PPT: Best practices of Emergent Literacy workshop

Mtwara is one of 25 regions in Tanzania. It is in Southern Tanzania and quite close to the border with Mozambique. Its city centre is close the Indian ocean. Unlike Dar es Salaam, it is a sparsely populated area.

The Pearson Foundation team was in Mtwara facilitating a programme that aimed to integrate best practices of emergent literacy into primary schools.

One of these teachers, Dyonita Kapinga, was born in Mtwara and raised in this rural village. She studied very hard and after finishing school, decided to head to the big city of Dar es Salaam to practise her new profession.

She is a mathematics teacher for grade 1-4 at Naliendele Primary School. It has now been more than ten years since her last teaching assignment. As a result, she attended the workshop and offers these insights as the most important issues facing teachers in Tanzania:

- Lack of books in the classroom
- Over-population of students in the classroom
- Difficulty of teaching English when most people speak KiSwahili as the primary language

She sincerely hopes that upon completion of this programme, her life (and the lives of her students) will be much easier.

by Hassan Kassim