BIL offers well-designed, comprehensive courses ranging from the pre-intermediate to the upper-intermediate level in order to facilitate the English language requirements of the university students. Besides English, BIL currently offers the modern languages Bangla, German, Chinese, French, Arabic and Spanish to both its students and other professionals.
Additionally, BIL offers Pre-University, which is a unique course designed for those students who proved themselves competent in their respective disciplines during the admission test except in English. Besides, MA in TESOL, the flagship programme of BIL, is creating efficient English language teachers and leaders from around the country with its well organized curriculum, and innovative and practice-oriented teaching approach.
The BRAC Institute of Languages (BIL) at Brac University plans to be committed to the field of academic language teaching and research, with a clear focus on creative and forward thinking teaching concepts for diverse learner groups. The primary goal of the Institute is to assist students to develop language skills for success in their academic, professional and personal life. Building on the success of CfL, BIL intends to achieve this by continuing to offer proficiency-based courses and by using creative student-centered language teaching techniques and high quality teacher training programmes. In addition, BIL will continue to offer the pre-university course for students who need additional help with English language skills in order to perform well at the university. The core objectives of the proposed institute are listed below:
1.1. Creating knowledge: Building on the existing expertise and innovative teaching experiences and research
1.2. Convening experts: Providing a platform for practitioners, academics and policy makers to come together to focus on specific problems of teaching English to the under privileged and develop new strategies
1.3. Exploring new ideas: Field testing new teaching innovations through pilots, conducting qualitative and quantitative studies to understand process and impacts and adopting good practice lessons for adoption and scaling up
1.4. Advocating policy: Working with policy makers to adopt effective ELT strategies in the local and global contexts
1.5. Developing ELT Materials: Working with local and international partners to create cost effective, high quality teaching learning materials for various media
Brac Institute of Languages (BIL) of Brac University is working with the goal to assist students in developing the language skills they need to become successful in graduate schools and in their professional lives. BIL focuses on implementing student-centered and creative language teaching techniques by developing modules based on students’ proficiency level. This not only helps avoid having mixed ability classes, but also ensures small classes with excellent interaction between teachers and learners.
Pre-University is a unique course designed for those students who proved themselves competent in their respective disciplines during the admission test except in English. Besides, MA in TESOL, the flagship programme of BIL, is creating efficient English language teachers and leaders from around the country with its well-organized curriculum, and innovative and practice-oriented teaching approach.
BIL had conducted a three-week long English language development course for ‘Medhabikash’ and Training for RAI Foundation Scholarship Recipients. It had worked with BRAC’s STAR project in collaboration with UNICEF and ILO for the capacity development of the outreach students who are currently involved in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). Together with BRAC, ILO and Bureau of Manpower (Bangladesh), BIL had worked on establishing the language labs for the project titled ‘Promoting Decent Work through Improved Migration Policy and its Application in Bangladesh’. In collaboration with BRAC Institute of Global Health (BIGH), BIL had developed six modules on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) for the ‘Diploma in Midwifery’ course. BIL had also collaborated with the English in Action project aided by the Open University, UK in their MYTEC programme.
The strengths that the faculty members of BIL reflect are their interests and work experiences in diverse spheres of academia, such as assessment, reflective teaching, peer review, critical and creative thinking, adult teaching, teacher training, experiential learning, English for specific purposes, English for academic purposes, curriculum & syllabus design, material development, education and society, use of literature in language teaching, computer assisted language learning, etc.
Contact
BRAC Institute of Languages (BIL)
Level: 5, BRAC University
Kha 224 Pragati Sarani, Merul Badda , Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
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