How did you develop classroom materials?
The programme team developed all the teaching and learning materials for kindergarten. The team also developed all Rajbanshi MT language materials for Grades 1-5 plus other materials to supplement the government textbooks that are used for all subjects except Rajbanshi( MT subject).
This was the first time the programme team had developed MTB MLE materials so they learned as they developed materials for one term and one year at a time. After using the newly developed materials the first time, teachers provided suggestions for making them more relevant to the students’ learning needs. The team used the teachers’ suggestions and observations from school visits to revise the materials before they were finalized and sent for printing. Working one year at a time also gave the programme team a better understanding of students’ progress each year.
There were not many songs in Rajbanshi that were suitable for children when the programme began so MT speakers composed children’ s songs to use in classroom activities.
How do you select and train teachers?
Each School Management Committee recruits MLE teachers for their school. Teachers must be MT speakers of Rajbanshi, they must come from the local community and they must have at least a secondary school completion certificate to begin teaching.
MTB MLE RESOURCE KIT Including the Excluded: Promoting Multilingual Education
One of the important lessons from this programme was that teachers should come from the same community as their students. Local teachers are more likely to take ownership of the programme and they also stay longer in their job. In fact, apart from one teacher who left to work in another country and one teacher who left due to family reasons, the teachers who were recruited for these three schools have stayed in the programme, including those who married and had children during the programme period.
The programme team conducted one pre-service training at the beginning of the MLE programme and has in-service training two to three times a year. The training is especially important for new teachers who are not familiar with the programme’ s instructional design and activities, particularly for kindergarten and Grade 1. In grades 2 to 5, government curriculum and textbooks are used but teachers continue to use MLE teaching methods. In-service training provides opportunities for teachers to learn and practice new methods. Much of the in-service training time is used for demonstration and practice, especially in teaching MLEspecific activities. Teachers share their teaching experiences as well as the challenges they face and adjustments they make. This sharing of good practices by the teachers also provides the programme team with the input they need to make lesson plans more realistic and relevant to the local context.
Teachers who joined the programme later did not have a chance to go through the detailed pre-service teacher training which explained the purpose of the programme and the ways MLE classes are different from classes in regular government schools. For that reason, new teachers
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