English proficiency programme: 80% Class 3 students in Kasaragod schools retain most details from audio story

More students from ELL-implementing schools in Kasaragod and Kollam can read text fluently, as per study

As many as 80% students in schools in Kasaragod where Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE)’s E-Cube (E3) English Language Lab (ELL) programme is implemented in class 3 are able to retain a majority or all of the details from an audio story.

In fact, schools in both Kasaragod and Kollam (55%) have shown a significant increase in the number of students who are able to retain a majority or all of the details, according to an impact study by the Regional Institute of English South India (RIESI), Bengaluru, and IT4Change, Bengaluru.

The study, conducted to assess the effectiveness of the programme, was conducted in three classes (III, V, and VII) in six schools each (five intervention plus one control school where the programme was not implemented) in three districts – Kollam, Ernakulam, and Kasaragod.

It found that in the control school in Kasaragod, only 25% of the students in class 3 were able to retain a majority or all of the details.

When it came to reading skills, more students from ELL-implementing schools in Kasaragod and Kollam could read the text fluently without any hesitation or mistakes than any students in the control group for the two districts.

The study found that more students from ELL schools than control schools were able to write one to four contextually relevant sentences. This distinction was highest in Kollam district where 32% of students from ELL schools could write contextually as compared to 0% in the control school.

In class 5, students from ELL schools across the three districts were found to have better listening and speaking skills than those in control schools. As many as 36%, 16%, and 25% of the students in ELL schools in Ernakulam, Kasaragod, and Kollam were able to speak about multiple contextually relevant details related to the discourse. In Kasaragod, this was 0% in the control school.

When it came to speaking skills, students’ performance in ELL schools was found to have improved by a significant margin. Almost half the students in class V in ELL schools in Ernakulam were able to describe an image using several details as compared to those from control schools.

In class 7, listening and speaking of students in ELL schools in all three districts showed an improvement , with the highest improvement seen in Kollam (128.57%).

The percentage increase in students’ performance in writing was the highest in Kollam at 167.05%. Reading skills improved overall, with 48% of students from ELL schools in Ernakulam, 32% in Kasaragod, and 52% in Kollam able to answer all questions from a comprehension passage. In Ernakulam, 43% of students in ELL schools could tell a narrative using sequence of events or dialogues, as compared to 0% in control schools.