In an attempt to teach Bangla to his own kids, a striking idea of making Bangla learning easy for kids, Razeeb Hasan Chowdhury, from a basement in Toronto, Canada, came up with the innovative idea of Bangla Iskool, a Bangla learning app that will focus on making the learning journey of Bangla easy, fun and exciting. It is primarily for the children of Bangla-speaking people who use English as their main language.
Launched in Apple’s App Store in February and on Google Play store in March. The app has been downloaded to more than 1,200 devices; the app is getting the attention of Bangladeshi children growing up abroad.
In teaching his son, Razeeb Adopted new ways and techniques, incorporated games into the learning process, and made it interactive and enjoyable. And the new techniques and methods made learning easier and less time-consuming. And with the success of teaching his son new and interactive methods, the founder came across the big idea of why not enabling the access to children all across the world who struggle to learn Bangla?
And to depict over the idea of teaching Bangla, the following statistics made it more clear why making an interactive learning platform was required. There are over 13 million Bangla-speaking international migrants, 3 million of whom are children. Most of these children grow up in school systems where their first language is not the language of their parents. Despite parents speaking their native tongue at home, very few children learn to read and write in Bangla. Without formal education in their native language, many immigrant children find it hard to express themselves and discuss complex issues with their parents growing up.
Eventually, the culture gap widens within families as most immigrant children forget their mother tongue. In the process, the children lose ties to their homeland. This language decay is not only visible within the immigrant communities; it is also a burning issue in the homelands. Because of the internet boom, global languages are pushing their local counterparts to the backseat. English is becoming the household language, which the younger generation is becoming more articulated with.
So, shortening the gap in Bangla learning and making the process easier, Bangla Iskool, the platform, took flight. The interactive Bangla learning platform is making the process easy by making it fun and filled with interaction.
For a long time, interactive learning platforms have been a unique teaching method that removes all unnecessary obstacles from traditional language teaching techniques and makes the learning experience relatable, exciting and easy. It aims to not only teach children to read and write in a language but to also make them fall in love with it, take an interest in it and expand their vocabulary. This can eventually inspire the children to learn more about their ancestral culture as a whole–the ultimate expectation of their parents.
In the same way, Bangla Iskool is one of the frontiers in Interactive Bangla Teaching Methods where the platform is filled with video tutorials, whiteboards, “Bagadoolia – an interactive game”, playbooks, e-books, leaderboards, informative analytics and progress reports. A full-on display of interaction in making learning Bangla easy. And getting rid of all the traditional and redundant teaching methods with no obstacles.
There are now hundreds of cases where Bangla Iskool has changed the perception of learning Bangla. Starting from children to adult, the platform has become a cherished household name amongst NRBs. Moving forward, the competitive aspect of the app would also make it interesting to children of English medium schools in Bangladesh.
A total of 1500 hours of learning video has been made for the app. Over a number of 1000+ kids have learnt a staggering number of 15000+ letters and 450000+ words. And thus, bringing happy faces around the globe by teaching Bangla, the language that binds the people of Sonar Bangladesh, home and abroad.
The platform was made successful with the relentless support of people from home and abroad.
Bangla Iskool has a mission to make Bangla “cool” to the newer generations so that they don’t distance themselves from it. Rather they learn to love it. In Bangla Iskool, they are chasing a dream – one day, our following generations all over the world will read, write, understand, enjoy and love Bangla.