E-Teaching-Aid Project: for Vernacular Schools in Maharashtra, India

INTRODUCTION

In order for India to truly hold its own on the global stage, there is a need to improve the quality of education imparted to children from under-privileged backgrounds, and also to improve their ability to communicate in English. Indias challenge is not just unemployment but also un-employability of a vast majority of the people of our country who are unable to communicate proficiently in English.

The problems are threefold: Lack of confidence in speaking English and poor pronunciation. Teachers inability to speak good English. Lack of good quality, curriculum linked, standardized Indianized educational content for children.

Students at free, State-run, vernacular schools face a severe disadvantage in learning English, since most Teachers lack adequate knowledge of this subject. The consequence is that these students face a loss of career opportunities and financial advancement in their future, thus perpetuating the economic disparity.

It is estimated that 80% of the students attend such vernacular free schools, and these students are mostly from the economically-marginalized sections of society. While it is mandatory that these schools teach English at Standard 1 and above, in reality this is seldom accomplished because of the lack of trained, English-speaking teachers. As a result, the quality of English language education in these schools is, at best, poor.

To overcome this self-perpetuating disadvantage, The Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) has taken the initiative to address the pressing need for providing high-quality and standardized English teaching-aid based on the Government-prescribed curriculum for these schools.

The project involves creating a set of low cost English Educational DVDs based on the SSC curriculum that cut across different classes from Kindergarten to 12th. It is intended that the DVDs would be made freely and widely available for use in schools, for wide-spread benefit of Teachers and students.

OVERALL OBJECTIVE OF THE INITIATIVE

Build good communication and writing skills in English for children of underprivileged backgrounds with a view to increase employability in future.

To overcome non-availability of qualified English Teachers in vernacular-medium schools, by prompting the existing Teachers to improve their skills, and simultaneously imparting standardized diction / knowledge to the students;

To disseminate these CDs as widely as possible, at little or no cost -- to benefit the economically deprived students who cannot afford special coaching classes.

PROJECT TEAM

The Project Team comprises the following organizations:

ORGANIZATION Tata Interactive Systems (TIS): One of the worlds largest e-learning companies with19 years of experience in creating educational content as well as English Language content for children. http://www.tatainteractivesystems.com/ Muktangan: A respected Mumbai-based NGO reputed for using innovative teaching methodology in 7 Municipal schools which they run. http://www.muktanganedu.org/ The Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT): Founded in 1991 by Mr. H T Parekh (Past Chairman of ICICI, and Founder of HDFC), dedicated to the cause of promoting and mentoring social development efforts. http://www.bcpt.org.in

ROLE Responsible for creating the instructional approach, graphics and integrate / test the DVDs

Responsible for providing the guidance for the teaching methodology to be used in the DVDs as well as providing a platform for user-testing

Responsible for managing the Funds and providing project coordination

METHODOLOGY

After brainstorming between BCPT, Muktangan and TIS, the plan evolved to begin with the Class 1 textbook and work upwards to other classes. Four DVDs are envisaged per grade level, each covering 4 units. The teams agreed that there is a need to align the DVDs closely to the textbook to make the approach easier for the teachers to follow and adopt.

The DVDs would be designed to run on the most basic TV set and VCRs in a school. It was envisaged that most of these schools would not have computers.

An instructional design approach and creative theme was evolved to represent the concepts from the textbook in an interesting manner.

User testing was conducted at two stages, at the initial prototype stage, as well as on completion of the first DVD.

Teacher training was conducted to orient the teachers during the pilot testing phase.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN APPROACH

The following is the instructional design which was used as the basis for creation of the DVDs:

The objectives: To familiarize children with the sounds of the language To teach basic structures for everyday communication To enable students to recognize letters and some simple words by sight

The approach This approach is designed to provide a framework and structure to the prescribed text and not to replicate it. We therefore do not insist on covering every word that is taught in the text.

On the other hand, the program takes a more logical and graded approach to teaching English. We hope this will help the teacher teach in a more methodical and systematic manner, imposing a structure on the activities and teaching points that have been haphazardly strung together in the text book.

