31 Mar 2022

The French teacher training workshop is hailed as an initiative that will improve performance results of French students. 

Speaking during the training workshop in Gaborone on Yesterday Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Basic Education Mr Simon Coles said the training, which was part of an initiative to introduce a new Junior Certificate French syllabus would help produce better results. 

“The French teacher training workshop is part of the action-based teaching methods and it calls for public and private entities to collaborate,” he said. 

He said teachers from both public and private schools in Botswana should work together to produce better results in the country since French provided many opportunities in the international market, citing language translation as one. 

Mr Coles said he was aware of challenges where students from a French teaching junior secondary school did not always proceed to a senior school that provided French as a subject. 

Ambassador of France Ms Laurence Beau said learning the French language was often a great way to discover their culture. 

“You get more confident talking with natives and it seems easier to study, work or live in a French-speaking country,” Ms Beau noted. 

Ms Beau further indicated that there were more than 40 public schools in Botswana teaching Francais Langue Etrangere (FLE). 

She said this translated to 91 teachers and more than 3 000 students excluding those in universities and private schools. 

President of the French Teachers Association of Botswana Ms Ngwetsintwa Modibedi encouraged teachers to continue putting more effort into improving performance results, adding the government had placed the responsibility to develop globally competitive students on them. 

She urged teachers attending the workshop to utilise the opportunity presented by the workshop to enhance their skills to efficiently deliver great results. 

“It is upon the teachers to improve performance results by introducing new methodologies learnt from the training workshop to improve performance in schools,” she said. Ends