Teachers from Rodrigues on educational visit to Seychelles |02 August 2017

A group of 12 teachers from Terre Rouge College in Rodrigues recently visited Seychelles in a ‘Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages’ (TESOL) exchange programme.

Terre Rouge College is a secondary school managed by the Rodrigues Educational Company Ltd (REDCO) with a school population of 450 students aged from 12 to 20.

The main purpose of their educational visit was to allow these educators to learn more about the use of English as a medium of instruction in a tri-lingual context.

Rodrigues and Seychelles have a similar sociolinguistic and cultural background; both have English, French and Creole as their national languages.

However since Rodriguans tend to favour Creole and French, the teachers from Terre Rouge College face immense problems to deliver lessons in English to their students since English is like a foreign language to them. Most subjects like Mathematics, Science and Arts among others are taught in English in most colleges in Mauritius and Rodrigues.

Since Seychelles has being doing well in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) the Rodriguan educators felt it was the perfect place to seek new and innovative pedagogical methods they can implement back home.

Terrence Crea, the curriculum development officer from the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, said that it was the Rodriguans who initiated the exchange.

“Of course they did their research and found Seychelles to be an ideal environment to learn how the three languages, especially English, are taught in our educational system,” he stated.

The visit was also aimed at studying the ministry’s Personal and Social Education (PSE) curriculum given that Terre Rouge students lack self-esteem and face many challenges such as abuse of alcohol and cigarettes, inability to cope with stressful situations and teenage pregnancy. These factors become a hindrance to the educational and social development of these students.

A brief welcoming ceremony was held on Monday July 24 in the presence of the principal secretary for Education Dr Odile Decommarmond and the principal secretary for human resource development Dr Linda Barallon.

The visiting educators took part in a week-long series of activities and sessions facilitated by the Ministry of Education. They had the opportunity to visit educational institutions such as Bel Eau primary, Anse Royale secondary and the Seychelles Institute of Technology (SIT) for a hands-on experience.

To round up their visit in Seychelles the Rodriguans took part in a cultural exchange with students from Anse Boileau primary on Saturday afternoon.

The teachers from Terre Rouge did not leave Seychelles empty-handed; they each received a small token from PS Decommarmond during a small ceremony held on Monday.

PS Decommarmond mentioned the possibility of a reciprocal exchange visit to Rodrigues. This would be ideal in order to tackle the challenges of our school system in relation to the teaching and appreciation of the French language.

The accompanying photos show some of the highlights of the TEFOL exchange visit.

E.P.