Detail pointer of NCF for teacher training

1. NCF 2005 and Teaching at
Elementary Level
Complied by
Mrs Madhu Jha
Assessment Specialist

2. Guiding Principles of NCF 2005
- Connecting knowledge to life around and
outside the school.
- Shifting away of learning from rote methods.
- Enriching the curriculum for overall
development of children than remain
textbook centric.
- Making examinations flexible and integrated
into life.
- Nurturing an identity under caring
democratic concerns of the country.

3. Recommendations
• Integrated knowledge of subjects and
understanding
• Textbooks and other material should
incorporate local knowledge and
traditional skills
• School to provide a stimulating
environment that responds to the child's
home and community environment

4. School and Classroom Environment
• Teacher is a facilitator and supporter
• Learner centeredness and autonomy
• Active learner engagement
• Understanding based learning
• Learning in the company of others
• Giving primacy to learners experiences
• Multi linguism &Flexibility

5. School and Classroom Environment
• Connecting school knowledge and local
knowledge,
• Going beyond the textbook with greater use of
audio visual materials
• Repeated opportunities to use the knowledge
• Respect for multiple views.
• Opportunities to the learner to evolve and create
knowledge.
• Less of information transmission.
• Community participation to enhance quality and
accountability.

6. NCF 2005- THE PERSPECTIVE
• Reorientation of our perception of learners and learning.
• Holistic approach in the treatment of learners’ development and
learning.
• Creating an inclusive environment in the classroom for all students.
• Learner engagement for construction of knowledge and fostering of
creativity.
• Active learning through the experiential mode.
• Adequate room for voicing children’s thoughts, curiosity, and questions
in curricular practices.
• Connecting knowledge across disciplinary boundaries to provide a
broader frame work for insightful construction of knowledge.

7. NCF 2005- THE
PERSPECTIVE
• Learner to be engaged in
– observing,
– exploring,
– discovering,
– analyzing,
– critical reflection,
– content of knowledge.
• Activities for developing
– critical perspectives on socio-cultural realities need to find space in
curricular practices.
– Local knowledge and experiential learning.
– Environmental sensitive generation by undertaking environment-related
projects
– Attitudes and interests that have implicates choosing and organising the
content and process of knowledge.

8. IMPLICATIONS FOR CURRICULUM AND
PRACTICE
• Teaching for Construction of Knowledge
• The Value of Interactions
• Designing Learning Experiences
• Approaches to Planning
• Critical Pedagogy

9. Teaching for Construction of Knowledge
Learners to be motivated and directed to actively construct their own knowledge by
connecting new ideas to existing ideas on the basis of materials/activities
presented to them (experience).
The Value of Interactions
To provide an environment for learning to take place through interactions with the
environment around, nature, things and people, both through actions and
through language. The physical activity of moving, exploring and doing things,
on one's own, with one’ s peers or in the company of adults, also propagates
learning.
Designing Learning Experiences
The learning experience to be designed well as
• The quality of the learning task influences its learn ability.
• Learners should start valuing their own ability to think and reason than receiving
the knowledge created by others The onus falls teacher to ‘motivate’ children
who do not seem to be naturally motivated.
• Learners should be empowered with independence and flexibility as the
controlled atmosphere is detrimental to the growth of cognitive self-reflexivity
and flexibility

10. Approaches to Planning
• Teachers would need to devise, in advance, thematic topic plans in
order to engage learners with exercises created for their level.
• The practices of teachers in classrooms, the materials they use,
and the evaluation techniques employed must be internally
consistent with each other
Critical Pedagogy
• Teacher and student engagement is critical in the classroom
because it has the power to define whose knowledge will become a
part of school-related knowledge and whose voices will shape it.
• Students are critical observers of their own conditions and needs,
and should be participants in discussions and problem solving
related to their education and future opportunities and not fed in with
solutions.
• Hence children need to be aware that their experiences and
perceptions and should be encouraged to develop the mental skills
needed to think and reason independently and have the courage to
dissent.

11. KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
• Basic Capabilities
• Forming and sustaining relationships
• Some principles regarding the
approach to knowledge in the
curriculum

12. KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
Basic Capabilities:
• Children’ s basic capabilities are those that form the broad basis for the
development of understanding, values and skills.
• Language and other forms of expression provide the basis for meaning
making, and sharing with others.
• They create possibilities of development of understanding and knowledge,
providing the ability to symbolise, codify and to remember and record.
Forming and sustaining relationships:
Knowledge and understanding forms a sustainable relationship with the
• Social world,
• The natural world,
• One’ s self,
• Emotional richness,
• Sensitivity Values .
This gives meaning to life, providing it with emotional content and purpose.
This is also the basis for ethics and morality.
• Capabilities for work and action involves the coordination of bodily
movement with thought and preference, drawing on skill and understanding,
and directing oneself to achieve some purpose or create something.

13. Some principles regarding the approach to
knowledge in the curriculum :
The knowledge and understanding of curriculum helps students in:
• Acquiring a critical perspective on social reality and the
natural environment
• Connecting with the local and the contextualized in order
to ‘situate’ knowledge and realizing its ‘relevance’ and
‘meaningfulness’.
• Moving out of boundaries to draw one's learning from
observing, interacting, classifying, categorising,
questioning, reasoning and arguing in relation to these
experiences.
• Making connections across disciplines and bringing out
the interrelatedness of knowledge.

14. • Realising the ‘fruitfulness’ and ‘openness’ of enquiry, and
the provisional nature of truth.
• Engaging with ‘local knowledge’/indigenous practices in
the local area, and relating these to school knowledge
wherever possible.
• Encouraging questions and leaving space open for the
pursuit of new questions.
• Being sensitive to the issues of ‘equality’ in classroom
(e.g. girls not being given field-based projects, the blind
being excluded from the option of learning mathematics).
• Developing the imagination, and keeping imagination
and fantasy alive

16. NCF 2005 and School Subjects
Languages –
The importance of language in the life of any human being
needs no emphasis. Language plays a very important
role in the all round development of a child. It shapes the
child's world, gives him / her means of expressing
himself / herself, contributes to his / her emotional
growth, besides academic and all other aspects of life..
The purpose of language learning is the attainment of basic
proficiency and the development of language as an instrument
for basic interpersonal communication and later for abstract
thought and knowledge acquisition.

17. Guideline – NCF 2005 recommends that …..
• ‘Language learning is essentially a matter of acquiring the important
skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in an integrated
manner, and harnessing these skills to the performance of formal as
well as informal communication tasks.’
• In language learning, stress should be on ‘language-across-the-
curriculum approach’ that breaks down barriers between English
and other languages and subject areas
• In classes I and II focus should be on EVS components integrated
with language with further integration of key environmental, social
and arithmetical concepts in the primary classes

18. NCF 2005 Gives a Fresh Impetus to
Language Education:
• A renewed attempt should be made to implement the
three language formula.
• Children's mother tongues, including tribal languages
should be considered as the best medium of instruction.
• Proficiency in multiple languages including English
should be encouraged in children. Reading should be
emphasized throughout the primary classes.
• The learner should be able to develop sensitivity towards
their culture and heritage, aspects of contemporary life
and languages in and around
the classroom

19. Language and its relevance in complete
education
Language and the Arts
• Stories, poems, songs and drama link children to their cultural heritage and
give them an opportunity to understand their own experiences and to develop
sensitivity to others.
• In language learning, listening needs to be enriched with the help of music,
which includes folk, classical and popular compositions.
Language across the curriculum
• Language education is not confined to the language classroom. A science,
social science or mathematics class is also a language class. Such a policy of
languages across the curriculum will foster genuine multilingualism in the
school. It is important to view language education as everybody's concern at
school and not as a responsibility of the language teacher alone.
• Teachers would be being bilingual to some extent for the first few weeks.
• Teachers should make themselves aware of their students' first language or
mother tongue so that in times of difficulty they can explain to the students in a
simple and comprehensible language, may be mother tongue

20. Skills to be fostered
• The development of linguistic proficiency in the learner is needed for
the spontaneous and appropriate use of language in different
situations.
• The learner should acquire the ability to listen and understand, and
should be able to employ non-verbal clues to make connections and
draw inferences.
• The learner should develop the habit of reading for information and
pleasure; draw inferences and relate texts to previous knowledge;
read critically and develop the confidence to ask and answer
questions.
• The learner should be able to employ her communicative skills, with
a range of styles, and engage in a discussion in an analytical and
creative manner.
• The learner should be able to identify a topic, organise and
structure thoughts and write with a sense of purpose and an
awareness of audience.
• The learner should be able to understand and use a variety of
registers associated with domains such as music, sports, films,
gardening, construction work, etc.

