TECHNOLOGY FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: ACCESS, INTEREST AND OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH IN SOUTH ASIA
South Asia is a vibrant and diverse region from all perspectives: political, economic, cultural and linguistic. Across the region, English is seen as a language of opportunity, enabling greater employment prospects and easier communication with others around the region and the world. In South Asia, the greatest changes with regard to ICT adoption have taken place over the last decade. Driving this change is an increase in the penetration of television and radio, a shift to cable and direct-to-home (DTH) provision, greater access to personal computers, laptops and broadband and an exponential growth in the adoption of mobile phones and mobile internet. These changes affect much of the population, including teachers. There is clear potential for technology to facilitate teachers’ professional development and augment existing systems of teacher education. The report highlights findings from research conducted by ZingerLabs and EZVidya in 2014 and aims to explore how teachers can access these media for this purpose and their related habits and preferences.
This research covers Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In specific, the research aims to shed light on three important areas:
– to understand English teachers’ access to digital technologies (radio, television, computers, mobile phones, the internet and social media) in the South Asian region
– to understand English teachers’ general habits with regard to the above media and provide some insights into how these habits might be harnessed and/or developed for the benefit of both the teachers and their learners
– to understand English teachers’ willingness to use these digital technologies to access English language training material and opportunities and resources for their continuing professional development.
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