Empowering English – English Text Book Series

The Complete Solution For Learning English. The Future Is In English Proficiency.

A revolutionary English textbook series based on layering and scaling of skills as opposed to just doing prose and poetry comprehension with meanings. It is part of a system, along with “Language with Ease” and “Writing with Ease” that addresses all parts of English learning efficiently. It is used by some of the best schools in the country, and has no match when it comes to promoting critical thinking, skills and competencies for autonomy, and literary appreciation in students.

  1. Life Skills: The measure of success is often linked to language proficiency. Children need to express ideas and opinions clearly, write reports, argue points of view, discuss issues and persuade people.
  2. The Competitive Edge: Having superior English skills gives the user the competitive edge, whether it is to enter top schools and colleges, get promotions based on business reports, enliven living room discussions or appreciate literature.
  3. The Learning Window: Language is best learnt in the school going years. Failure to maximize this learning window will create handicaps. Confidence in English needs to be built early in the practice of language skills.
  4. Freedom from Rote Learning: Children need to engage with and manipulate the language to gain proficiency in English. This empowers the learning of any subject that uses the medium. It frees the child from the shackles of rote learning.
  5. The Influence of Quality Materials: Good users of English are almost always those who read voraciously and hear fluently spoken language. Early exposure to large amounts of effective vocabulary, classic literature, authentic materials like newspapers, advertisements, songs, recipes, jokes etc, as part of learning materials, is invaluable.
  6. Raising The Bar: You raise the bar and children jump to reach it, you lower the bar and they crawl beneath it. This metaphor is true for the standards we set for children in achieving excellence in English.
The series contains:
  • Learning outcomes tables that show what each topic does for the child
  • Rationales clearly worked out for the teacher
  • Writing concept map and writing genres for all  genres of writing
  • Matched outcomes for IGCSE, ICSE , CBSE syllabus and ambitious State Board learners
  • Rigour required for IGCSE  and IB Boards
  • The best of international practices and methodology
  • Excellent higher order thinking questions
  • Teacher Support: teacher manuals, orientation, a year’s hand holding and review

FAQS FROM SCHOOLS REGARDING THE MINDSPRINGS SYSTEM AND ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS

These are the frequently asked questions by School Heads and managements with regard to the use of our system of teaching English, using our textbook series of Empowering English, Language with Ease and Writing with Ease. Please read carefully and ask us about any other doubts you might have. This will enable us to make this FAQ document more exhaustive and informative. This page deals with FAQs on Empowering English Text Book series.

1. What do the Empowering English textbooks have that are different from other books?

The Empowering English textbook series is part of a pathbreaking genre and skills-based system. The books are layered for the progression of skills and are scaled to foster higher levels of complexity once the skills are introduced. This scaling is meticulously achieved for frequency and easy mastery. Along with ‘Language with Ease’ our all-in-one English grammar, vocabulary, oral and writing book and the unique reference book ‘Writing with Ease’ they form a complete system. Schools are encouraged to do a book study for literature in the form of a novel. We supply you with all the questions required for this.

2. We follow xxx Board. There are certain books prescribed/recommended by the Board for classes 1-8. books. Do your books follow the Board syllabus?

Books are generally prescribed at the 10th and 12th level for examinations. Grades 9th and 11th are preparatory years for these examinations. From Grades 1 to 8, children are on a developmental trajectory and they should be on a skills acquisition journey. This is the USP of the Mindsprings language teaching system.

Our books aim at autonomy. They help the student to prepare for doing several skills on their own. Example of skills are: Independently, reading for comprehension, knowing how to answer a variety of questions, understanding the nuances of poetry for appreciating them, formal grammar or usage and transformation of sentences, contextually guessing meanings for MCQs, answering higher order thinking questions, and writing effectively in all genres. The key words are spontaneously and independently. Moreover, children need to study skills like note-making, use of graphic organisers, summarising, and learning how to answer questions completely and succinctly. Beyond these skills, there is hardly anything that any Board in the country is likely to question or test. Therefore, children are better prepared for their examination classes using our books.

Children are also given extensive vocabulary practice and they are trained for oral fluency at conversational speed even if the Boards do not test students for ideas, fluency, vocabulary, and clarity as they are very important for their future prospects.

3. Can we do both the prescribed and Mindsprings English books together?

You must use the Mindsprings books as the main syllabus from grades 1 – 8, otherwise, it will mean double work for the teachers, as two books or two systems will mean a massive amount of teacher labour so it should be avoided at all costs.

