‘Focus on communication skills’

[sajiv]

'Focus on communication skills'

Udhagamandalam: The growing tendency among parents, including those belonging to the lower strata of society, to prefer private schools can be checked if the teachers in government schools are well equipped to teach English and communication skills.

This view was expressed on Wednesday to The Hindu by teachers participating in a three-day workshop on English and Communication Skills organized by the British Council under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme.

Nineteen teachers from government, aided and primary schools teaching students in classes one to eight are participating in the workshop.

The District Programme Coordinator G. Rajalakshmi said that the objective of the workshop was to help the participants develop confidence in using English in the classroom with focus on aspects like pronunciation.

The Assistant Programme Coordinator K. Lakshmanan expressed the confidence that such initiatives will in the long run pay rich dividends in terms of putting government school students on a par with those from private schools. Teachers should cultivate the habit of reading newspapers.

While a trained Block Resource Teacher Dinesh Kumar said that the programme would enable teachers and students to bring down dependence on their mother tongue, a participant D. Sheela said that intensive training in development of communication skills would be imparted to the teachers.