Open Session
[Zoom] This session is open to anyone
All Levels I give permission to record or livestream Presentation (45 minutes)
Reviving the Legacy of Michael West
The session will focus on the contributions of Michael West, the third Principal of Teachers’ Training College, Dhaka, who worked here from 1920 to 1932. He observed that few pupils had real reading ability in English, were not able to speak more than a few disjointed sentences and could write very laboriously. A focus on reading, he thought, could provide students with a foundation which would be useful in developing other language skills as well. Therefore, he developed The Reading Method, supplemented by graded readers, which became popular worldwide. The tradition continued even after the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 in the form of Rapid Readers, but was discontinued on the grounds of being improperly used. Michael West Study Centre (MWSC) was established at Dhaka TTC in 2024 with a view to reviving supplementary graded readers for different levels of education.
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Mr. A. M. M. Hamidur Rahman is currently working as Professor of English at Daffodil International University, Dhaka. He formerly worked as Professor, Supernumerary and Honorary Professor of English at Institute of Modern Languages of Dhaka University. He has designed curricula, written textbooks and trained teachers from various levels of education in Bangladesh.
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Dr. Ranjit Podder is currently working as a Professor in the Department of English at Teachers’ Training Collège, Dhaka. He has experience in curriculum development, textbook writing and training of teachers of different levels. He is the Chief Editor of the research journal BTEJ (Bangladesh Teacher Education Journal) published annually from the college. He is also the Secretary of Michael West Study Centre, established at Dhaka TTC.
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Dr. Rob Waring, is Emeritus Professor at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama and Visiting Professor at Thammasat University, Thaland. He is an acknowledged expert in Extensive Reading and vocabulary acquisition. He has published over 80 articles and has given hundreds of lectures, plenaries and featured speaker presentations in 32 countries. He is an Executive Board member of the Extensive Reading Foundation responsible for the promotion of Extensive Reading globally. He is also author and series editor of a six series of graded readers by various publishers and has recently published Teaching Extensive Reading in Another Language with Paul Nation.