Language and Language Teaching, Issue 2 - Azim Premji Foundation

Choosing Texts for TeachersNamrita BatraIntroductionMany of us struggle with the task of helpingchildren learn how to read and write, and becomeproficient readers who enjoy reading. That manyteachers are also not proficient readers and donot enjoy reading as much as they ‘should’ isnot very surprising for those of us who workclosely with them.Capacity building of teachers is a prominent areaof work at Vidya Bhawan Education ResourceCentre (VBERC) Udaipur. An important facetof this has been generating self-learningmaterials for teachers in various areas likepedagogy, child psychology, disciplinaryconcepts, etc. Over time we have realized thatwe also need material which helps teachersengage with their own reading and writing ability.An effort in this direction was made by us whenwe designed a certification course for teachersof alternative schools of rural areas in Udaipurdistrict; the jaded reading and writing abilitiesof these teachers stood in the way of theirbecoming both independent learners as well asbetter teachers.Teachers of alternative schoolsThe teachers of alternative schools belonged tothe communities in which they were teaching.Most had not been able to complete their schooleducation and their qualifications varied from8 th to 12 th grade. Moreover, their day-to-dayactivities gave them little opportunity to read andwrite on a regular basis and in any substantialmanner; reading activities being restricted toreading infrequently the local newspaper. Theirmother tongues were either Mewari or Vagri,however all spoke and understood Hindi. Hindiwas also the medium of education in the schoolsin which they taught.Simply put, we wanted to help teachers readwith understanding, insight and discrimination.This involved helping teachers examine andunderstand not only the chain of events, theinformation and ideas that were explicitlymentioned in the text but also the ideas andemotions that were implicit in the writing. It alsoWe also felt that as teachers the readersmust engage with the texts with childrenas their protagonists. The texts we choseto do this depict the childhood of a crosssection of children with inherent respectfor their struggles and thoughts.involved helping the reader attach herperspectives/opinions to what she was reading.It was also clear to us that improvement inreading ability requires reading more and moreand so while the course should be able togenerate interest in reading and help teachersread more regularly, any substantialimprovement in reading would occur only ifteachers were able to continue this process.Thus , while an important part of our job was tohelp the teachers engage with their readingability, the flip side to it was generating interestin reading itself. Choosing texts which could doboth for the course was thus an area of concernLanguage and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 8