The Covid-19 crisis has forced teachers, engaged on a voluntary basis to teach spoken English to students in first to seventh standard in 31 government schools in Karkala taluk, to work on other creative modalities of teaching.
The teachers have made videos of teaching sessions and will upload it on YouTube shortly. In addition, teachers will meet their students at designated places near the latter’s residences twice every week.
The initiative, Gubbacchi Spoken English Programme, in its second year was launched by Karkala BEO as part of Karkala MLA Sunil Kumar's 'Swarna Karkala Swachcha Karkala'. The programme marks the centenary year of formation of Karkala taluk.
Karkala Block Education Officer G S Shashidhar said, “As the videos will be uploaded in YouTube, we have to ensure that quality is maintained. A low-cost studio needs to be developed by converting a classroom to capture the video of teachers teaching spoken English.”
As many as 32 graduates who came forward were trained in May 2019. Since June they had been teaching in 31 schools in Karkala taluk.
Each class had one dedicated session for Spoken English which lasted 40 minutes.
“This year, we are planning on paying an honorarium to the dedicated teachers, who are part of the Gubbacchi spoken English, from donations contributed by donors who had come forward to provide training materials," he said.
In fact, a similar Spoken English programme was launched by the BEO during his tenure in Puttur.
Buoyed by the success in Puttur, he decided to take up the initiative in Karkala with the help of Karkala MLA Sunil Kumar. The study materials were designed for the programme in consultation with English teachers and experts.
“We want to ensure that our government school children are confident in speaking English while they continue to learn Kannada as a medium of instruction," the BEO adds.
As a gesture of appreciation, a programme under the guidance of Karkala MLA was organised to honour the 32 teachers of the Gubbachhi programme during the sidelines of Varamahalakshmi Vrutha. Teachers were given saree and shirts recently.
Deccan Herald is on WhatsApp Channels| Join now for Breaking News & Editor's Picks