Provision of quality English language teaching and training, from primary learners to advanced corporate users, is poised to be at the heart of what we do in India and Sri Lanka.

High proficiency in English is seen to be essential for socio-economic development in India and Sri Lanka. India is now one of the most important destinations for off-shoring business processes, which in turn has fuelled rapid economic growth. The impact of globalisation and economic development has made English the 'language of opportunity' and a vital means of improving prospects for well-paid employment. Demand for young people with good communication skills far exceeds the supply due to the recent boom in the IT and ITES industries - governments, companies, universities are all putting money into finding ways to improve English language teaching and reforming the way English in learnt and taught.

Last year, we conducted an in-depth study of the education and employment sector in the area of English language and communication skills in India and Sri Lanka. The findings indicated an urgent need for educators, employers and policy makers to talk to each other and work out meaningful and practical solutions. To play a catalyst role in this process, the British Council introduced Project English in 2007, to create a critical mass movement of engagement with learners, teachers, the corporate world and academia. Project English has helped us greatly expand our training capacity in this region. The goal of the project is to advance our global ambition for English by reaching millions of teachers and learners of English in India and Sri Lanka.

We have considerable experience of providing consultancy on and delivering courses in English Language Teaching (ELT) and teacher training to the public and private sectors globally and in the region. In addition to creating face to face English language training programmes for clients, recent projects with Infosys and HSBC have produced train the trainer programmes designed to up-skill local training teams to use the most contemporary language training methodology and materials. Cascade models have been effectively employed in West Bengal, Karnataka, Orissa and Kerala enabling thousands of college teachers to deliver effective Communicative Language Learning workshops to many students.

We have also delivered language enhancement courses, teacher training and trainer training to primary level state school teachers in Sri Lanka for clients such as USAID and UNICEF. We are also working in partnership with major software publishers to provide on-line language and teacher training courses for clients in South and East Asia.

The key components of Project English include:

			Developing partnerships that will facilitate reform in English language education and teacher training.
			Corporate consultancy projects involving pre-service voice testing, language audits, pre-service training, in-service training, e-learning, trainer training and development.
			Developing professional communities and networks that will enable teachers and trainers to access materials from UK, exchange best practice and offer opportunities for professional development.