ESL in Congo - Part I

Caroline, School Director

One of the best things about being interested in all things ESL is that I can check out the local scene wherever I go. This week I had an extraordinary opportunity to visit the English language preschool, Busy Bees. The school started many years ago when a British mom couldn't find a school for her child. She started one with the help of the British Embassy and now Busy Bees has 45 children in three groups, ranging from 22 months to 5 years. The staff ratios vary with child's age but are very high and there are several male teachers, which is unusual in preschool.

Nathaniel

Valentina

Best friends Kayla and Mima, 3

My first exposure was a morning of observing the classes as they went through their routines, including playground time and snack time. Perhaps half of the children come from English-speaking homes, but the school is conducted in English. Although many of the rest come from French-speaking homes, there are also children from Korea, Japan, Brazil, and probably other countries I did not hear about. They come five days a week from 8:30 to 11:30 and bring their own snacks and drinks.

The compound includes a large outdoor playspace with all sorts of equipment--sandbox, trampoline, swings, slides. There is also a small garden and a rabbit hutch. "Hoppy" roams freely and visits at snack time to pick up extra nibbles that drop on the ground. They had a goat but it disappeared and the director speculates someone had a lovely barbecue. The school sits in a much larger former manufacturing compound which is very parklike now (all manufacturing is gone).

As a grandma-wannabe I loved being with the little ones. I especially enjoyed watching the variety of personalities and ability levels (developmental as well as English) in each of the classrooms. The children are basically grouped by age, so within each group the range is wide. To help manage this, the class of about 15 is divided into smaller groups for activity sessions, perhaps 3 or 4 to a group with an adult. Still, I was pretty amazed at the level of chaos (and noise) the teachers manage.

After visiting on day one, I returned the next day to meet with the staff in their weekly staff meeting. My purpose was to share some general principles of ESL (which they are doing by default with half of their students) and to introduce some ideas that might be helpful. We had a great discussion and I was able to connect the principles with observations I had made the previous day of both children and teachers. Only two of the 10 teachers learned English at home and one of those was in a bilingual home. A few learned at the Congolese American Language Institute (CALI) and several learned in school or on their own. My timing was perfect. After this week they are on a two-week break.

Next up: coaching for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and visiting CALI again.