make students express themselves.

School activities

Increasing intrest in students of speaking English fluently was the main priority of us,the English teachers. We started with English day celebration in schools. Every Saturday students were supposed to take part in this celebration. The school assembly session was arranged in such a way so that students can conduct all the activies like reading new paper,joke sharing,moral story,good thought and prayer in English.At the initial stage they were under tremendous pressure but eventually the pressure was gone. Nowdays  they are very easy at such activities and conduct these things fluently.

We conducted many activites like live English, different language games, story telling, newspaper reading, debate, and many more. at the beginging, students were reluctant but the support they received from their teacher make them feel comfortable.

Teachers role:

Teachers role is very important part of chess project. All English teachers conduct all the activities interestingly.They are well aware that they are the intermediatery in creating English speaking eco system. keeping this in mind we at shirol block thought to get in touch more prequently. We created English teachers whatsapp group at block level. Presently there are 100 members in this group. Many of us are using twitter handle for expressing our views. We also use youtube for sharing videos of our class room activities. We do visit portals like “TED” more prequently where we get chance to listen to many famous personalities throughout the world. We leave no stone unturned for making our students confident and comfortable at English speaking.

FUTURE:

Pdt.Jawaharlal Nehru has rightly said “woods are lovely, dark, and deep but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep”. The success of all educational policies is depend on teachers. The teacher is the only hope in this hopeless world.

I see very bright picture where a boy from rural ,Marathi speaking school is talking with a TV anchor in English very confidently. I with all my English teacher friends will work on this to come in reality.