Title:	E-LEARNING IN BANGLADESH: THE ‘TRAINER IN YOUR POCKET’
Author(s):	Christopher S. Walsh
ISBN:	978-972-8939-38-0
Editors:	Miguel Baptista Nunes and Pedro Isaías
Year:	2011
Edition:	Volume I
Keywords:	Teacher professional development, e-Learning, communicative language teaching, ICT, mobile phones
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	165
Last Page:	172
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	While sustainable models of teacher professional development through information communication technologies (ICT) in developing countries like Bangladesh provide new opportunities for improving teaching and learning, they are largely unexplored. A variety of models of teacher professional development have been reported on in the research, but little attention has been paid to large-scale mobile e-Learning models that promote changes in communicative language teaching practices. This paper examines the ‘trainer in your pocket,’ an e-Learning component of English in Action (EIA), a project designed to contribute to the growth of Bangladesh by providing English language as a tool for better access to the world economy. The ‘trainer in your pocket’ works to build the capacity of teachers to achieve pedagogical change at the classroom level by providing them with strategies to teach English in more participatory and communicative ways on MP3 players and mobile phones. EIA’s ‘trainer in your pocket’ encourages continuous self and supported learning to help teachers rethink their pedagogical practices and simultaneously learn English. Teachers receive hundreds of audio resources for classroom use that provide students unprecedented opportunities to hear and experience high levels of spoken English directly related to Bangladesh’s national curriculum. The paper argues e-Learning can play a critical role in development projects alongside face-to-face and ICT-enhanced teacher professional development. Furthermore, it provides a replicable framework or model for large-scale teacher professional development in emerging economies.
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