The best way to teach a language is to immerse the learner in the different uses of the language. Songs and stories go a long way in achieving this immersion. Rhyme and rhythm help children enjoy and remember words even before they completely understand them. We use these extensively in the program so children can listen, repeat and learn.

Basic structures in language are best learnt in context. Contexts are created to provide the setting for these usages. Children can repeat after the program, enact these situations and learn these oft used constructions and usages.

Sight reading often precedes spelling. If a word is presented on the screen and simultaneously read aloud, children learn to recognize the shape of the word even before they learn to spell it. This combined with familiarity with what each letter stands for provides children with the basics of spelling. This will prepare them effectively for reading and writing in the higher classes.

So this program consists of the following sections: Songs Conversation elements

Consonant sounds Vowel sounds

Any vocabulary building that happen will be incidental and not a direct objective. Also, all the sounds would be introduced in the text. However, they may not appear in the same order in which they appear in the text.

Presentation

We begin the program with a toy train ride. The toy train, packed with children, stops at four different stations:

Song Station OR Song Durg (Songs)

Speaking Station or Talkpur (Conversation elements)

Sound Station or Soundgarh (Consonant sounds)

Rhyme Station or Rhymegiri (Vowel sounds)

Song Station: At the Song Station, children will listen and repeat songs and small rhymes. We have used the songs in the text and have added a few more.

Speaking Station: At the Speaking Station, children will listen to daily conversations. They will repeat the constructions, expressions and usages and learn to enact similar situations in the class. They will learn to greet, to ask questions, and share and make conversation. We have picked up these samples from the text.

Sound Station: At the Sound Station, children have learnt different consonants and the words that begin with them. For example: b for bag, bat, ball, etc. In the process, we will try to cover the words in the text; but we may not be able to cover all the words in the text.

Rhyme Station: At the Rhyme Station, children will learn different vowel sounds as they appear along with a consonant after them. For example: at, bat, cat, mat, fat etc. in, pin, tin, bin,

Additional information

Each DVD will roughly map to two units in the text and each unit will comprise 4 stations. Class one will require 4 DVDs since there are 8 units to be covered. A teacher guide will be created for each DVD. Each section in the DVD will be explained in the teachers guide to guide the teacher. (has been done for the first DVD).

Over the four DVDs, we hope to cover most, though not all, the consonants and vowels. We also do not plan to introduce consonant clusters as part of consonants and vowels. However, words beginning or containing consonant clusters could appear in stories or rhymes.

Note: Within each DVD, the teacher will be able to access any station she wishes to and is not obliged to follow any kind of linear order within a DVD.

User guides

We have created a Teachers Guide to help teachers use these DVDs. These guides will show which activity/ teach item in the DVD maps to which page in the book. It would also explain how the teacher can conduct activities based on the teach screens in the DVD.

Ideally, a demo session or a training session could help teachers make good use of the DVDs

VISUAL DESIGN APPROACH

The overall visual approach has been designed keeping the target audience in mind, with bright colors, children as primary characters, and Indian settings which the children would be familiar with. The navigation interface is bold and very easy to access by teachers who are not so proficient with interactive programs. The icons are bold and easy to understand and operate with a TV remote. Text on screen is bold and accompanied by audio at each stage, as well as illustrations where possible. There is music and sound effects to accompany the childrens dialogue. The following are some screenshots from DVD1:

USER TESTING User Testing happened at two stages, at the prototype stage as well as on completion of DVD1.

After creating a small portion of DVD1, a batch testing was conducted in 2 schools to gauge the response. One school was a Muktangan, English medium school and the other was a vernacular medium school. There was a very good response from the children. They were happy to see the songs and animation. They sang along a bit and also repeated some of the actions in the songs. They liked the characters. After conducting this batch testing, feedback was collated from both the children and teachers. Some of the reactions are below: The teachers felt that the program will help them to be confident and teach the lesson better.

