Cartoons are the secret weapon for learning English — at least this is what the Punjab Education Department believes. For, the Department has initiated a novel way to teach English language to the government school students of Class VI to VIII by showing them cartoons.
Starting Monday, the students of as many as 3,289 government schools will be shown a few episodes from the Britain’s famous television cartoon show, Peppa Pig, to improve their English, both in terms of speaking and understanding.
Besides, the move is aimed at encouraging the students to attend the school regularly after the month-long summer vacations.
“The Government is very serious in improving English to the government school students believing that they have potential to learn the language, especially after the better results this time, as compared to the private schools,†a senior Education Department official told The Pioneer.
The official said that the decision is aimed at enhancing the students’ communication skills in English by ensuring its implementation through EDUSAT. “The programme has already been started and the first screening was made today only on EDUSAT across all government schools in the State,†added the official.
“The Department has sought various suggestions from the teachers across the State to improve its functioning, and to make any improvements and on which areas to focus. So, teaching through cartoons is one suggestion that we received from many teachers, and we, after detailed discussion, decided to give it a try,†said the official.
“Cartoons are for entertainment, but if it is educative and kids can learn from that, it is highly beneficial. In this way, they will enjoy having fun and learning many new things that are going to be of much use to them in real life,†said the official.
The Department has selected a few episodes from Peppa Pig — a British animated series — in
which a preschooler pig, Peppa, participates in many activities, and learns a lot through fun with her family and friends.
“Peppa Pig is quite popular among the kids, and there are reports that children are picking up English language that too in British accent,†said the official.
For the purpose of screening, the LED screens and TV sets have been provided in the multimedia classrooms.
