Feature

BELTA's 'Carnival (esque)' Journey and Chapter Opening at Comilla
A Tremendous Success

Sonia Sharmin

June 4, Friday 2010 was a day of tremendous success for Bangladesh English Language Teachers' Association (BELTA) as it opened a new vista to widen its journey for English Language Teaching in Comilla. Certainly, it was a great success for BELTA as its aim is to develop English Language Teaching in different regions of our country. On the day of the workshop 'Effective English Language Teaching', I was really flabbergasted to see a huge number of curious faces who were eagerly waiting for the program, which finally ended with a great success.

The facilitators were Dr. Arifa Rahman, Professor English, Institute of Modern Languages, Dhaka University who talked on Discovering Grammar. Dr. Rubina Khan, Department of English, Dhaka University talked on Marking Composition while Harunur Rashid Khan, Assistant Professor, Department of English, East West University focused on Giving Feedback. Bijoy Lal Basu, Lecturer, Department of English, Dhaka University conducted his session on Teaching Writing and Akhter Jahan, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, East West University talked on Managing Learner- Centered Activities. The smiling faces of the teachers and their appreciation for BELTA's hard work in the auditorium of Ispahani Cantonment Public School & College, Comilla, showed how the program fulfilled their need of what they wanted to learn. While the electricity went away which is one of our constraints to spoil the process of conducting the workshop, the teachers were not at all annoyed and they were more into listening to the presentation rather than being bored. The cordial Principal of Ispahani Cantonment Public School & College, Mr. Mosleh Uddin Ahmed, Comilla was also very supportive in organising the event because he took the pains of inviting the teachers from different schools, organised excellent food and accommodation both for the members of BELTA and the participants from Comilla.

Although the tour was an academic tour, it was a fascinating and had multidimensional appeal for me. It had the touch of 'Carnival' as it relieved me from my routine life for two days. June 3, Thursday 2010 was the day I had to prepare for the tour and as an Executive Member of BELTA, I had certain things to complete. I finished my club session by 12 p.m. at East West University and then I had to rush to Presidency University from where the journey would start. I was the unofficial cashier for the program and I had to carry the burden but the anxiety was removed when the journey made me feel that BELTA had given me the chance to serve my country and I am really overwhelmed that BELTA works with and for the grass roots.

I met with different people and I could understand the needs of the school teachers in teaching English to the students. Professionally, I did not have the chance to meet teachers from outside of Dhaka before which this tour had made possible for me.

The whole thing was possible by the organising power of Dr. Arifa Rahman and Dr. Rubina Khan. All the volunteers worked hard to make it a grand success. Finally, we had to come back after making a successful event in order to join our monotonous but practical life to take preparation for future events.

(The writer is an executor of EWU)