by Heidi Faust

Over the past several years, TESOL has worked in partnership with the U.S. Embassy New Delhi, local consulates, and state ministries of education to implement a blended certificate program with state government mentors in secondary public schools that has had an extensive reach. This article highlights some of the innovations and outcomes of the TESOL Blended Certificate Program for State Government Mentors as it has evolved.

Opening day of in-person trainings in Chandigarh and Punjab with embassy and ministry officials. (Click here to enlarge)

Program Overview

Program Objectives

The overarching objective of this program is to build capacity for teaching English as an additional language in a way that is sustainable and impactful and aligned to India’s National Education Policy released in 2020. Through a blended certificate program, TESOL aims to

• support the development of 21st century skills,
• connect Indian teachers to learner-centered and communicative teaching practices,
• and provide access to a global professional network.

Another goal of the program is to enhance English teaching and learning in a context where teachers have at minimum a bachelor's degree in education, elementary education, or English literature because these degrees provide little focus on language teaching theory or methodology.

State Government Partners

The partnership began in 2017 with 50 mentors from the Delhi State Government, which at the time employed more than 10,000 English teachers, most of whose 2.2 million students came from disadvantaged backgrounds. Committing over 25% of their budget to education and with a growing mentorship program, the Delhi Government was an integral partner in building and sustaining the successful program over multiple years. Building on the impactful work in Delhi, the program was replicated in additional states.

In 2022, the program expanded to include mentors in the states of Karnataka, West Bengal and Telengana, and in 2023, Punjab and the Union Territory of Chandigarh joined the program, which has provided intensive professional development to more than 300 state government mentors in six states/territories to date.

Professional Development Program

The original program provided a blended version of the TESOL Core Certificate Program (TCCP), a 140-hour certificate program composed of two courses and a teaching practicum. Later iterations also included offering the 60-hour Training for Trainers course to support mentors in cascading learning to colleagues regionally.

Replicating the Program Across Multiple States

Replicating the original program in new state government contexts was both challenging and exciting and resulted in unique innovations that were made to both the online and in-person components to contextualize the professional development offerings to be more accessible in terms of teacher access to resources, digital skills, and English language proficiency. Innovations also considered the physical teaching environments and intensive teaching schedules of the mentors. Key learning from replicating the program across diverse contexts in India provided multiple insights for future implementation.

Considerations and Innovations

In replicating the courses in new state contexts, it was important to have a shared vision with state partners to ensure that recruitment, participation, and effective cascading occurred. Careful recruitment ensured that teachers had sufficient English proficiency to participate in the program, access to technology for the online courses, and time in their schedule. Some teachers worked in residential schools where they had house parent duties in the evenings in addition to full teaching days.

When possible, it was helpful for teachers to receive work release time to complete the online coursework, which typically required about 10 hours per week. Top-down leadership hierarchies required administrative support, clear communication, and collaboration on logistics, especially during the in-person courses.

Online Course Innovations

In both the TCCP Foundations of TESOL and Training for Trainers asynchronous, facilitated, 6-week courses, adjustments were made to the schedule and delivery of course content. Key innovations included the following:

Onboarding and Engagement Support

• Providing a synchronous orientation to the course on Zoom
• Staffing the course with an online instructional assistant to support course navigation and engagement
• Enrolling alternate participants to account for attrition
• Creating communities of practice on WhatsApp groups
• Adding a catch-up week in the middle and at the end of the course
• Allowing for flexible assignment deadlines

Instructional Supports

• Adding virtual coaching sessions via live zoom meetings with instructors
• Incorporating videos of narrated presentations in lieu of longer articles
• Incorporating digital games and activities to support academic vocabulary
• Providing downloadable materials for offline work

These supports were especially relevant in contexts where mobile phones were more commonly used than email, and access to internet data and computers was sometimes limited. The online instructional assistant communicated with mentors regularly in the WhatsApp groups, and mentors supported each other in accessing course information and understanding content in these groups as an extension of course discussion groups in the Canvas learning management system, where the courses were hosted. Mentor teachers had intensive work schedules, and often had added leadership responsibilities in their schools. Some communities also experienced flooding and extreme heat that resulted in school closures, so flexibility in deadlines was key to participant completion.

Interactive vocabulary games.

Group presentations.

