Experience is a great life guide as it gives guide and even it is the source of all knowledge, as Albert Einstein ones said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”
In every human being activities experience has a great role, but one cannot get fully experienced without sharing others best experiences in addition to identifying important self- practices in doing something.
Educational researchers like Helen F. Ladd of Duke University say, experience especially plays essential role in teaching. Experienced teachers are on average more effective in raising student achievement than their less experienced counterparts.
This happens not just because experienced teachers are more likely to work in schools and classrooms with more advantaged students. When researchers carefully adjust for this reality, they still find that more experienced teachers are, on average, more effective than teachers with fewer years of classroom experience.
In the research she has done with colleagues on teacher performance in North Carolina, the greater effectiveness of experienced teachers in boosting student achievement is clear for elementary, middle, and high schools alike.
As well, she says that teachers do better as they gain experience. Researchers have long documented that teachers improve dramatically during their first few years on the job. Less clear has been what happens after those early years. Math teachers become increasingly effective at raising the test scores of their students through about 15 years.
At that point, they are about twice as effective as novices with two years of experience. The productivity gains are less dramatic for middle school English teachers but follow the same trajectory. On average, even teachers with two decades or more of experience are far more effective than those same teachers were earlier in their careers.
As well, experienced teachers also strengthen education in other ways beyond improving test scores. As teachers gain experience, they become increasingly adept at doing other important things like reducing student absences and encouraging students to read for recreational purposes outside of the classroom. More experienced teachers often mentor young teachers and help to create and maintain a strong school community.
In relation to this, U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa hosted Africa English Language Fellows Midyear Conference and 50th Anniversary Celebration in the last two days of this week. The conference brought together more than 20 fellows serving in 13 African countries.
These countries where Regional English Language Office (RELO) operates are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Mauritania, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Togo to share best practices and strengthen the network of English Language Fellows in Africa.
RELO conference is trusted to foster mutual understanding, promote English language learning and enhance English teaching capacity abroad. English Language Fellows model and demonstrate up-to-date Teaching English as a Foreign Language classroom practices that help foster thoughtful and responsible behavior in students and teachers of English.
Regional English Language Officer (RELO) George M. Chinnery, from the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, says that sharing experience in teaching the language as a foreign tongue has critical roles. “We teachers came together to discuss the best practices and challenges to teach better.”
“This program invests in the capacity of English language students and teachers in Addis Ababa and around the country by sending experienced teachers to share their professional expertise and experience.”
In the same way, he said that the group will visit Bahir Dar, Haramaya, Jimma, Addis Ababa, and Gambella to provide training to students and English language teachers in Ethiopia.
The very critical problem in language classes of the sub-Saharan African countries is over sized student numbers in a class. It limits student participation though it is very difficult to teach language without student participations, he noted adding that the experience sharing would provide better management system and teaching methodologies.
Riah Werner English Language Fellow in Abidjan Cote d’Ivoire who trains teachers those are mostly in service, on her part says that a language is taught better if different methods are implemented through accumulated experience.
“Teachers have to develop or share methods those match their contexts to facilitate learning,” she states adding that it is better to teach new words in the context of a meaningful subject-matter lesson and facilitate student discussion that requires students to use the new word.
It is also important to ensure that students hear the correct pronunciation of the word and practice saying it aloud. Hearing the syllable structure and stress pattern of the word facilitates its storage in memory.
“Learners have to practice speaking; to remember words they have to say them at least eight times. Teach word parts –root words, base words, prefixes, and suffixes that students will encounter frequently,” she underscored.
By the same token, she has also put forward her experience on managing a large classroom. “I teach teachers to use either clapping, raise hands to get students’ attention or gesture but should not shout as it is boring and tiresome.”
Likewise, the other fellow residing in Addis Ababa, Kaylin Wainright on her part also said that from experience vocabulary would be taught better in related clusters to help students understand how words are related and interrelated. At some points translation to native language is also important in teaching a new language. Help students connect new vocabulary to something with which they are already familiar.
From all these practical and professionals points of view, it could be said that experience teaches a language better. Therefore, the US Embassy has done well by hosting the Anniversary to compile and scale up best English Language Teaching experiences the fellows had.
The Ethiopian Herald February 22/2019
BY DIRRIBA TESHOME
