Bhubaneswar: A six-month-long webinar series on Professional & Proficiency Development organised by English Support Mission (ESM), a forum committed to equipping Rural Youth with English skills to enable them to keep pace with their urban counterparts, was inaugurated by Vice-Chancellor of Kalahandi University, Prof Sanjay Kumar Satapathy, on Sunday.
The webinar series has been categorized: Professional development for teachers of English and proficiency development for both teachers of English, professionals, English enthusiasts and college and university students.
Renowned ELT (English Language Teaching) Resource Persons from across India will be doing sessions on a variety of topics like professional development for teachers of English, 21st century skills, formal and informal English, cross-cultural communication, classroom management, improving speaking skills etc.
The inaugural session was was held at 10:30 AM and hosted by Ms Shatarupa Mishra, Asst Prof of English, Government Women’s College, Bhawanipatna. Mr. Panchanan Duria, Founder of ESM, Lecturer in English at R.C College, Kodinga, Nabarangpur talked about the vision and the aim of English Support Webinar Series.
Professor G. Rajagopal, former Dean of School of English Language Education, EFLU, Hyderabad graced the event as the keynote speaker. Nearly 100 participants were in Zoom and the other participants took part through the live session on YouTube.
Among others, Prof Anand Mahanand, Head Dept of Material Development, Testing & Evaluation, EFLU, Hyderabad; Dr. Abhilash Nayak, Regional Director, IGNOU Regional Centre, Patna; and Dr. Arun Behera, Associate Professor of English, SSSIHL, Bangalore, attended the event.
Formal vote of thanks was offered by Yashaswini Patnaik, coordinator ESM.
The 1st webinar of the ESM webinar series was held at 12 pm. The topic of the session was Developing English Language Skills by Professor G. Rajagopal. In his session, Professor Rajagopal primarily focused on Basic and Advanced Skills, Higher Order Skills, Literary Skills, Study Skills, Communication Skills, Development of Cognitive Activity and the need for Formal Training for the teachers of English.
Subhransu Dash, student and young poet, summarized the session; Yashaswini Patnaik coordinated the Questions & Answers session; Nishant Mund offered technical support. Manasi Maharana, Lecturer in English, Bijepur Degree College proposed the formal vote of thanks.
Lingaraj Padhan, Co-founder, ESM; Ramakanta Naik, Ph.D Scholar, TISS, Mumbai; and Padmamukha Challan, Lecturer in English, Indravati Degree College, Mukhiguda, coordinated both the inaugural ceremony and the first webinar.
