The British Council will launch its global English publication Managing Change in English Language Teaching: Lessons from Experience (British Council, London, 2012) in the week of 21-26 May 2012 in Delhi, Chennai, Patna and Chandigarh.

The launch of the publication will be followed by a panel discussion on the topic “From theory to practice: How can English language project interventions lead to positive and measurable change for all stakeholders?”

Edited by Dr Christopher Tribble of King’s College London, the book documents 21 case studies of English language project interventions from all over the world, including two from India. The case studies are prefaced by four essays that offer a theoretical underpinning of the case studies.

The case studies are clustered around four major strands:
•Policy and Design
•Implementation
•Monitoring and Evaluation
•Embedding and Dissemination

The authors of the case studies raise a number of issues and concerns about the nature of English language intervention at various stages of education provided by governments or the public sector in a variety of political and cultural contexts that range from peace-keeping in Poland to textbooks in Russia to teacher training in Tamil Nadu to challenges in monitoring and evaluation in Sri Lanka to the impact of exams on curriculum and teaching in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in India.

The book comes at a time of great change and even greater expectations in the public provision of education in India, against the backdrop of intense debates on the implications of Right to Education Act and an increasing attrition of pupils from free government schools to fee-paying private schools, almost all of them flaunting an ‘English medium’ badge. The compilation looks at the larger issues of education change and management through the prism of language teaching and many of the conclusions drawn have far wider practical application than just English language teaching..

Managing Change will be launched at the following locations in India:

The panellists in Delhi are:

Dr Christopher Tribble, King’s College London (editor of the volume)
Dr Rukmini Banerjee, Director, Pratham ASER Centre
Prof Rama Mathews, University of Delhi (she is also a contributor to the volume)
Colin Bangay, Senior Education Advisor, DFID India
Clare Woodward, Open University UK (also a contributor to the volume, by videoconference)
Mike Solly, Lecturer, Open University UK (also a contributor to the volume, by videoconference)
Chair: Alan Mackenzie, Senior Training Consultant, British Council India

The panellists in Chennai are:

Dr Christopher Tribble
Clare O’Donahue, British Council Senior Training Consultant and contributor to the volume
Dr Kannappan
Mr Sundaraman
Dr V Bharathi Harishankar
Chair: Nirupa Fernandez, British Council Head English and Examinations, South India

A hard copy version of the book will be made available to all those who attend the event.

About the editor
Dr Christopher Tribble is a lecturer in Applied Linguistics at King’s College London. He has worked as a classroom language teacher in the public and private sectors in France, China and the UK, and has extensive experience as a manager and evaluator of English language projects, and as a project management trainer.

More on Christopher Tribble at http://www.ctribble.co.uk/

For more information on Managing Change launch programme in India, write to Debanjan.Chakrabarti@in.britishcouncil.org