**6. English in Action (EIA) in Bangladesh**

The English in Action programme in Bangladesh is aimed at significantly improving the teaching of English in all sectors and is offering alternative forms of support including integrating information and communication technology (ICT) into different aspects of the school-based support systems.

The English in Action (EIA) programme is a major nine-year (2008-2017) development programme initiated at the request of the Government of Bangladesh and funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) for the Government of United Kingdom. It aims to equip twenty five million Bangladeshis with the skills to communicate in English to levels that enable them to participate fully in national economic and social activities and global opportunities (EIA, 2008). The project uses supported open and distance learning (sODL), media and mobile technologies to supplement and enhance the learning and teaching of communicative English among school students, teachers and adults in Bangladesh (Shohel & Banks, 2010; Shohel & Power, 2010).

There are four major strands to the EIA programme in Bangladesh: *a). Primary Education:* engaging students and teachers through innovative classroom resources. *b). Secondary Education:* empowering teachers to change their classroom practice. These interventions are school-based, delivered through supported distance learning and enhanced by mobile technologies. *c). Adult Learning:* enabling lifelong learning via interactive and digital media and *d). Research, monitoring and evaluation (RME):* evaluating on going projects and researching impacts of interventions. As a partner in the EIA programme, the Open University UK is involved in teachers' professional development programmes in Bangladesh.

There are three operational phases in the EIA project:


Before piloting the EIA intervention in main stream Bangladeshi school system, the prepilot study of the project was carried out at the Underprivileged Children's Educational Programs (UCEP) schools as a test-bed in the capital city Dhaka. The pre-pilot phase was carried out for one year (July 2009 to June 2010).
