Date / 26th March 2011
Partners / The American Embassy, The English Clubs of Brazzaville
Place / Villa Washington
Participants / § The 13 English Clubs leaders who responded to the invitation: The Puritan Ethic, Shakespeare’s English Club Followers (Shafo Club), United Forever Club (ACEJC), The Joy Luck Club, Uprising of Fire, Butterfly English Club (BEC), African Academy for English Studies, New Global English Club Vision (NGVC), The ROEC English Club (The Real Ouenze English Club), BBC, The Creation Club, AD (The American Dream), The White House.
§ Pamela Aulton from the US Embassy (representing Lori Runkle)
§ Jacinthe Claudia Dossou Member of the Villa Washington English Club
Started at / 10:15 am
Ended at / 12 am
Context / The process of gathering all independent English Club Leaders of Brazzaville was initiated by Lori Runkle as an attempt to gather them together in order to better promote English learning in a more efficient way.
Agenda / Goals
- Improving communication among English clubs in Brazzaville.
- Improving communication with English club leaders and the Public Affairs department at the U.S. Embassy.
- Brainstorm ways for organizations interested in English education to work together.
- Define problems and challenges of English clubs in Brazzaville.
- Brainstorm solutions to these problems.
- Share strategies and ideas that have helped strengthen your club and that worked well for your members. (You could split participants into groups for this question.)
- Designate a leader to represent English clubs in Brazzaville and to work with the embassy keeping lines of communication open among all parties.
- Define what types of training English club leaders need and create a plan to establish an online presence for English clubs in Brazzaville.
Topics of Discussion / Intervenant
§ Distribution of handouts to all participants (by Claudia)
Mrs. Pamela started by explaining the purpose of gathering all the leaders together. She also mentioned the reason why she replaced Mrs. Lori Runkle and talked about the reasons why the leaders were called and let them understand that the embassy proposed that idea in order to help Groups (English Clubs) to reach the same objectives.
§ Giving the Speech to participants so that they can bring their contributions related to the questions in the handouts.
1) The importance of English education:
2) Challenges faced by teachers and students of English in Congo, what kind of problems do they face and why?
3) How to solve the problems identified in question 2
4) Resources that are needs to solve that problem
5) Strategies found by the teachers to teach or promote English in the Country? What works for teachers, students and English Clubs in general?
6) How could English Club, Teachers college ENS, US Embassy and other organizations interested in English education work together to share resources & improve education
7) How can English Clubs improve communication among the members in case the embassy organizes training? How to reach people? Who is going to take the leadership with the contact list updated?
8) Would English clubs benefit from an online presence? What level do they have in mater of training/experience with computers and online resources?
9) What kind of plan would leaders create for English education for the next 10 or 20 years as a Minister of Education in Congo? / Sylvain Ekouya (from the New Global English Club Vision) saw English education as important for jobs opportunities in today’s World such as working at the embassy for example. Chrisostome Epongo (from the Puritan Ethic English Club) emphasized that English education was important for globalization in societies because the World spoke one language) and also acknowledged its necessity for personal growth because many companies in Congo are now referring to English, what makes the language a useful tool to have.
According to Mr.Matondo Anselme (from African Academy for English Studies) the main concerns of English students is the lack of materials (equipments). Two leaders (of the club Uprising of Fire) talked about the need of appropriate documents to make researches, the lack of places for people to go and have access to internet and get more knowledges. Leaders (from United Forever Club) also raised the issue of the costs of books on the market. According to Mr. Matondo Lucky Mel (from United Forever Club), French countries were learners as far as English language is concerned and there is a problem regarding how the language is transmitted and communicated to people. According to American Dream Association, sending teachers abroad would give them opportunity to learn, come back and teach starting from the nursery schools. One of the major point they also raised was the lack of good training and seminars on new methods or technics, Chrisostome Epongo (from the Puritan Ethic English Club) also talked about the need of a laboratory so that teacher s can improve their listening skills. Some others spoke about financial aspects such as the Shafo Clubs who needs money to be able to rent the place where their activities are held.
Concerning suggestions, participants said that the English leaders should get organized so that the government can recognize their role.
The government should help people to have access to internet and make it affordable. The English Club should promote their clubs by organizing activities which will have a direct impact on society and get contacts with the ministry of higher education. They should also create a federation of English club leaders which should meet maybe once per month so that collaboration among clubs can be strengthened and unable them to easily connect to the world with a common goal.
Talking about effective strategies used by some English Clubs leaders and teachers at centers, some of them suggested that certificate should be awarded to learners as an incentive way to make sure learners remain motivated and to encourage them to speak English among themselves and give them opportunity to express themselves freely. Another proposal was about offering short period of training by creating different levels when people register and documenting their progress right from the beginning to be able to know how the teaching progress. They also talked about the reduction of the use of chalk while teaching but rather using modernized equipments.
One of the suggestions made was about reinforcing the skills providing teachers to teach different age group. Similarly, English clubs leaders can invite some organizations personalities in order to spread the word about the activities they are doing at their various clubs.
Leaders thought they could be informed through mails and phone calls days before the events that are planned.
As mentioned above having access to computers and internet are part of the needs that the leaders are seeking for.
§ Create English Clubs in each school to make the students improve their skills in the language.
§ Providing Scholarships to the best students to encourage them through competition.
§ The minister of education should promote English by giving efficient materials and good training to teachers.
§ English should be taught at primary schools to have pupils interested in the language.
§ Strengthen the teachers skills through seminars
§ Change school syllabus and adapt them.
§ Teachers should stop teaching English by using French.
§ Focus on empowering (inspiration, self consciousness, awareness...)