The British Council India and Sri Lanka organised its English for Progress: Second Policy Dialogue, in Kolkata on November 17 – 18, 2008. This was in continuation of the conversation that started at the launch of Project English at the English for Progress: First Policy Dialogue held in Chennai in November 2007.
The conference objectives were to:
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provide an opportunity to address and explore the themes raised at the First Policy Dialogue in Chennai, 2007 |
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highlight progress that has been made in those areas |
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provide a platform for representatives from the government, academia and industry to raise new issues related to teaching and learning of English for employment and education |
| Themes discussed at Second Policy Dialogue |
| Corporate Sector |
State Sector |
| Testing and assessment |
Testing and assessment |
| Intercultural communication training |
Technology platforms for larger numbers |
| Training corporate trainers |
Capacity building in teacher development and trainer training |
| Train the gap: Skills profiling your business processes |
Sustainability and scalability: Planning and implementing large-scale projects |
| Technology platform for larger numbers |
Reaching and motivating larger numbers |
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The conference deliberations highlighted the need to delve the following issues and questions in the Third Policy Dialogue in 2009
| Themes identified for Third Policy Dialogue in November 2009 |
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| Change Management |
What kind of change management strategies and infrastructure are required to support long-term educational policy changes? |
| Trainer/ teacher educator development |
‘Who trains the trainers? And who trains the trainer of the trainers? These are interesting questions to consider in India and Sri Lanka where trainer training is essential in order to reach large numbers. |
| The role of education |
Several presenters agreed that it is not the role of school educators to prepare students only for employment. This begs the question, ‘Whose responsibility is it?’ Is there a role for Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in language teacher education? Should literature be central to language teaching? |
| Access and equity |
A lack of English is one of the main barriers in the way of accessing opportunities. How can we ensure that all children, including the under-privileged, have access to quality English language education? |
| Language, identify and English as a Lingua Franca |
-Many presenters agreed that non-native speakers are increasingly comfortable with the variety of English they speak -Do Indian children need to speak an ELF variety of English? -Is a native speaker variety of English still a valid standard/ benchmark in the state and corporate sectors? -Should individuals be looking for native speaker models when they choose an English course? |
| Language pedagogy |
-What is the best medium for language teaching? -What works, what doesn’t? |
In 2009, as we enter into another Policy Dialogue, the emphasis on English’s new role as the language of commerce and education. Through Project English, the British Council will continue to forge partnerships and create conversations so that English language becomes accessible to diverse speech communities and is taught well to those who can truly benefit from it.
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