NGO to train rural girls in English

NGO to train rural girls in English

Pune: With an aim to empower the young rural girls with English language skills, an NGO Namaskar With Love Foundation’ has introduced English language laboratories to the government-run schools in the State. The NGO has taken upon itself to enable the rural children, with a special focus on the girl students in the State with communication skills in English. This will also e-enable them, that is, help them use the e-learning medium in a much better way, said Santosh Talaghatti, Founder and mentor at the Foundation.

The NGO is presently targeting around 1,500 schools in the State, out of which around 500 are run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the rest are the Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools.
“Teaching English is one of the major problems faced by the teachers which is even more prominent in rural schools, where often, the teachers need to be trained in English first before they can teach the students. However, I felt that instead of wasting time till teachers get trained, instead, the students can be connected directly to the experts,” Talaghatti said.

The Foundation already runs global classrooms (equipped with e-learning kits and Internet) at more than 1,000 schools in the State and the English language laboratories will function through these already established global classrooms. While the project is on a pilot basis in Maharashtra, if proven successful, it will also be implemented in the other states.

Talaghatti said that he thought of starting this project after he read a report in ‘Sakal Times’ earlier this year which stated that nine out of 10 children in urban private schools across India profoundly lacked the skill of reading in English. If the situation is so bad in urban schools, how would it be for the children in rural schools?

Employing better teaching methods
Adding that the present English teaching in our country is based on the listening model of learning, he further said that the in the Language Management Programme, the students will be taught through interactive e-learning sessions. Speaking out is the key to learn better in English.

“Indian education system does not give a platform for English speaking. We don’t have forums to improve communication in any language, forget about English. We will be bringing language forums to the global classrooms, to connect good English speakers and experts with the students, giving them an opportunity to interact better. Also, for any language, merely learning the grammar is not sufficient. So through activity-based e-learning modules, we will be teaching the students through stories, events and other innovative methods,” Talaghatti added.

Training teachers
The Foundation will also be training teachers in teaching English better. “Teachers need to be facilitators, to connect the students with the experts, to help them interact better. The teachers will be trained not just to teach, but also to give the students a platform to make mistakes,” Talaghatti mentioned.

Apart from the schools in rural Maharashtra, the Foundation would also be adopting around 100 girls from the flood-affected regions of Kerala under the project, to help them empower through language training.

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