Context-appropriate ELT pedagogy : an investigation in Cameroonian Primary schools

Over the last two decades, many ELT professionals and researchers have called for contextually appropriate forms of ELT pedagogy to be developed, arguing that the dominant discourse on ELT methodology, as promoted by local Ministry of Education (MoE) policy makers around the world, has been largely generated in ideal (North) contexts and so does not reflect the challenging realities of the majority of language teaching and learning contexts in which they are being imposed. Despite these calls, there has been very little research that shows how contextually appropriate ELT pedagogies can be developed. To fill this gap, there is a need for research that develops from the bottom-up by relying on input from teachers and learners who constitute the major stakeholders in the teaching and learning process. This study, therefore, set out to investigate students' and teachers' perspectives regarding what counted as good and appropriate English language teaching in two English medium primary school contexts in Cameroon. To achieve this, data was collected through classroom observation, friendship group interviews with children and stimulated recall with teachers from six English medium primary schools from Yaounde and Buea. A further two-day workshop group discussion based on videoed lessons from the six classrooms was organised with 30 teachers in both research sites. The findings of this study revealed that teachers and students possess shared, but also - in some respects - divergent notions of good/appropriate ELT pedagogy which are largely different from MoE enforced methodological procedure, and it is these notions - rather than what the Ministry says - that have the biggest impact on their experiences and practices. The study also revealed that, in exploring insights into their, as well as students’ perspectives on good teaching, teachers in the workshops were able to develop new ideas about appropriate teaching which took on board ideas from children’s perspectives as well as successful practices from the videoed lessons of their colleagues. These findings highlight the potential contribution of a bottom-up research approach to teacher development which takes account of context in the process of generating and disseminating good practice

‘Tu connais le answer?’:Multilingual children’s attempts to navigate monolingual English Medium classrooms in Cameroon

This paper explores the ways that multilingual children attempt to access the English medium curriculum in Cameroonian primary education. We focus on Francophone Yaoundé where there has been a sharp rise in the number of children from predominantly Francophone multilingual homes attending English medium schools. The paper draws from a child-centred case study and data generated through classroom observations, child-group and individual interviews and recordings of student interactions around unsupervised tasks to show how learners are drawing from their multilingual resources to attempt to transgress monolingual norms in the classroom. The data also shows that learners are doing what they can to ‘get by’ but they are doing this in ways that are not supported by policy, pedagogy, or teaching materials. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways that monolingual policies epistemically exclude children in an immensely complex multilingual context and draws implications for more inclusive policy and classroom practice

Decentring ELT:Teacher associations as agents of change

In 2018, the A.S. Hornby Educational Trust launched its ‘Decentring ELT’ initiative, with the aim of identifying, publicizing, and supporting ways in which English language educators in low- and middle-income countries work locally and collaboratively to develop activities that respond to their particular circumstances. This article aims to explore the notion of ‘decentring’ in ELT by means of a provisional characterization and by presenting examples of activities carried out by ELT teacher associations in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia which involve: localization/devolution; encouragement of success-sharing; support for teacher research; investigation of members’ needs and/or capabilities; and/or attempts to bring about wider change. On the basis of feedback received so far on our provisional characterization of decentring, we end by highlighting some ways in which this notion, and outside support for it, may need to be not only extended but also problematized and critiqued

The intersection of gender and language in girls' educational experiences and outcomes in Rwandan basic education

Rwanda is often described as a ‘success story’ in girls’ education, with significant gains in some areas of gender parity. It is also one of the few countries in the world where all children learn from the first day of primary school in a dominant language, in this case, English. Munyaneza and Mugiraneza discuss, in their contribution to this policy brief (page 19), the impact that this is having on learners in the early years. In our study in Rwanda, we focused on girls at the end of both primary (P6) and lower secondary education (S3) to identify the ways that learning in English impacts on girls’ experiences and transitions to latter stages of education. We focus particularly on the years of lower secondary education, when language demands of the curriculum increase, to demonstrate some of the ways that learning in English intersects with socio-economic and cultural gender-based concerns to limit girls’ learning

Umuzigo w’inyongera : girls’ differential experiences of the double-burden of language and gender in Rwandan English Medium secondary education

This paper argues that learning in an unfamiliar language of learning and teaching (LoLT) negatively impacts Rwandan girls in the early years of lower secondary education. Based on classroom observation and interviews with case-study girls in four Rwandan secondary schools, we show that where girls’ life circumstances differ, so too does the way in which the use of an unfamiliar LoLT affects them. Through the development of five typologies, we explore the ways that when girls face inequalities at the levels of time, space, material and emotional support they have for learning, the requirement that education be conducted and assessed in an unfamiliar language works to compound these inequalities. Our conclusions advocate for greater attention to be paid to the language of learning and teaching in global and national girls’ education policies to alleviate the ‘double burden' that many girls carry

The role of experienced teachers in the development of pre-service language teachers’ professional identity: Revisiting school memories and constructing future teacher selves

This paper examines how student teachers perceive the role of more experienced teachers in fostering their pedagogical cultural identities (Burgess, 2016). It reports on a project within the ‘Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Iniciação à Docência’ (PIBID), a national programme in Brazil to promote teacher recruitment and encourage undergraduates to pursue a career in teaching. The study investigated in-school experiences of four pre-service teachers working in state schools located in peripheral urban areas in São Paulo. Specifically, it examined the ways these student teachers conceptualise their pedagogical contexts and related them to the concrete or symbolic presence of other experienced professionals. The findings are expected to support professional development and inform the revision of teacher education programmes in Brazil