The teachers would be comfortable doing the activities step by step. The activities gave them more ideas for improving their teaching methodology. The repetition of words and songs is necessary to make children familiar with the words and its pronunciation. Some sentences were fast and not easy to follow. The children had a problem understanding left and right orientation. While most of the children loved the treatment, some felt that instead of using the train metaphor we could have used planes and spaceships!

After this initial feedback was received, the script for the DVD was revisited and some lengthy dialogues were removed and replaced with very basic sentences. The words taught in each section were repeated at the end of the section clearly by an adult voice. Only few new words were introduced in Talkpur (conversation section). All this helped to make it easy to understand and follow.

The first e-teaching course is ready and undergoing pilot testing currently. Based on the pilot test, the project would later be expanded to include higher grade levels.

PILOT TESTING OBSERVATIONS

Pilot testing has been carried out in roughly 8-10 private schools so far. This included 9 Marathi and 1 Gujarati medium. Some of the schools included were: King George (Dadar), Shishu Vihar (Matunga) BhauSaheb Higher High school (Tardeo) etc. Some of the observations and comments noted during the pilot testing are as below: The e-teaching course was child friendly and the teachers found the DVD easy to operate. The concepts in the DVD were covered in an interesting manner and the children seemed to have enjoyed watching the DVD especially the animations and songs. In some classes, the children sang along while the DVD played. To put it simply, the DVD was Fun while learning The course followed the textbook. In majority of the schools, the teachers found the DVD easy to operate and felt that the DVD would enhance the learning experience for the children. This however, may not be the case in the vernacular municipal schools. The children could relate with basic concepts such as good morning and good night easily but not all of them could relate to some of the more difficult concepts such as his and hers Some of the words were new and difficult for the children to grasp easily. Some words were not clearly understood by the children. Majority of the school managements approached have been enthusiastic about using the DVD. While some of the English medium schools do have the necessary equipment, it is not available in the majority of the target schools the municipal schools.

NEXT STEPS

Complete the pilot testing of the first DVD in all 20 schools. DVDs created in future would contain simple and short dialogues and avoid use of elaborate sequences that are difficult to understand. Another key aspect would be to incorporate reinforcement/replay as much as possible especially in case of phonics and new words that the children are not familiar with. Schools will have to be equipped with TV sets and DVD players; Inverters, for uninterrupted power supply will have to be provided where necessary; Teachers will need to be given basic training in the use of the DVDs. An induction session will have to be developed for inducting schools and teachers into this program; A process for monitoring progress and for auditing and receiving feedback on the strengths and weakness of the program will have to be developed. Fund raising

FOLLOW UP

Since this is a seminal effort, progress would have to be closely monitored to detect and rectify issues and challenges as they arise. The specific areas for monitoring would include: The teaching methodology The interaction with the project team and the schools management; The interaction between teachers and students; Following the financial demands created on the school by the software and hardware. The process for managing the field work.

BUDGET

For the first phase of the project (Standard 1), the following cost structure has been estimated:

ITEM TIS Budget for curriculum design, writing, music composition, graphics and technical integration for 4 DVDs at Rs. 457,359 per DVD I (including service tax of 10.3%) Contribution to Muktangan for conceptualizing the content, and providing the Teachers / students for the DVD Creation & replication of teacher notes, DVD replication Estimated : provision for conducting pilot trials in 20 schools, conducting teacher training

COST (Rs.) 1,829,436

100,000

137,875 400,000

Providing TV sets and DVD players where required TOTAL requirement Provision for unscheduled cost escalation / expenses at 10% TOTAL (Time frame : upto March 2011) approx.

200,000 2,667,311 266,000 2,933,000

Against the estimated requirement of finance for the 1st standard effort * * . . . : Rs. 29.33 lakhs, Rs. 11.11 lakhs Rs. 18.22 lakhs.

Donations already received are : Additional funds required are :

A Project of this magnitude and impact-potential can be made possible only with the support of individuals, Corporates, Trusts and Foundations. Considering the social impact for achieving inclusive growth for children coming from the poorer strata, financial support would be very helpful. Donations, large and small, are most welcome.

27 September 2010