Building teachers’ capacity in KP through English teaching radio series

When in 2014 the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government changed the medium of instruction in all public schools from Urdu to English, the British Council launched an innovative radio series in KP entitled Teaching English Radio, to equip the teachers in their teaching activities.

“What happened was that the policy kind of didn’t look into the fact that there is a discrepancy between theory and practice of the policy,” says a British Council representative said while discussing the need for the radio series. “So within the practice element of it they didn’t look at capacity building of the teachers or whether the teachers are comfortable with English or not.”

“While it makes sense to change your medium of instruction to English because it equips your future generation in a competitive market, if your teachers aren’t equipped, your students are not going to benefit from it,” the representative added.

Teaching English Series I was launched in 2015 in collaboration with the government of KP and FM 92.2.A 12 week campaign, with a 15 minutes weekly episode provided advice and tips that develop teaching skills. To create engagement with the stakeholders, each episode was followed by a short quiz available on the British Council website, with prizes for the winners.

After its immense success, Teaching English Series II was launched on January 29, which aims to reach out to new listeners across KP through episodes with new topics. These episodes have been designed with a strong focus on the professional development of teachers by addressing issues that every teacher faces in the classroom: the importance of homework, effective correction techniques in the English classroom, students working together to become more independent of the teacher and teaching pronunciation etc.

Radio was seen as the ideal choice due to its highly effective nature both in terms of reach and impact.

“In English the first skill that you use is listening. So from listening you develop your other skills like reading and speaking,” British Council representative told Pakistan Today.

Secondly with radio they could tap into audiences that are not accessible through on-ground activities; Batagram, Mansehra, Peshawar, Mardan and even the Federally Administered Areas (FATA) in Khyber Agency and in Bajaur Agency.

The campaign is highly appreciated by its target audience. Sher Zada, a teacher at Government Higher Secondary School in KP finds the series very beneficial.

“My listening power has improved a lot,” he told in a telephonic conversation.”Whenever I learn a new word or a new method, I discuss it with my colleagues at school. So it not only benefited me but all the teachers.”

Another teacher, Ihtesham Ali from Peshawar finds the campaign very helpful, “Now I can easily teach my class. In fact I even told the methods to my friends; how they should engage students, how they should conduct extracurricular activities and so on,” he told Pakistan Today.

Ihtesham sees a marked improvement in his students’ language proficiency, “Their power of learning has increased remarkably. Before, I would just come, give a lecture and then leave. But now because I conduct different activities with them, there is a marked improvement in them.”

He thinks that it is a superb initiative by the British Council because the teachers feel that although they may be perfectly qualified, they sometimes lack the teaching skills. So they feel that this programme is quite a beneficial one for them.

Teaching English not only teaches the teachers how to be comfortable with the language but also teaches them to be better teachers and how to be more professional in their field by sharing best practices with them.