21. • The learner should be able to use a dictionary and other materials
available in the library and elsewhere, access and collect
information through making and taking down notes, etc.
• The learner should be able to use language creatively and
imaginatively in text transaction and performance of activities.
• The learner should be able to develop sensitivity towards their
culture and heritage, aspects of contemporary life and languages in
and around the classroom.
• The learner should be able to refine their literary sensibility and
enrich their aesthetic life through different literary genres.
• The learner should be able to appreciate similarities and differences
across languages in a multilingual classroom and society.
• It is important for the leaner to notice that different languages and
language varieties are associated with different domains and
communicative encounters.
• The leaner should become sensitive to the inherent variability that
characterises language and notice that languages keep changing
all the time.

22. Attitudes to be nurtured
Attitudes and motivation of learners and teachers play an important role in all
learning, including language learning.
• When the teacher is positively inclined towards pupils of diverse linguistic,
ethnic and socio-cultural backgrounds, pupils will also tend to get positively
motivated and involved in the teaching-learning processes.
• It is extremely important that teachers begin to appreciate the fact that all
languages represented in their multilingual classrooms are equally scientific
and should receive equal respect from the teacher and the taught.
• The teacher should also begin to use the multilingual classroom as a
resource.
• Languages flourish in each other’s company. They die when they are
isolated as ‘pure objects’.
• Languages which have become powerful in the modern world have gone
through a process of constant borrowing at all levels from other languages
and they have still not closed their doors.
• The teacher’s positive attitude will go a long way in lowering the anxiety
levels of learners, while raising their awareness levels of self-respect, self-
discipline, respect and care for others, interdependence and cooperation.

23. Primary Level (Classes I – V)
Level – 1 (Classes I – II)
Objectives
•to build familiarity with the language primarily through spoken input in meaningful situations (teacher
talk, listening to recorded material, etc.).
• to provide and monitor exposure to and comprehension of spoken, and spoken-and- written inputs
(through mother tongue, signs, visuals, pictures, sketches, gestures, single word questions/answers).
• to help learners build a working proficiency in the language, especially with regard to listening with
understanding and basic oral production (words/phrases, fragments of utterances, formulaic
expressions as communicative devices).
•to recite and sing poems, songs and rhymes and enact small plays/skits
•to use drawing and painting as precursors to writing and relate these activities to oral
communication.
•to become visually familiar with text [word(s)], what it means, and to notice its components - letter (s)
and the sound-values they stand for.
•to associate meaning with written/printed language. At the end of this stage learners should be able
to • talk about themselves, members of the family and the people in their surroundings.
•follow simple instructions, requests and questions, and use formulaic expressions appropriately
• enjoy doing tasks (including singing a rhyme or identifying a person, object or thing) in English
• recognise whole words or chunks of language
•recognise small and capital forms of English alphabet both in context and in isolation
•Read simple words/short sentences with the help of pictures and understand them
•Write simple words/phrases/short sentences

24. Level – II (Classes III, IV and V)
Objectives
• to provide print-rich environment to relate oracy with literacy.
• to build on learners’ readiness for reading and writing.
• to promote learners’ conceptualization of printed texts in terms of
headings, paragraphs and horizontal lines.
• to enrich learners’ vocabulary mainly through telling, retelling and
reading aloud of stories/ folktales in English.
• to use appropriate spoken and written language in meaningful
contexts/situations.
• to give them an opportunity to listen to sounds/sound techniques
and appreciate the rhythm and music of rhymes/sounds.
• to enable them to relate words (mainly in poems) with appropriate
actions and thereby provide understanding of the language.
• to familiarize learners with the basic process of writing.

25. At the end of this stage learners will be able to do the
following:
 Narrate his/her experiences and incidents exchange
his/her ideas with the peers.
Carry out a brief conversation involving seeking/giving
information enjoy reading a story, poem, a short write-up, a
notice, poster etc take dictation of simple sentences and to
practise copy writing from the blackboard and textbook and
to use common punctuation marks.
 Write a short description of a person, thing or place –
prepare a notice, or write a message for someone.
Write a short composition based on pictures.
Take part in group activity, role play and dramatisation.
Language Items at the primary level, knowledge of
grammar is to be seen mainly as a process of discovering
uses and functions of items through exposure to spoken
and written inputs.

