This short article shares a success story about an innovative ongoing collaborative international project titled "Stories About Ourselves" (SAO) between THT (Teachers Helping Teachers - a special interest group within JALT (Japan Association for Language teaching) and BELTA (Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association). The aim of the project is to provide support and professional development opportunities to English teachers within Bangladesh.

The SAO project focuses on collaborative materials development, while enabling Bangladeshi teachers to develop, explore, and use culturally familiar classroom materials. BELTA started this project in collaboration with Professor Cherie Brown, from Akita International University, Japan, and a regular resource person from THT. Professor Brown was instrumental in conceiving and laying the foundation of this project and began by facilitating an intensive day-long workshop for a small cohort of BELTA members to explain the rationale for the project, seek their support, and to train them in materials writing.

Bangladeshi teachers tend to over-rely on state-produced textbooks modeled on a center-dominated CLT approach, which often lack a culturally relevant focus. Therefore, the SAO project aimed to provide opportunities for Bangladeshi teachers to explore, create, and use culturally relevant and familiar classroom materials. In short, the broad goals of the project were:

1. Create a bank of free culturally appropriate graded materials

2. Train Bangladeshi teachers

3. Engage and empower students

4. Strengthen ties between participants within Bangladesh and internationally

A project team was formed for collaboration, creation, and publication of graded stories in English. Each story was written by the writing team members and then sent to the editor. They were then graded and edited. Target vocabulary was highlighted within each text, and a list of important words which learners need to focus on is provided. Comprehension questions and activities designed to promote critical thinking skills were then added. The stories can be used both for intensive and extensive reading purposes and teachers can plan learning tasks depending on the need and level of their learners and the purpose of the lesson.

The project has led to two tangible outputs. Firstly, a bank of free culturally appropriate and homegrown graded English reading materials, crafted by Bangladeshi teachers, is now available for learners in Bangladesh. Secondly, the local teacher-created materials are now available as reading resources on a dedicated website sponsored by BELTA.

A live website has been set up for this purpose which is accessible from two points:

Through the BELTA Home page https://www.belta-bd.org/ and via the Stories About Ourselves Portal https://stories.belta-bd.org/

Moreover, learners have access to high frequency word lists and follow-up activities. In addition, there are other benefits. For example, this project has led to strengthening ties between local and international partners and participants (Brown & Huda, 2021). In the case of learners, initial follow-up research indicates that learners are more motivated, and now have better opportunities to build their higher order thinking skills as well as general English skills (Brown & Huda, 2022).

The higher-order-thinking, skills-based activities promoted by the materials comply with new pedagogies that emerged with the pandemic and support teachers in keeping their learners engaged. Bangladeshi teachers creating and using the materials state they feel empowered, as they have a sense of ownership of the materials, and that the project has enhanced their professional development opportunities. The first phase of the feedback survey indicated that both teachers and learners have positive attitudes towards the Bangladeshi-flavored materials and are reaping the benefits of this approach (Brown &Huda, 2021). An analysis of the feedback also suggests that this project has the potential to be usefully adapted to other contexts as it advocates the development and use of culturally familiar texts and resources in any non-native English setting and provides a successful model for achieving this goal.

References:

Brown, C., Huda, S. A. (2021). Stories about ourselves: A collaborative, international materials and teacher development project. In P. Clements, R. Derrah, P. Ferguson (Eds.), Communities of Teachers & Learners (pp. 91-97). JALT. https://doi.org/10.37546/JALTPCP2020-12

Brown, C,. Huda, S. A. (2022). Using local culture-based literary texts to enhance critical thinking skills: a "reader response" approach". THT Journal: The Journal of Teachers Helping Teachers, 10(1), 136.

https://www.belta-bd.org/

https://stories.belta-bd.org/

Rubina Khan is a Professor at the Department of English, University of Dhaka. She is the President of the Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association.