English in Action (EIA): mobile phones as an agent of change for large-scale teacher professional development and English language learning in Bangladesh

Walsh, Christopher and Shaheen, Robina (2013). English in Action (EIA): mobile phones as an agent of change for large-scale teacher professional development and English language learning in Bangladesh. In: American Educational Research Association Annual Conference 2013, 27 Apr - 01 May 2013, San Francisco, CA.

Abstract

Examples of mobile phones being used with teachers to provide teacher continuing professional development (CPD) in emerging economies at scale, is largely absent from the research literature. We outline English in Action’s (EIA) model for providing 80,000 teachers CPD to improve their communicative language teaching (CLT) in Bangladesh over nine years. EIA’s CPD program is delivered face-to-face and supported through open distance learning (ODL). This innovative model of teacher CPD is using low-cost mobile phones, or the ‘trainer in your pocket’ to deliver CPD to 12,500 teachers through 2015. Drawing on the success of the pilot phase of the project, we argue EIA’s model is a low-cost solution well suited to deliver CPD at scale, which replicable for developing countries.