26. Methods and Techniques
•(At level I, there will be a shift of emphasis from learning of
limited input (textbook) to providing exposure to a wide
range of inputs.)
•an oral-aural approach to be followed (with limited focus
on reading and writing depending on the level)
•learner-centred activity-based approach including bilingual
approach.
•integration of key environmental, social and arithmetical
concepts.
•pictures, illustrations, cartoons, and toys to be used to
arouse the interest of children
focus on discussions, project works, activities that promote
reading with comprehension depending on the level

27. Time Available
•There are about 180 working days available
for teaching/learning amounting to one
period per
•day allotted to the teaching of English. The
actual number of periods available,
however, may be about 150. The size of the
curricular package should be such as can
be conveniently covered in the given time.

28. Evaluation
•Evaluation in language should be periodic, preferably at
regular intervals of 4 to 6 weeks of actual instruction.
•Evaluation should be both oral and written. Periodic tests
should carry a weightage of fifty per cent – twenty-five per
cent each to oral and written. The marks should be taken
into account in the final grade.
•Results of test and examinations should be treated
basically as feedback to teachers. They should guide them
in programming their teaching and in organizing remedial
work.
•Evaluation should be linked to assessment of general
proficiency rather than to specific achievements

29. Mathematics –
•Mathematisation (ability to think logically,
formulate and handle abstractions) rather than‘
knowledge' of mathematics (formal and
mechanical procedures) is the main goal of
teaching mathematics.
•The teaching of mathematics should enhance
children's ability to think and reason, to visualise
and handle abstractions, to formulate and solve
problems.
•Access to quality mathematics education is the
right of every child.

30. MATHEMATICS
CLASSES I – V
General Points for mathematics teaching
The following syllabus has been developed keeping the philosophy of the Yashpal’s
Report and the National Focus Group for Teaching Learning Mathematics in view.,
•We have kept a thumb rule of 140 periods, of 30-40 minutes each, per year for
mathematics. We need to encourage the development of a culture of learning
outside the classroom to continue beyond the 140 periods.
•The syllabus has been developed in five very natural streams flowing from Class I to
Class V, which overlap very often, not only with each other but also with themes
developed in other subjects that are being learnt simultaneously.
•The focus in the activities/exercises, are to be built around children’s real-life
experiences and from areas across the curriculum. In order to meet more than one
objective simultaneously, and cover more than one stream at the same time.
•The teachers would need to give enough leeway to children, or modify the activity, to suit
child’s interests. The children’s current local interests and enthusiasms to be utilised to
the maximum as opportunities for developing math concepts.
•Mathematics is about a certain way of thinking and reasoning.

31. • Particular stress must be given to allow the child to articulate her reasons behind
doing an exercise in a certain way, for example, why she is continuing a pattern in a
particular way. Such interactive learning will require the teacher to plan for more time
to be given for certain concepts in the classroom,
• The language used in for Classes III to V should be what the child would normally use
and understand.
• The sequencing of the concepts should not be linear, but spiral.
• The concepts in books should not appear to be dry and should be attractive to
children in various ways.
• While dealing with problems, the text books should have several situations with
multiple correct solutions. Make the children aware that there can be several
strategies for teaching a problem.
• The material regarding patterns should be created in a way that would allow the child
to observe patterns to generalise them, and to develop her own patterns.
• Lessons should not we begin by definitions and explanations. Concepts and ideas
should be arrived at from observing patterns, exploring them and then trying to define
them in their own words. There should be no overt emphasis on remembering
definitions in known standard forms in exactly the same words.
• Problem posing is an important part of doing maths. Exercises that require children
to formulate and create a variety of problems for their peers and others should be
built in.

32. Science – enable child to:
- examine and analyze everyday experiences
- deal with issues related to environment
- take up activities involving outdoor project work
- generate knowledge through discovery learning
Social Science- integration as well as disciplinary approach
-sensitivity towards issues
The National Curriculum Committee had recommended in the 1975
policy document “TheCurriculum for the Ten-year School: A
Framework”, that a single subject ‘Environmental Studies’be taught at
the primary stage.
(Class I-II) Environmental
• Studies will look at both the natural and the social environment,
(Classes III-V)
• There would be separate portions for social studies and general
science termed as EVS Part I and Part II.
Teaching of Environmental Studies

