Five years ago CCETT - the Caribbean Center for Excellence in Teacher Training launched a literacy training and assessment project. It was a pilot program in which teachers were taught how to make literacy educational and exciting. In the days of TV – that was a hard task but 31 teachers and 2 thousand students later – the program is reaping success and moving from strength to strength. We found out how.
Keith Swift Reporting
7 year old Jenicia Adolphus can read as well as she does because for the last two years - she and her classmates in this standard one class at St. Luke’s Methodist Primary School have been a part of the Caribbean Center for Excellent Teacher Training’s literacy pilot project.
Denise Robateau, Teacher Training Specialist
“The teachers are trained in literacy and they work with the students to promote reading and writing – to create readers and writers.”
Corrine Richard, Teacher Training Specialist
“The teachers engage in training workshops where they go through certain trainings, giving them the theoretical framework that they need – strategies, methodologies, and different materials that they can use. Then we go into the classroom and implement these trainings.”
Standard one teacher Sakenah Lopez has been implementing what she learnt in the classroom for the past two years.
Sakenah Lopez, Standard 1 Teacher – St. Luke’s Methodist
“We try to move from just the talk and just the textbook. We try to bring in all different creative activities –whichever way we want to bring out their learning techniques we will use it. We bring it through drama, dance, we do a lot of read along. We get engaged – loving books – have a love for books. That helps them to develop their reading skills and they want to learn more and so they are developing the reading skills, they also developing their comprehension skills and their critical thinking skills.”
And Lopez who has been with these students since infant two says the project and her approach have made a big difference.
Sakenah Lopez,
“I have the same set of children from last year and the performance have been great. It is shown in the results, it is shown in the class work that they do, it even shows in their change in behaviour – just from being involved in such programs – just getting a love for school on a whole. Their behaviour has changed a whole lot and it is just amazing to see the results that they had in infant 2 coming up to standard 1, it is just amazing.”
And to ensure there are more seven year old’s like Jenicia who are enthused by reading - the project is now a program and it will be expanded.
Denise Robateau,
“We have a lot of statistics and our results show that Belize is one of the countries in the Caribbean that has been performing really well. Because of what has been happening in our classrooms- in June 2008 the PSE results showed improvement in some of these schools like Central Christian, like Salvation Army, Burrell Boom Methodist –those original schools. And so because it is a good project and we don’t want to see it go under we’ve worked real hard for sustainability and part of that sustainability is the expansion approach taken on by Minister. He asked for Stann Creek for the need there and so there are four schools in the town onboard.”
The program will also expand to Bella Vista school down south. There are now 62 teachers enrolled in the program. We must mention that standard one teacher Sakenah Lopez who was featured in our story – won a regional award for her work and the difference it has made in her classroom.
