Problem/Objective:

A teacher’s language proficiency is a key element that decides the efficacy of teaching in any educational scenario. If the teacher doesn’t have good command over the language, even meticulously-planned instructional design will deliver poor learning outcomes for the students. 

Teachers in semi-urban and rural schools have very limited exposure and experience in English. Meaningful conversational English is a herculean challenge for teachers in the classroom. This has a direct impact on the students. Failing to understand the language leads to poor performance.

Solution/Approach:

Learning Matters’ Tara focuses on increasing the teacher’s vocabulary, thereby improving communicative skills with the proper use of grammar constructs. This is achieved by our carefully designed training modules and pedagogical approach to language learning.

Tara is a dynamic, two-way interactive, personalised teacher assistant that works on Amazon’s Echo Dot, Google Home, and smartphones. Tara uses voice-assisted technology to incorporate the four critical components of language learning - listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW). Tara mimics a human teacher by “listening”, responding to the learner’s utterances, providing feedback and correcting grammatical mistakes, repeating lessons, and conversing with learners, over and over again, tirelessly. This helps learners learn at their pace by repeated practice to gain proficiency in the language. Tara also creates a non-judgemental learning environment in which learners can speak confidently without the fear of being judged. The lessons are based on real-life situations and everyday conversations. This gives learners the appropriate context to practice speaking in English.

Impact/Implementation:

Prior to beginning the programme with Tara, a baseline assessment of teachers is carried out to assess their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills on a scale of 5. The assessment is designed to reflect the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) guidelines for Languages. The teachers are then mapped to CEFR levels of A1 and pre-A1 based on their scores. Teachers are assessed once again three months after the course commencement and one last time for the year, six months afterwards.

They are assessed on the following parameters: Grammar, Vocabulary, Comprehension, Fluency, Pronunciation and Expression. Tara allows every teacher's individual progress to be tracked which helps to generate a monthly performance report. As well, teachers who are struggling with content and need customised interventions can be identified. Periodic generation of reports ensures that the sessions with Tara are being followed as per schedule and performance monitored.