The British Council has yet again marked its presence in the city with its proud re-launch of the Teaching Centre in Dhanmondi, Dhaka – the largest in the country – on 22 June. After extensive refurbishments and investment in cutting-edge classroom learning technologies, the Teaching Centre reopened with new offers and courses to help people improve their general and professional English language skills.
The launching ceremony was attended by his Excellency Robert W. Gibson, CMG, British High Commissioner to Bangladesh as the chief guest. "The British Council is the world’s leading cultural relations organisation and English language is UK’s great cultural assets,” he said. “I think this teaching centre will showcase best practice and innovation in ELT. I hope the students will enjoy the cutting-edge classroom learning technology and develop their professional skill through this centre of excellence.” Mr N I Khan, Secretary Education Ministry and Prof. Abdullah Abu Sayeed were also present as special guests.
Some of the new learning technologies are high-speed broadband connections for classrooms, 10 Galaxy tablets for customers to sign-out in the library for English-learning purposes, new laser/LED projectors in all classrooms, and new Microsoft Surface 3 tablets for teachers to use in the classrooms as mobile interactive whiteboards (IWB). The use of Surface tablets is a world’s first in English language teaching and is one of the British Council's global technology trials.
The Teaching Centre have also introduced library services that were not available before: British Council library members will be able to drop off books they loaned from Fuller Road in Dhanmondi and Uttara. The new library collection in Dhanmondi will be available to students and library members for short-term loan. Plus, there is a new Reading Corner for kids in Dhanmondi and a new programme of academic events for students and library members. The Teaching Centre in Dhanmondi also launched the new official preparation course for IELTS in Bangladesh (IELTS Premier). Besides that, the Teaching Centre will be running regular CELTA (Teacher Training) courses from later in the year to help improve the quality of English teaching.
The British Council also makes promises of expanding services of the Teaching Centres to meet the rising demands of quality English courses nationwide by opening a new branch in the diplomatic area, and make available new teaching services in Sylhet and Chittagong.