West Bengal State English Project

This project, which was conducted in 2003, aimed to:

• help students learn English in a fun and joyful way using interactive methodology, group work and games
• develop teachers' ability to create more opportunities for their students to interact in English within the existing curriculum
• encourage teachers to use more learner-centred and activity-based methodology in the classroom
• develop new materials for teachers and students
• improve teachers’ confidence in using more English in the classroom
• supplement these materials with audio-visual materials aimed at teachers' Continuing Professional Development.

We worked with a core group of 300 master trainers and trained them to work with teachers, orienting them to the approaches and activities within the new textbook. Until 2012, 220,000 primary-level teachers were trained using the new textbooks and 15 million students across the state used the textbooks.

The Pratham-ASER Centre did an evaluation of the West Bengal-British Council Programme in September 2011 in government primary schools across in 16 districts of West Bengal and found that:

• most children (over 90 per cent) had their own copy of My English Book
• over 80 per cent of teachers in classes 1-3 found the activities in the book to be appropriate for their respective classes
• over 70 per cent of teachers in all classes found the spelling and vocabulary content to be appropriate