“One cannot rely on the existing teaching mechanism in the state for teaching English at the primary level. The teachers must immediately stop using vernacular language in classes,” said Ray Mackay, a professor of general linguistics at the Oxford University, who has been instrumental in designing the new English textbooks for the primary classes in the state.

The West Bengal government in collaboration with the British Council has designed three textbooks that are used by 52,000 primary schools across the state. “The books are being used from May 2008 in Class I. Previous text books used to teach English in Bengali by teaching the language phonetically. New books do not have a single word of Bengali,” said Mackay.

The council has also designed a book for teachers, where the exact methodology for each lesson is given in English. “We were in the dilemma whether to have the book for teacher in English or Bengali. We finally decided on English as the teachers first need to be fluent in the language before guiding the students. We have to bear in mind that even the teachers are first generation English learners,” said the professor.

No wonder, the new teaching methods and the textbooks are already yielding fruit. In collaboration with the state government, the council had trained 120 key resource people, including 60 from primary schools in Kolkata and 50 from primary schools in Siliguri.

They further trained other resource people and the British Council estimates that nearly 10,000 resource people have been trained last year.