English teachers found lacking language skills

Nellore: The ambitious programme of the state government to strengthen English language skills of students at primary level seems to be hit by teachers' inadequate English language teaching skills, especially in Nellore district. A proficiency test conducted by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) for teachers of 161 model primary schools in Nellore and other parts of the state a few months ago exposed the lack of requisite language skills among the teachers.

In fact, Nellore district stood at 12th place among the 13 districts in the state with respect to the results of the test. As many as 3,400 teachers, including 161 from Nellore, took the online test. The objective-type questions in the test were of intermediate level and were basically meant to evaluate the ability of the teachers on reading, vocabulary, grammar, expression, learning process, writing, arrangement of words and teaching methodology.

The performance of most of the teachers, except those working in the urban areas, was not up to the mark, a senior official in the education department said. “In a bid to reinforce the teachers, we conducted orientation classes with the help of language experts in Nellore and other districts for five days in August under the auspices of SCERT, which provided training material for an easy approach to the language,” District Education Officer of Nellore M. Ramalingam said.

Stressing the need to improve English teaching skills, he said the teachers appointed for model primary schools were secondary grade teachers and not specifically trained to teach English, hence the need for orientation programme. In-charge principal of DIET Ms Vijayalakshmi, who supervised the training programme, said they prevailed upon the teachers to speak in English during the training and the focus was on classroom interaction and conversation, among other skills.

The teachers were asked to interact only in English even if there were mistakes in the vocabulary to enable them have command over the subject, she added. She said there was huge potential in students from the rural areas, and they can even overtake urban students if capable teachers coach them.