The government will introduce its new model for English teaching in schools at the end this year.

Sunimal Fernando, the Convener of the Presidential Task Force on English and IT said school teachers are now being retrained to teach speaking and listening skills to students apart from learning English grammar.

He said teaching only grammar has not brought the much needed results in terms of English education in the country.

However Fernando revealed that under the new program titled “English as a life skill” students will be trained to speak English, listen and also learn grammar.

It is with this plan, the Government is currently retraining English teachers to learn the art of teaching students to speak and listen.

The teachers are given training to adopt modern English training techniques brought from the English and Foreign Language University of Hyderabad.

70% of the local English teachers have already been trained and the rest will complete training by the end this year.

Accordingly the Government plans to introduce the new English teaching curriculum to all 9500 schools starting from next year.

Sunimal Fernando said from 2012, Ordinary level exam will test the English skills of students in all 3 formats such as speaking, listening and grammar.