Sayantan Datta, Assistant Professor of Practice, Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, delivered a plenary talk at the symposium Beyond Access: A Symposium on Reimagining Student Support in Indian Higher Education, organised by Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, on 27 March 2026. The talk was titled ‘It Helped Me Speak English Without Thinking Twice: Insights from a Peer-Driven, Immersion-Based Approach to English-Language Support’.
About the Talk
In this presentation, Sayantan Datta highlighted the Centre for Writing & Pedagogy’s Conversation Partner Programme (CPP). Started in 2021 as a part of the Centre’s peer-support initiatives, the CPP recruits senior undergraduate student volunteers (“Conversation Partners”) who are trained to create a safe and judgement-free space for students and staff to practise speaking, listening, and reading in English. Instead of teaching grammar and spoken English, Conversation Partners facilitate engagement with the language through participatory and embodied reading, listening, and speaking exercises. Sayantan demonstrated some exercises developed and implemented by Conversation Partners. Then, drawing upon student feedback from four iterations of the Programme, Sayanted showed how the CPP helps L2 learners not only tide over their anxiety around English proficiency and inculcate confidence, but also fosters a larger culture of peer support in the University. Sayantan argued that peer-driven immersion-based approaches to English-language support, like the CPP, recentre care and joy in language learning while helping L2 learners form durable support networks that extend beyond language learning.