In-Person Course Considerations and Supports

The TCCP Teaching Adolescent Learners courses were held in person in 2022 and 2023 and provided the opportunity for mentors to experience a variety of new learning tasks, interactive activities, and classroom management techniques. As many mentors had large class sizes and access to a range of resources (from minimal to highly resourced and from high-tech to low-tech), course modules were enhanced to provide examples that could work in a variety of settings. Courses were held intensively over a 2-week period. Mentors engaged in collaborative group projects, microteaching, and peer feedback. Some specific innovations to the in-person courses included the following:

• Providing two instructors per course to support feedback and collaboration in the intensified schedule

• Ensuring adequate housing for teachers to avoid long daily commutes and to mediate extreme temperatures, which allowed teachers to be present and focused during long training days

• Collaborating with local training centers to host the courses and reduce program costs, while building capacity by including their staff as participants

 

Blended Teaching Practicum Innovations

The 20-hour teaching practicum had been challenging as a culminating aspect of the blended certificate, because it was open-ended, with approximately a year to complete 10 hours of classroom observation and 10 hours of practice teaching. With the long deadline, participants often waited until the very last day and then began the practicum, which often resulted in multiple extensions to the program deadline, and attrition from mentors who moved on to other projects. The most recent innovations to the practicum successfully supported the early completion of mentors and increased interaction and engagement in the process. Two key innovations supported mentor success:

• Scheduling the practicum requirements with biweekly due dates
• Adding virtual coaching and collaborative peer review sessions on Zoom

Breaking the practicum requirements into scheduled tasks with due dates helped mentor teachers to stay engaged and complete the requirements collaboratively while their learning from the courses was fresh. They were able to implement practices from the courses and get feedback from multiple mentors from multiple states/territories and continued to strengthen their community of practice and their ability to provide constructive feedback in lesson review using practicum rubrics and feedback protocols.

Mentors were asked to submit short teaching videos in the WhatsApp groups and watch their peers’ implementation of various teaching practices and activities. They were asked to attend a minimum of three virtual coaching sessions with teachers from their state. However, they could attend up to nine sessions if they chose to. In the sessions, practicum coordinator Kati Milter facilitated the collaborative feedback sessions and reinforced targeted skills from the training, resulting in a lively and collaborative practicum experience.

Program Outcomes

Based on mentor surveys and instructor feedback, we know the impact of the program has been extensive and meaningful. Through cascading trainings in a variety of ways, state government mentors in the program collectively provided professional learning opportunities to reach more than 60,000 teachers in India. Those teachers have reached more than 17 million students and impact new students each year. Teacher feedback indicated a variety of ways the program impacted them both personally and professionally (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Ways teachers reported the program was helpful to them. (Click here to enlarge; Source: Multicohort program follow-up survey; spring 2023)

Teachers also shared that the program had an impact on students. The following comments were shared by mentor teachers in a follow-up survey conducted in 2023:

“I used more activities in my teaching. Students were excited to see what activity, task, game or song would be in the next classes. This changed entire attitudes of the students regarding academics.” “They started taking responsibility for self- learning.” “Learning became a joyful experience to them and fun-filled session.” “They are now able to express themselves in English confidently.”

Teachers shared reflections about their own learning and growth, including becoming more inclusive and flexible in differentiating their learning, upgrading their technology skills, and enhancing their own English skills:

“One highlight of the course is being tolerant towards all types and levels of learners.” “In fact I was not well exposed to technology earlier but this programme upgraded my technical skills in addition to professional skills.” “I learnt to write without apprehension and that is what I encourage my students to do. Express without any fear.”

Instructors also reported on the enriching exchange and relationship building that happened, especially in the in-person courses. Tamrika Khvtisiashvili, a TESOL instructor, shared:

I felt embraced literally and intellectually every time the class ended. As I would introduce a concept, it was enhanced and elevated by even a better and more holistic way to understand it. It might have been the best example of horizontal learning that I've experienced in my teaching career.

Engaged participants.

The TESOL Blended Certificate Program for State Government Mentors, funded by the American Embassy New Delhi Regional English Language Office, has provided a rich and collegial opportunity for cultural and professional exchange and collaborative learning that continues to grow in its impact and reach. For more information on this program or to partner with TESOL on capacity building programs, contact Heidi Faust at hfaust@tesol.org.

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Heidi Faust, PhD, Grants, Projects, and Partnerships Officer at TESOL International Association, oversees international ELT capacity building programs and professional learning partnerships. She has recently led projects in India, Uzbekistan, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Turkmenistan, and has developed and facilitated online and in-person professional learning programs with teachers from more than 100 countries. Heidi is also an English language specialist for the U.S. Department of State and she has taught multilingual learners of English from primary to adult.

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