Besides, the more we adhere to the system of dependence on the teacher, the harder it will become for students to become autonomous. The Board prescribed books, if at all they are mandatory, as in being inspected for use, or used for checkpoint exams, must be used as the additional practice material to test competencies in skills learnt with Empowering English. If you neither have an inspection nor a checkpoint, then the question of buying Board recommended books may not arise at all.

The extra work arises from teachers “teaching” the texts by explaining content, explaining the meaning, discussing questions on the story or text, getting students to write them out in their notebooks and locally questioning these texts for the exam. This is time-consuming. If teacher time and effort are eliminated by the skills being mastered by the child, the teacher is free for remedial and creative pursuits. The learning of any Board prescribed text becomes a cakewalk and can be done by the children as classroom work on their own or at home as homework or as flipped classrooms. This is what the Mindsprings system trains them for. We also encourage teamwork and oral sharing to help students revisit fundamentals several times with various texts and economize on time. Stories in the lessons do not matter, the skills in them do.

4. Can we not train children for the skills by using the Board prescribed text?

Yes, you certainly can. But it will mean a massive amount of work for the teachers. As most are text-based, the teacher will have to tease out the skills and find extra materials to support these skills as they need to be frequently practiced. As most texts are not layered for this frequency, many learnt skills are often lost due to lack of practice. Then, there is the matter of questioning for skills not given in the textbook which the teacher will have to make. So, it is a very hard call.

In all teacher generated systems, the acid test is the validation of the methods they are using as seen in the proficiency of students’ work and their criterion-based levels. So, standards must be met. A syllabus is only as good as what it does for our average and struggling children.

5. What about our teachers and students? Our teachers are not very proficient in English, and our children come from backgrounds that are underprivileged, or from non-English speaking families.

There is a view that teachers should first be taught before they can teach students. This is a very long route. Considering teacher time, pay scales, domestic responsibilities and motivation to pursue language with single-minded purpose, this is going to be an uphill task while several batches of children wait, or miss the bus forever. Then, there is the universal problem of teacher attrition because a lot of training may never be used on the targeted students in your school as the teacher leaves the school for a variety of reasons. Hence, a system where both the teacher and the student learn simultaneously becomes a more efficient way of solving this problem. Our system will ensure this happens as we provide the teachers with full manual support in pre-made lesson plans, digital or personal orientations, WhatsApp group hand holding, and periodic reviews. Over the years, along with the children, the teacher’s own proficiency improves rapidly and exponentially.

6. How do we set questions for the skills in these books?

All language papers are made up of writing, comprehension and grammar questions. All literature papers expect the student to understand and appreciate seen and unseen prose and poetry. The Board examinations, which occur in the 10th and 12th need no bigger preparation than gaining proficiency in the four fundamental skills of language up until grade 8. Setting questions, therefore, will have more rigour and will include questions on skills, but will not be any different from current patterns being followed. You will get help on this. We do not need to follow a Board pattern of questioning in the acquisition years. In fact, this is seen as limiting and even harmful in some cases.

7. What does the orientation do?

It gives confidence to teachers that there is always help at hand. It helps rewire the teachers’ inherent systems. Certain age-old practices that clearly do not work need to be abandoned. Teacher-centered classes will diminish when they are made participatory. and oral. Writing of answers will be restricted to HOTs and the generation of ideas. It moves the teacher from the classic errors of teaching where the text is paramount and skills to foster autonomy are ignored. It makes the teacher recognise the linear syllabus flaw that makes him/her obsessive about doing the items deeply and thoroughly without revisits. The orientation shifts the focus to the how of teaching and learning. It shows the teacher the fault lines in present practices and forgetting cycles that cause confusion. As the manuals are exhaustive, the teacher’s planning is done. Furthermore, pedagogical tips on teaching efficiently will enable the teacher to free herself up for the betterment of self and students. We also train teachers in time management and efficient classroom practices as a part of our system.

8. Why is this a superior system?

It is based on sound philosophies and pedagogies related to how the mind absorbs, stores and applies learning and it has succeeded brilliantly. In the long term, everything becomes easy. After the teething problems, both student and teacher are better informed on skills acquisition and training. The building of skills sets or their enhancement practice on previous learning becomes easy. As the books are gently scaled all skills are revisited till the end, either independently or in application, the onus on the teacher and the stress to do an item thoroughly for all time is absent. Over the years the children are autonomously skilled as skills are sufficiently practiced and therefore, they are confident with any unseen material placed before them. The results are superlative, quick to see and children are delighted with the classes. The key is to do the skills often and briefly.

9. What do we, as supervisors and management, have to do to make sure this succeeds? Isn’t it going to be a lot of unfamiliar work supporting the teachers?

