Teaching and learning of English in the Indian context has always been a daunting and challenging task for the simple reason that English is not the first language in this context. Though there are a few islands of excellence where teachers with the native like competence teach English and students who are exposed to such skillful and resourceful teachers do acquire the English language with ease and comfort. The methodology, approaches, and the skill of the teachers of English in teaching the language has a direct influence on the learning of the language. But when it comes to the other parts of India, in particular, the rural areas, there are not many teachers of English who have got a good command over the language and thereby they fail either to impart the necessary language skills to the learners or also to provide the necessary impetus to the motivation levels of the learners. In such contexts, most of the learners fail to have a good command over the English language. Despite the learners having a fairly good knowledge their subject areas in their mother tongue, they are unable to express themselves in fairly good English.
In order to overcome the above problem of non-availability of good teachers of English and to teach the learners the required language skills, in my view, distance learning for rural students can be designed wherein experienced and skillful teachers can plan the strategies to teach the learners. By employing distance learning for the teaching of English to the rural students and semi-urban students, the advantage of making the best teachers of English available to all will become a reality and it also paves the way for the improvement of the desired language skills in the learners.
Are there any such programmes available to the rural students through distance learning/on-line learning elsewhere. I would appreciate the suggestions from all the experienced teachers who have been teaching English in difficult circumstances. The route to learning English through distance learning for the rural students can also be worked out by us all. Looking forward to the suggestions please.
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The home-schooling community in the USA has an ever-increasing online presence and in some cases, guests are welcome to participate at no cost in online classrooms -- and international student participants are appreciated. One such class is this College Preparatory English class (http://abacus-es.com/eie/online_english.html), which grants full scholarship to a limited number of students. Send an email to the address on the page. I'm sure you will be accepted.
Here is the description:
Taught by the author of SAT Practice: The New Verbal Section, College Preparatory English Usage covers English vocabulary, usage, comprehension, grammar and composition. Please see our English Writing Style and Grammar Resources and Writing Skills Playsheets sections for a taste of class content and style. Course includes online text, extensive resources, personal instructor attention, graded compositions, moderated discussion forums and chatrooms, quizzes, and a certificate upon successful completion.
Best of luck
I am really impressed by this blog,which needs merit in the sense that the issue should be addressed properly.I taught in a rural school and found that students are fairly good in content subjects and in English they are gripped by fear.And this can easily be removed by means of ICT.District HQ should be located along with facilites of ROT IN SOME BLOCKS which may comprise a certain number of village schools with a lead teacher or a Resouce person,who in turn hand in materials and expertise needed for the purpose of communication,logical analysis of rules and procedural knowledge.THE EFLU,RIEBengaluru in India may be called upon to take the lead roles.IGNOU IN India has started a programme to train teachers for this purpose.The links provided by abacus are quite helpful.It is time we gave a thought to ss living in rural areas to achieve our goals ,both global and local.
It is true that a lot of difficulties are there in teaching a foreign language to students coming from background where the parents have not completed their secondary levels. But most of the parents believe that English being a world language has to be studied from an employment perspective. After being in the profession for sixteen years I am now attending a training course through online education. Despite my experience I really want to apply all the new methods to my classes. At this point of my career this is very challenging to me.
THE EFLU,RIEBengaluru in India may be called upon to take the lead roles.IGNOU IN India has started a programme to train teachers for this purpose.
Since I am a rural person myself, I can dig into this matter quite all right, I guess.
If my students have access to the internet at home and at school, I just make a website for helping them practise and improve their English. On one's own website it is up to that individual to include useful (possibly unique) exercises and links to give students further help with their home studies. Their reading English at home and preparing for next day's/week's lesson is the best possible tool to overcome students' problem of 'expressing themselves in fairly good English'. They will feel ever more confident as home preparation / vocabulary work is demanded from them from day one till the end of their studying.
Futhermore, if I were the head of a rural school, I would most certainly look at the website of a potential new teacher recruit into my school. If the answer was 'I'm afraid, I haven't got such site, I just use others' very good sites', my answer would be something like that. 'In a rural school like ours it is crucial for us to be able to make ideas suitable for our students. Show me that you are capable of creating a useful website for ESL students containing your ideas and own tailored tasks for them, and I will be interested in your application for a teaching job here.'
In my view, distance learning starts immediately when the lesson is over and the students are on their own. Therefore all necessary help and extra exrcises should be provided for the students on a clearly designed website aimed specifically at students who may not get any help at home with their ESL studies.
In my view distance learning should only be used if the student already has some knowledge of the subject; when teaching English to a distance learner, they must be able to read the material you sent them. Its hard to teach a new language from a distance.