Teacher Education

through School-based

Support in India

OER Content Creation

Experience of a collaborative effortHosted by Dr Mythili Ramchand and Kimberly Safford

People involved for EE Content Development

• Initial consultation with a large group

• Content creation by a team of three Indians (which included a linguist, a pedagogue and a researcher) ably guided by the leader from Open University, UK. Additional assistance rendered by two school teachers.

The Brief

• Refer to National policy documents – NCF, 2005; NCFTE, 2009 for pedagogic principles

• Relate to the context of classrooms in a Government school

- Plan for supporting marginalized groups; managing multi-grade classes and large classes

• Provide opportunities for teacher to practice English

The requirement

• Fifteen units; each unit to include:

- Ideas for activities

- Vignettes from actual classrooms

- Suggestions for CCE

- Resources

• To be written in an open, conversational style addressed to a classroom teacher

The objectives

• To develop teachers’ English proficiency

• To promote interactive pedagogy

• To use the language textbook and other available resources creatively and flexibly

• To disseminate good practice

Themes Identified• Classroom routines

• Using the textbooks

• Songs, rhymes and word play

• Learning English in the creative arts

• English and subject content integration

• Community resources for English

• Letters and Sounds of English

• Story telling

• Shared reading

• Planning around a text

• Developing and monitoring reading

• Promoting the reading environment

• The input rich environment

• Mark making and early writing

• Developing and monitoring writing

Process

• Developed a framework.

• Collectively discussed, shared ideas and evolved one prototype unit each, for which extensive feedback was given.

• Each author chose 5 units to write independently.

• Iterations based on feedback from team leader and critical readers.

• Tight language editing and ensuring parity in styles across units by team leader.

Sample from a Unit

Unit: Classroom routinesRecord yourself in the classroom

• This is an activity for you.• Take your mobile phone into your classroom and record the

first ten minutes of a lesson. • Listen back to what you recorded two or three times and

answer these questions:• How much English did you speak? What words or phrases did

you use? Did you switch to Hindi or a local language? When did you do this, and why?

• Can you now think of words and sentences in English that would say the same things? Write these down.

Unit: Shared Reading

Case Study : Miss Samreen is a Class 3 teacher in Bihar.

First I prepared a big book of a story I had narrated before. I grouped the students around me. I explained

we would be reading a book together. The students were new to shared reading, I focused mainly on the

progression of the story and its characters. Before starting to read I pointed to a character or picture,

asking them ‘Who is she?’, ‘What is that?’ or ‘What is he doing?’, and the students responded .

What the units hope to do

• Suggest ideas for readings and activities to teach and learn English in environments where the language is sparsely used.

• Provide pointers for practicing teachers, teacher educators and prospective teachers to:

- manage classrooms, including large classes, multi grade, multilevel classrooms;

- take up formative assessments;

- use a variety of resources to cater to diverse learning needs.

How the units are meant to be used

• Embed them within the texts that teachers use

• Adapt and tailor them to meet the individual needs of a teacher and her students

• For a prospective, practicing teacher to strengthen his/her English language

Developmental Testing

• 2 localized units tested in 5 rural, Government schools in MP by a researcher representing OU, UK and an Indian author. It involved:

• Observing teachers’ classes based on self reading of a unit

• Briefly orienting teachers to the second unit and then observing their classes

• Interviewing concerned teachers, children, head teachers and teacher educators of DIET

Developmental Testing

Learning:

• Activities found to be doable.

• Brief orientation helped.

• Sections that addressed strengthening of teachers’

own language appreciated.

Filming

Purpose: Modelling some of the activities/suggestions for classroom organization and management/strategies for assessment using authentic classrooms, to supplement the units.

Soon to be made public.

Preparing EE OER content has been a focused, systematic and academically rewarding exercise for those of us involved with it.

We hope they are inviting and aspirational for teachers, teacher educators and student teachers to adapt them to suit their classroom requirements.

To look at the content developed please visit TESS India site

http://www.tess-india.edu.in/learning-materials/english