Srikkanth combines cricket with English for online course

Former India cricketer Kris Srikkanth has combined South Asia's favourite sport with an online course to come up with an initiative called 'EnglishStrokes' which has already helped thousands of students improve their English speaking skills.

The programme is a joint venture between Srikkanth's company AA Edutech and the British Council.

"We use the language of cricket to help people learn English. Something like Oh! What a wonderful shot! Where we make them learn that wonderful here is an adjective," Srikkanth told the media here on Wednesday.

The 1983 World Cup winner said they have had a tie up with Common Service Centres to help the concept grow in rural areas.

"It has been very well accepted in the market. The Common Service Centres sell multiple services in the rural areas in around 1,20,000 locations. So we have tied up with them. They will now sell EnglishStrokes through their centres," he said.

"You see everything is digital these days. And digital learning is the way forward."

The course has listening activities, video content, games, conversations, cricketing facts, fun tasks and language exercises. There are also anecdotes from favourite cricket players, their profiles and one can also watch them in action which adds to the fun.

Alan Gemmell, OBE, Director of British Council India, also announced initiatives like UK-India 2017 Digital Open Call and 'Mix the Play'.

The former is a program through which the British Council is looking for brilliant, creative and digital ideas.

"Five projects will be selected for seed funding of 10,000 pounds each by the end of July," said Gemmell, who addressed the event via Skype.

"It is a call for what more we can do to bring together Britain and India culturally."

'Mix the Play' on the other hand offers digital audiences the chance to play director of one of Shakespearea's most popular plays 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Visitors to the 'Mix the Play' website will be invited to make a short film from a scene of the play.

The duration of the scene should be under three minutes.

"You will be the director of the scene. You can choose your cast, setting, background music etc," Gemmell said.

--IANS

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