As Principals, supervisors, HODs you only need to monitor that the teacher is using the system as it is meant to be. This requires very brief routine visits to ensure that the manuals are regularly consulted and used, the classroom is participatory and student-driven, children in higher grades are making notes during routine notebook inspection, and the teacher is paying heed to the special pedagogical practices shown for time management during the orientation. You will also need to check if the teachers are actively asking doubts and posting success stories on the WhatsApp group for everyday problems. With so much support they should not be giving a year-end report on being helpless and on failure.

10. How do we convince our parents about this new system, as they will want to know how to use these text books to teach their children?

Parents need to be oriented to the system because it is moving away from comfort zones of rote, question-answer meaning and tuition practices. You can use the PPT we supply to orient parents. They are generally delighted once they see the results of the book on their children’s English for knowledge and writing in a few months. It is necessary to use praise to keep the morale of the children and parents high in the first few months of transition. Be gentle with the marking initially till children get familiar with the change. The book simply succeeds based on the astonishing performance of children in skills despite all adult worries over change.

Even if you achieve 50% success with the books in the first year, you have moved away from a rather inefficient wasteful system to one that will only get better in the successive years. Children across schools are excited with the mix of stories, enjoy the thinking and participation in the class, and love taking ownership of their learning.

Empowering English, as the name indicates is designed to empower the learner in a significant way. It provides a journey through the important genre of English namely descriptive, narrative, imaginative, reporting, discussion, argumentative and persuasive.

The content is balanced between classic and contemporary and covers all the aspects of the language with specified aims and objectives. It has empowered them to write and speak well. Punctuation was always a problem with the students, but now they are confident with all the parts of speech and grammatical concepts.

It is an excellent resource of vast vocabulary. It helps the students learn the core concepts of analysis and critical thinking with the help of the tasks provided at the end of the chapters.

The students also revisit many concepts like Figures of Speech over the years for reinforcement of topics.

Overall the book is a journey which prepares the students to face the challenges of studying English.

–         Ms. Leena Gupta, Teacher, Grade V, St. Lawrence School, Nashik.


SSRVM being a school for first generation slum children, they tend to be weaker in English language. The books by Ms. Usha Pandit are phenomenal guides to hand hold children step by step to practically and effectively learn the English language. The beauty of these books is that unlike the traditional English books, these books are self help guides to raise the inquisitiveness in students and learn practically rather than theoretically.

It would be fantastic to build this culture of inquisitive learning amongst children and I would recommend every child to adopt these wonderfully crafted books.

-          Maheshwari Sundar Raj Konar, English HOD & Supervisor, SSRVM, Dharavi

The Mindsprings Family Of Top Schools In India

  1. The Shri Ram School, New Delhi
  2. The Heritage School, Vasant Kunj
  3. The Heritage School, Rohini
  4. Modern School, New Delhi
  5. Bhatnagar International School, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi
  6. Bhatnagar International School, Paschim Vihar, New Delhi
  7. Manav Sthali School, Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi
  8. The Shriram Millennium School, Noida
  9. Ridge Valley School, New Delhi
  10. Neerja Modi School, Jaipur
  11. Kidz Hive School, Jaipur
  12. Teoler Education Services Private Limited, Jaipur
  13. Akshara High School, Kandivili, Mumbai
  14. St. Dominic Savio School, Andheri, Mumbai
  15. Cathedral & John Connon School, Mumbai
  16. CNM & N. D. Parekh School, Mumbai
  17. Udayachal High School, Vikroli, Mumbai
  18. Chembur English Primary School, Mumbai
  19. Shishuvan  School, Mumbai
  20. Ajmera Global School, Borivali, Mumbai
  21. Vishwajyot High School, Kharghar, Mumbai
  22. Lodha World School, Thane, Mumbai
  23. SVKM School, Mumbai
  24. Birla Kalyan School, Mumbai
  25. Anchorwala Education Academy, Vashi
  26. Convent of Jesus & Mary High School, Khar Ghar
  27. Sharon English High School, Mulund
  28. St. Lawrence High School and Junior College, Nashik
  29. The Orchid School, Pune
  30. The GEMs Genesis International School, Ahmedabad
  31. Fountainhead Education School, Surat
  32. JBH Sardar English School, Surat
  33. Vidya Mangal Gyan Ganga School, Surat
  34. Sagar Public School, Bhopal
  35. Little Kingdom School, Tirupur
  36. MSB Educational Institute (group – Chennai, Rajkot, Kolkata, Bhopal, Nagpur, Nashik, Mumbai, Pune, Indore, Rajasthan, Secunderabad, Raipur, Bhanswara)
  37. Laurels School International, Indore
  38. NLK Group of School, Kanpur
  39. JNMS
  40. National Modal School Coimbatore
  41. Arihant International Academy MP 

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