33. Course materials should also draw upon the following concerns in an
integrated manner:
I. Self, Family, Home, Friends and Pets
II. Neighbourhood and Community at large
III. The Nation – diversity (socio-cultural, religious and ethnic, as well as
linguistic), heritage (myths/legends/folktales)
IV. The World – India’s neighbours and other countries (their cultures,
literature and customs)
V. Adventure and Imagination
VI. Sports
VII.Issues relating to Adolescence
VIII.Science and Technology
IX. Peace and Harmony
X. Travel and Tourism
XI. Mass Media
XII. Art and Culture
XIII. Health and Reproductive health
Environmental StudiesEnvironmental Studies

34. NCF 2005 and Objectives of Environmental Studies
• To train children to locate and comprehend relationships between the natural,
social and cultural environment;
• To develop an understanding based on observation and illustration, drawn from
lived experiences and physical, biological, social and cultural aspects of life,
rather than abstractions;
• To create cognitive capacity and resourcefulness to make the child curious about
social phenomena, starting with the family and moving on to wider spaces;
• To nurture the curiosity and creativity of the child particularly in relation to the
natural environment (including artifacts and people);
• To develop an awareness about environmental issues;
• to engage the child in exploratory and hands-on activities to acquire basic
cognitive and psychomotor skills through observation, classification, inference, etc
• Toemphasise design and fabrication, estimation and measurement as a prelude
to the development of technological and quantitative skills at later stages;
• To be able to critically address gender concerns and issues of marginalisation
and oppression with values of equality and justice, and respect for human dignity
and rights.

35. Themes for a Child Centered and Integrated Approach
This syllabus web has been developed within a child
centered perspective of themes that provide a common
interface of issues in social studies, sciences and
environmental education.
The syllabus for Classes III-V is woven around six common
themes
1. Family and Friends:
1.1 Relationships; 1.2 Work and Play;
1.3 Animals; 1.4 Plants
2. Food;
3. Shelter;
4. Water;
5. Travel;
6. Things We Make and Do

36. Experiential Learning (through
Co- Scholastic subjects)
• Direct participation in the events of life.
• Reflect upon everyday experiences
• Create space for exploration- data collection,
classification, labelling, analyzing……..
Work Education- Transforms knowledge into
experience and generates values.
Art Education- Music, dance, visual arts and theatre.
- to express oneself in different forms
- interactive approach and not instruction
Physical and Health Education- more attention to be
given

37. 3.11 ASSESSMENT AND
EVALUATION
• Evaluation should be a way of providing credible feedback
on the extent to which we have been successful in imparting
purpose of pedagogy is to identify children who need
remediation (this neednot wait for formal assessment; it can
be detected by the teacher in the course of teaching and
attended to as a part of pedagogic planning ,
throughindividualised attention
• to diagnose learning difficulties and problem areas—while
broad indications about conceptual difficulties can be
identified via evaluation and formal testing.
• Diagnosis requires special testing instruments and training.
It is also specific to foundational areas of literacy and
numeracy, and is not meant for subject areas.

38. Assessment at
Classes I and II of the Elementary Stag e :
• At this stage, assessment must be purely
qualitative judgements of children's
activities in various domains and an
assessment of the status of their health
and physical development, based on
observations through everyday
interactions . On no account should they
be made to take any form of test, oral or
written.
• .

39. Class III to Class VIII of the
Elementary Stage :
• A variety of methods may be used, including oral and written tests and
observations .
• Children should be aware that they are being assessed, but this must be seen by
them as a part of the teaching process and not as a fearful constant threat.
• Grades or marks along with qualitative judgements of achievement and areas
requiring attention are essential at this stage.
• Children's own self-evaluation can also be a part of the report card from Class V
onwards .
• Rather than examinations, there could be short tests from time to time, which are
criterion based.
• Term-wise examinations could be commenced from Class VII onwards when
children are more psychologically ready to study large chunks of material and, to
spend a few hours in an examination room, working at answering questions .
• The progress card must indicate general observations on health and nutrition,
specific observations on the overall
• progress of the learner, and information and advice for the parents

40. The ten core components identified in the National
Policy of Education must be suitably integrated in
school curriculum.
Since all contemporary concerns and issues cannot be included in the curriculum
as separate subjects of study, some emerging concerns should be suitably
incorporated in the course content.
 environmental issues,
 conservation of resources,
 population concerns,
 disaster management,
 forestry,
 animals and plants,
 human rights,
 safety norms
The thematic package given above is suggestive and at each stage
should be in line with learners’ cognitive level, interest and
experience. In every textbook, there should be some lessons, which
are translations from other languages.