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English language fair generates enthusiasm

Staff Correspondent
The premises of St Joseph Higher Secondary School echoed with loud cheers and much jubilation with the participation of around 700 students in an English Language Fair that kicked off in the city yesterday.
Under English in Schools (EIS) programme, The Daily Star and Robi jointly organised the fair in coordination with the education ministry to improve secondary school students' proficiency in English.
Adcomm Ltd is the creative and event partner of the fair.
Prof Noman-ur-Rashid, director general of Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE), inaugurated the daylong fair. Similar fairs will gradually be organised in 300 schools, involving students from altogether 700 more schools, under the ambit of the EIS programme.
Students of St Joseph School, Mohammadpur Preparatory Higher Secondary School, and Tejgaon Govt Girls High School took part in several interesting activities, including quiz competitions in English.
Amid a presence of teachers and students' families at the fair, the students burst into cheers and
applause with the announcement of the name of each winner.
Lion King, a globally reputed movie, was screened at the beginning of the event. After the movie came to a close, the students took part in spot quiz, vocabulary test, one word question, and quick questions based on the movie.
Some selected students participated in a writing competition which involved writing to the president on the topic, "How do you want to contribute for the betterment of Bangladesh?" Besides, the students took part in two-minute long extempore speeches on different topics and role-play.
"It is a wonderful event which has created scope for us to learn English in a different way,” said Amanat, a student of St Joseph School who won a prize in spot quiz.
“This is really interesting,” he added.
Inaugurating the fair, Prof Noman-ur-Rashid lauded the initiative. In his view, it was a wonderful programme based on a variety of activities.
"We have to spread ourselves across the world and for that we need to know different languages, especially English,” he said, adding
that being present at the fair was a part of learning English.
“When we started the EIS programme, we launched a special page of The Daily Star in the classrooms... now you [students] have to use whatever you have learnt from those special lessons,” he said.
The three-year EIS programme, initiated two years ago to promote the learning of English in secondary schools, covers seven lakh students in a thousand schools, including 317 public and 683 non-government schools across the country.
Three complimentary copies of The Daily Star, with a special page of English lessons prepared by the Centre for Languages of Brae University and coordinated by the education ministry, are given to a thousand schools five days a week under the EIS initiative.
Elaborating on the initiative, The Daily Star Editor and Publisher Mahfuz Anam said that it had been undertaken to make the learning of English easy for students.
“Bangla is our mother tongue and we are proud of our language. But the world speaks in another language and that is English,” he said. “If we want to represent ourselves
boldly before the world we all have to learn English alongside Bangla."
He urged the students to read English more as well as read the special page and other newspapers to develop their English skills.
Mahmudur Rahman, executive vice president of Robi, in his remarks, said, "You [students] are the future of the country and the country will light up if you light up with your own strength.”
This initiative was for students living in the capital. It was also for those who, living in the rural areas, are not privileged like students in the city, said Rahman.
“I am really amazed,” said Dr B Harold Rodriguez, principal of St Joseph School. He noted that it was a big initiative taken for teaching English in educational institutions.
He also said that a plan was in the works to set up English for School clubs in different schools where such programmes are initiated.
Geetiara Safiya Choudhury, chairperson of Adcomm Ltd, Prof Shafiqur Rahman, director of DSHE, Segufta Y Samad, vice president of Robi, and Mahtab Uddin Ahmad, chief financing officer of Robi, were present at the fair.