Teacher Trainings

My main focus as an education volunteer is to hold trainings for the English teachers at the primary schools in Butajira. I am here to support and help the teachers in any way that I can. Having completed my CENA, gone through our group’s IST (In-Service Training for G9) and with the second semester begun, I along with the education office here in Butajira started programming for the teacher trainings. After a brief meeting with the head of the education office, other members of the office and the cluster supervisor, we decided to focus the trainings on active learning methodologies since that it what the Ethiopian English syllabus wants teachers to focus on. We have teacher trainings planned for the next 6 weeks, every Saturday morning from 9am to noon. Teachers are split into 2 cycles. Cycle 1 teachers grades 5 – 8 while cycle 2 teachers grades 1 – 4. Teachers meet every other week depending on which cycle they are. In all, 28 English teachers were invited from the 4 primary schools in the Butajira area.

            Safe to say I’ve been pretty nervous and uneasy about holding these trainings probably ever since I found out this was what my job entailed, so for a few months now. I held my first training yesterday morning. Of the 16 cycle 1 teachers that were expected to come, 13 showed up. I was pleased with that number. I prepared all week, going through all the material volunteers from previous groups had given me, my notes from my own training sessions with Peace Corps, and all the material we had received from Peace Corps. It was a lot. All week I prepared flip charts to present to the teachers and went into town to print out some useful handouts for them. I decided to start with an introduction to communicative teaching methodology and to compare it with other methodologies that are commonly used in Ethiopia. I did my best to make the trainings as active as possible so that teachers would see how they can use active learning in their lessons. I had the teachers start by sharing their own teaching experiences. Teachers don’t seem to do much collaboration and I think it would be to their benefit to share their classroom experiences and practices. We then looked over the teaching methodologies that were previously used in Ethiopia and what method (communicative language teaching or active learning) the new syllabus is expecting teachers to follow. I thought this would be a good idea so teachers could see what method their teaching falls under and what practices they should aim for.  

            After our sai-bunna break (tea/coffee break which also includes a fried pastry called koker that I love) I thought it would be a good idea to discuss doing group work and pair work in the classroom since this is one of the techniques of active learning. Many of the teachers do not know how to incorporate group work into their lessons or if they do, they have trouble making it effective. Having eighty plus students in your classroom however makes it difficult to make group work successful. I split the teachers into groups and had them discuss some of the challenges and advantages that they have when doing group/pair work. Next, I gave them a handout and went over some group work activities that they can do in their own lessons. I challenged them to try one of these techniques in the next 2 weeks, reflect on what they did, and bring their notes and ideas back to the next training.

            To finish the training, I had the teachers answer some feedback questions. I asked them what they liked and didn’t like about the training they received, and what trainings they would be interested in receiving in the future. All the feedback was positive. Teachers thanked me for giving the training and are excited for the next one. They explained that they never receive any material so these trainings are great. They seemed to really appreciate what I was doing and the work I had put into it. They want to continue coming to the trainings which was great to hear. I couldn’t be happier with the results and I’m excited for the next 5 weeks of training.

One last point I’d like to mention. I feel that there is a lot of pressure put on teachers, English teachers in particular since all subjects are taught in English from 5^th grade on. They are being pushed to teach using more communicative methods and make their lessons student-centered instead of teacher-centered, but they have very few resources, their classroom sizes are ridiculously large, and they are not given any material on how to make their lessons communicative. They are told to use active learning, but they have never been taught how to use such methods. I have a lot of work to do in the next year and a half but if anything, this first training showed me that the teachers want my help and are ready to work with me. I’m excited for the work ahead. The future looks good.