Reconnecting with the power of radio

In an age seemingly obsessed with the internet, the British Council, the UK's international education and cultural relations organisation, has rediscovered the power of radio and is about to harness this overlooked medium to deliver skills training to thousands of English language teachers. Next month sees the global launch of Teaching English Radio, a series of 12 prerecorded 15-minute programmes designed to provide isolated and under-skilled teachers with a range of methodology. Made by the Council, the programmes have been packaged in five-minute segments with scope for local broadcasters to add customised elements such as studio discussions and phone-ins. The Council believes the series will enable it to provide specialist support for education professionals who cannot access online training because the cost of internet access remains prohibitive or who work in regions where poverty and conflict make face-to-face training a practical impossibility. But how effective will these programmes be in improving teachers' classroom practice and, as a consequence, students' learning? Paul Woods is the Council's English manager for sub-Saharan Africa, who is co-ordinating production and distribution of Teaching English Radio from his Botswana base. He says that his development team have learnt valuable lessons from their experience making similar programming in Nigeria and Ethiopia. Many teachers need to develop their language skills as a well as classroom confidence, says Woods, so radio programmes serve a dual function, providing teachers with a language model and valuable listening practice alongside practical teaching ideas. But the scope for spoken production has, up until now, remained limited. That's now changing, he says, with the rapid growth in mobile phone use in sub-Saharan Africa and across Asia. Listeners now have a cheap and effective way of interacting with radio programmes, which can further boost their language development and get their voices on air. Integrating mobile phone technology into the Teacher English package is the next step, according to Woods, but for the time being, the very presence on the airwaves of dedicated programmes for an often marginalised profession remains powerful. "Hearing programmes that speak directly to them is a tremendous boost to teachers' morale," Woods said. "A lot of teachers operate in very isolated circumstances. They don't have a support network or a lot of materials. These programmes will be effective to help them realise that they are not alone managing without books or chalk. The same problems arise in other countries and teachers need the same support." But getting the programmes on air is not straightforward. Woods and Council staff in Africa and elsewhere must first find willing broadcasters. In Nigeria a three-year partnership with the state broadcaster comes to an end later this year. That resulted in free air time for a series of 84, 25-minute EL teacher training programmes that commanded an audience of 5 million, 1.5 million of whom were teachers. Woods says the talks with the UN's mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Monuc, could result in Teacher English being broadcast to two-thirds of the population via 50 FM relay stations. That would also be free air time, but in other countries the Council is prepared to pay for radio access. In Somaliland, for example, the Council is looking at an offer of 30 minutes of air time for $500. Another vital lesson that Woods and his colleagues have learnt it that specialist training programmes must be supported by printed materials. The Teaching English Radio package includes teachers notes, but distribution to teachers is a further challenge. In Namibia, where the programmes launched this month, local teachers' associations will play a key role in distributing materials to a potential audience of 22,000 educators. Woods admits that the programmes will work best where broadcast partners add their own local content. In Ethiopia radio producers trained by the Council record interviews with local teachers and studio discussions. Thelma Umeh, the Council's English projects manager in Nigeria, says the lesson learnt from adapting generic programmes for a local audience in that country are loud and clear. "If we just picked up a programme that did not really reflect a Nigerian background, most teachers would tune out. They feel they cannot identify with the issues. When they hear a fellow teacher from Nigeria, or a teacher from some part of the world where the same conditions apply, there is an empathy."