Teaching Materials

Author’s Note

I was privileged to get an offer to teach Bengali at the "Bangla School of Regina" a few years back. On my first day of school, I was trying to get some relevant information from my colleagues about the teaching methods, curriculum and textbooks. It was a little bit surprised when I came to know that basically there is no such textbook or curriculum in the school. The teacher was teaching using their own individual methods, and it was what they felt best for the students. There was no systematic approach or standardized method of effective teaching.

I felt an obligation to do some work on creating a curriculum and appropriate textbooks needed for our children to teach Bengali as our heritage language. I started searching for textbooks and other related materials. I checked with other Bengali language schools in Saskatchewan as well as all over Canada. Unfortunately, I found none. I searched through google and other online bookstores like Amazon, Indigo and came out empty handed. I couldn't find a single book to teach the Bengali Language written for the children who were born outside of Bangladesh. The book that is seen is written for the children of Bangladesh where Bengali is their native language. There were no books written for the children of Bangladeshi diaspora born outside of Bangladesh and where the native language is not Bengali. So the idea of writing this series of three books came out of a need which is the perfect example of ‘necessity is the mother of invention.'

This series of three books with exercises meet the need of the beginners who want to learn both oral and written Bengali, in other words, learn to write and understand what we say. These three books correspond to the first three levels of semester hours each, which will be adopted in the course.

I would like to thank each and every one for their valuable ideas and feedback. Many thanks to my colleagues and fellow teachers at the Bangla School of Regina, Shahnoor Chowdhury, Razia Sultana, Shamsunnahar, Fazle Rabbi and FarhanaAkther for sharing their ideas. I would like to acknowledge that this book would not be published without the help and support of Mr. ZaheedIftekher, Ex-President and Mr. Iftekher Khan, President of Bangla School of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, FatemaYeasmin and our two sons Zarir Shiddike and Zabir Shiddike for their continued support and co-operation and standing beside me throughout this project in spite of all the time it took me away from them. Undoubtedly, it was a long and painful journey for my wife and the children.

-Zabed Mohammad

Here is book preview one of the books (book one):