Ranjit Podder :
English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U) in Hyderabad in India is the only university in the world that teaches and conducts research on different languages of the world. This university arranges English language Teacher educators’ Conferences (TEC) every year usually in February. This year, too, they arranged a mammoth gathering of English teachers and teacher educators at award winning International Convention Centre in Hyderabad in collaboration with British Council from 21 to 23 February. We four teacher educators(Abdul Karim, Associate Professor, TT College, Mymensingh; Elina Akter, Assistant Director, NAEM; Urmila Khaled, Assistant Professor, TT College, Dhaka; and me) were selected by British Council, Dhaka to attend the three-day program with other English language teacher educators from around the world. Although two of the four teacher educators flew to Hyderabad on 20th Feb, two others went a day earlier to join the pre-conference activities. Attending such a conference was a memorable experience for us; we could know for the first time that there was a conference exclusively for the English language teacher educators which we cannot imagine here in Bangladesh because we cannot organize a conference for the teacher educators teaching in Teachers’ Training Colleges. The arrangement was so huge that sometimes 16 parallel sessions ran simultaneously in which English language practitioners presented their research findings followed by question-answer sessions enriching all the presenters and the participants. Bangladeshi teacher educators had some sessions through which international audience could know what we were doing regarding English language teacher development as well as English language teaching and learning.
One important idea discussed in the conference was that the individual employee is more responsible for professional development although the employers’ role was also regarded as important. Unless the idea of professional development comes from inside of the teachers, the conference observes, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to be professionally developed. Although it is true that the employers have got some responsibility, the chief responsibility lies on the individual. However, if one is not self-motivated, no training can bring any change in them. Presenters from India and the UK claimed that teachers themselves can develop professionally through sharing their thoughts and ideas with colleagues, reading books and articles, browsing internet, reflecting and then reforming, observing and getting observed, giving and receiving feedback and feed-forward, conducting action research, trying to do things differently, analyzing, seeing self and activities through others’ eyes, videoing teaching activities and looking at the weaknesses for correction, attending training and seminar, achieving more qualifications, being proactive and feeling responsible.
No doubt, one teacher can be professionally developed following the stated strategies but it is also true that if teachers are not motivated to develop themselves and to improve English language teaching and learning, no other initiative from outside can help them develop.
After inauguration, the key note address was delivered by Mr Simon Borg, a visiting Professor of TESOL at the University of Leeds. He put emphasis on research by teachers for professional development. Then a Panel Discussion on Continuous Professional Development (CPD) was held in which Julian Edge from the University of Manchester; Simon Etherton from British Council, India; Monishita Hajra Pande from EFL-U, Hyderabad; and Jaygowri Shivakumar from NMKRV College for Women, India took part in lively discussion.
The discussion session was chaired by George Pickering from the UK. They alleged that CPD is a personal, collegial, and collaborative process. However, the speakers from India claimed that the culture of collaboration is not strong in India. Jaygowri strongly believed that we needed critical friends to be professionally developed.
The idea of teacher development in the way stated above was disseminated among some primary and secondary teachers at Teachers’ Training College in Faridpur last month. Teachers present there said that those ideas were good but difficult to practise as they had to teach in consecutive classes, had to do work other than teaching, and they had to teach other subjects such as Bangla, religion, social studies.
They said, “It is possible if more number of teachers is appointed minimizing our current workload. While we have to go in every class, when will we observe, reflect, and give and receive feedback? We cannot experiment with those strategies and techniques which are taught in compulsory training sessions funded by the government let alone taking individual initiative.” The teachers talked much about the problems of large classes, low salary structure, social status of teachers, undesired interferences by committee members and politicians, corruption during recruitment, work environment etc. They also added that colleagues were never happy to hear critical comments about their performances. The teachers present in the dissemination workshop agreed that trying new ideas and researching was precondition to bring innovation in the field of education but there should exist an situation where teachers would happily engage in professional development activities without which they would not be able to continue as teachers. However, we hope that our teachers will work for their professional development which will bring them at least social honour, if not money. We expect that the stagnant situation in our English language teaching and learning will change with proper intervention from the concerned authority.
Finally, we, the Bangladeshi teacher educators,would like to thank British Council, Dhaka as they are making arrangements of sharing experiences with the English teachers and teacher educators from around the world enriching us with the latest information in the field of English language teaching-and-learning. Each year, some teachers and teacher educators are invited to join international conferences in Srilanka, Nepal, India, the UK, and so on and the educators try to implement their new knowledge and skills in local situation.
