Botswana, Eswatini & Zambia drilled on French pedagogy
Ahundred and fifty ( 150) French teachers drawn from public and private schools across the country descended on Tlotlo Conference Centre Thursday and Friday to be drilled on the foundations of French language pedagogy in a programme dubbed ‘ Les Assises du Francais’.
The programme is actually a regional tour, which hopes to benefit 5 000 students from the three participating countries of Eswatini, Botswana and Zambia. The training was facilitated by the Pedagogical Coordinators at the Alliance Francaise de Lusaka and Alliance Francaise de Gaborone, Monique Orsini and Jane Banda respectively. French is the first foreign language taught in these three countries, hence the pedagogical teams of the language centres ( Alliance Francaise) in these countries in collaboration with Universities and public and private schools saw the need to create appealing courses including coming up with training programmes such as Les Assises du Francais to enhance the learning methods of local French teachers. Speaking at the start of the programme, French Ambassador to Botswana Laurence Beau noted that in Botswana, there are more than 40 public schools teaching Francais Langue Engragere ( French as a Foreign Language), which means 91 teachers and more than 3000 students excluding those at Universities and private schools. In Africa alone, there are more than 140 million people speaking French in 30 or more countries that are known as ‘ Francophone Africa’, therefore the immense opportunities of learning French cannot be gainsaid. This point was underscored by Angelique Saverino, the Alliance de Francaise Gaborone Coordinator, who noted that the exportation of Les Assesses du Francais to Lusaka and Eswatini demonstrates the importance of French learning in southern Africa, and how such an event is necessary to build a network of regional French language teachers. The Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Basic Education Simon Coles, who speaks fluent Swahili learnt from his sojourn in Tanzania, and a little French told Botswana Guardian during a cocktail at the French Embassy Residency that he hopes from this gathering the teachers will continue to immerse themselves through exchanges and engagements in the French language via Zoom meetings. Coles indicated that some 50 or so public school teachers have had the “luck” to be trained in French language teaching in the Reunion Islands, but that only 33 of these teachers now remain in service while others have followed different pursuits or retired. Coles noted that the other aspect of the Les Assises du Francais is to ensure there is improvement in the performance of French learners at the Junior Secondary level. “We have reviewed the syllabus for JC to dilute a little because it was pitched a bit high for second language learners,” he said, adding that this training is part of capacitating teachers to deliver that JC Syllabus. Ngwetsintwa Modibedi, the President of the French Teachers Association of Botswana told his publication that as the seat of SADC, Botswana wants to compete at par for the opportunities that present themselves to Francophone Africa. She said that as a “task- based training” Les Assesses du Francais is important to help teachers develop the tools and skills to teach using a task at the end of the programme of a learner since Botswana has introduced an outcome- based edu
cation. “We have brought about this programme so that we can produce a whole learner that can speak, that can write, that can listen and that can produce the language whenever possible,” Modibedi said excitedly.
A primary school French teacher at Botlhale Private School, Botshelo Maichotlo, who attended the training hailed the teaching methods which involved instruction and using games, as “empowering”.