From December 2 -20, 2013, the U.S. Embassy in Brazzaville hosted English Language Specialist Meredith Pike-Baky, who trained more than 300 English teachers on English teaching methodology in Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, and Owando. Focused primarily on managing large classes and student-centered teaching, she shared techniques on how to develop teaching resources with inexpensive, locally-made materials. She emphasized prioritizing students learning English through speaking and proposed using songs, conversational activities, visual aids, and even rice sacks and maracas to improve the classroom. The U.S. Embassy worked with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to offer this training to university professors, curriculum developers, student teachers, English club trainers, and an English teachers’ association in northern and southern Congo. This series of workshops comes three years after Meredith Pike-Baky first visited Congo where she introduced these progressive teaching methods. Her return in 2013 was an opportunity to continue the work she began and to support Congo’s desire to improve English teaching need for professional development. The demand for learning English is on the rise in Congo, as English learning will soon begin in primary school.
