Mysore/Mysuru: Navodaya Vidyalya Samiti (NVS) in collaboration with National Testing Service-India (NTS-I) of Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, had arranged a six-day online capacity building programmes for Kannada and Telugu language teachers of NVS from Feb.1 to 6.  

The programme created awareness and consensus amongst the NVS school teachers about specialised scientific contents, state-of-the-art tools, techniques and methodologies prevalent in the area of language education. 

It also trained the teachers in art and science of writing balanced question items to assess the learning outcome. 

In his Presidential address, CIIL Director Prof. C. G. Venkatesha Murthy, recalling his decade old long-term connection with NVS, said that it is important that our language teachers are sufficiently equipped in the art and science of teaching languages in such a way so as to ensure that our students of NVS grow to become the masters of their own lives with all needed adequacies, linguistic competence & skills, positive attitudes, and capabilities. 

He further added that this capacity building programme will bring in new perspectives and imagination among the teachers keeping NEP-2020 in focus. 

Also, they will get familiar with the new strategies and techniques as to how they can facilitate language learning and teaching among students through sports, music, movies, comics, etc. other than conventional classroom teaching methods as language teaching/learning, unlike other subjects,  is more of a skill related area than a content one. 

Vinayak Garg, Commissioner, NVS (HQ), emphasised that the teachers must focus on equipping the students with due LSRW skills in their own mother tongues and regional languages as native languages are very important for the better cognitive development of an individual. 

He further said that NVS seeks cooperation of CIIL in the development training modules for their language teachers to facilitate both competency and performance based classroom linguistic transaction. 

Prof. P.R. Dharmesh Fernandez, Head, Centre for Testing and Evaluation highlighted the activities of CIIL, its seven regional centres, and its different schemes.  Dr. Pankaj Dwivedi, Officer In-charge of NTS-I, CIIL, was the programme coordinator. Gyanendra Kumar and Gopal Krishna (NVS, Deputy Commissioners) supervised overall logistics of the programme.

 About 161 Kannada and Telugu teachers, from various Navodaya Vidayalaya Samiti Schools across India, participated in this online capacity building programme organised under the joint patronage of CIIL Director and NVS (HQ) Commissioner.