Introducing mobile technology for enhancing teaching and learning in Bangladesh: teacher perspectives

Abstract

This paper reviews the themes emerging from Bangladeshi teachers’ experiences of taking part in the initial research and the development stage of a professional development programme they were involved with. The Secondary Teaching and Learning Programme is an information and communications technologies‐enhanced supported open distance learning programme of professional development in English‐language teaching. This paper presents evidence arising from semi‐structured interviews carried out with teachers from a pre‐pilot study for the English in Action project. The teachers participating in this study reflect upon six months’ experience of using professional development materials (course material of audio podcasts enhanced with text and images; videos of classroom practice; audio of classroom language) and classroom resources (audio recordings of text‐book reading passages, songs, poems and stories), all accessed via portable digital media players (iPods).

Keywords:

• mobile technology
• mobile learning
• English in Action support model
• technology intervention
• Bangladesh

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank UKAID for funding the EIA programme and the UCEP Bangladesh authority for allowing us to carry out the research in their schools. They are indebted to our colleagues from the EIA Base Office in Dhaka, Bangladesh who supported us enormously during our fieldwork. The authors are also very grateful to two colleague TDCs from EIA Base Office – Mohammad Arifuzzaman and Yeasmin Ali – for working with the lead author during the fieldwork. They also thank the school administrators and teachers of the UCEP schools who took part in research activities and helped us to understand their contexts.

Notes