Empowering Multigrado School Teachers: A Comprehensive English Teaching Workshop to Enhance Language Learning in the Classroom
Last year in Chiriqui, G78 Teaching English, Leadership and Life Skills (TELLS) volunteers planted the seed with the Ministry of Education (MEDUCA) and Panama Bilingue to offer English workshops for teachers of the multigrado schools within the province. It wasn’t until their Close of Service (COS) that we were finally able to turn their idea into a reality. The goal? To provide such teachers with the tools to increase English instruction and usage in the multigrado classroom.
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| Playing the traditional game of Telephone to practice listening and speaking skills in English |
In June, we offered a 5-hour workshop in each of 3 regions so that all multigrado teachers in Chiriqui had the ability to attend. Panama Bilingue and the Ministry of Education (MEDUCA) staff took on the responsibility of setting dates, times, and locations, as well as sending out the invitations, encouraging participation, and maintaining attendance lists.
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| Peace Corps volunteers Courtney and Amelia playing Kaboom with the teachers |
The workshop focused on the basics. After reviewing the multigrado English curriculum, we narrowed our topics down to common greetings, questions and answers, colors, numbers, shapes, daily calendar routines, songs, classroom commands and classroom objects. Each teacher received a practice workbook, as well as a printout with a description of each strategy and game shared during the workshop. The teachers came from a wide range of English levels, but each teacher was able to take away something new. By the end of the seminar, teachers were able to recognize, read, and pronounce key English vocabulary, as well as adapt strategies and games to reinforce English vocabulary. Based on the positive feedback, we hope to expand the seminar to offer more opportunities for continued learning in the upcoming months.
***What is a multigrado school???
Multigrado schools are public primary schools in areas with typically smaller populations where many (and sometimes all) of the grade levels are combined into the same classroom. Unlike most other public schools in Panama, these schools do not receive English teachers and therefore the responsibility to teach English falls on the general classroom teachers, whom often have never received formal English instruction. This creates a disadvantage for many of the students when they reach high school and are required to take English classes. This seminar was designed to not only help multigrado teachers improve their basic English vocabulary, but to also give them teaching strategies and games that they can use in the classroom to break away from traditional paper and pencil technique.
Multigrado schools are public primary schools in areas with typically smaller populations where many (and sometimes all) of the grade levels are combined into the same classroom. Unlike most other public schools in Panama, these schools do not receive English teachers and therefore the responsibility to teach English falls on the general classroom teachers, whom often have never received formal English instruction. This creates a disadvantage for many of the students when they reach high school and are required to take English classes. This seminar was designed to not only help multigrado teachers improve their basic English vocabulary, but to also give them teaching strategies and games that they can use in the classroom to break away from traditional paper and pencil technique.
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| Multigrado teachers in the region of Bugaba |
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| Multigrado teachers in the region of Puerto Armuelles |
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| Multigrado teachers in the region of San Felix |
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