Introducing the competency-based approach to ESL instruction in Cameroon: A Freirean reading
Keywords:
Freire, Dialogical, Top - BottomAbstract
Education is not a banking process where all-knowing teachers stuff passive learners with static facts, but a dialogical process by which teachers also learn and learners also teach (Freire, 2000). In February 2013, the government of Cameroon through the Ministry of Secondary Education organized nation-wide week-long induction seminars for teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL). The goal was to get the teachers of ESL to understand the nature of and how to apply the Competency-Based Approach to English Language Teaching (CBAELT). The seminar was pedagogic in that the participants comprised ‘teachers’ (Regional Pedagogic Inspectors) and ‘learners’ (teachers of ESL). This study set out to, first, assess the relationship between the principles of the Competency-Based Approach to Language Teaching (CBALT), and the basis of Freire’s Dialogical Model of education, and, second, examine the extent to which the introduction of the CBAELT was dialogical. Data were obtained through participant observation and the CBAELT seminar document, and analysed using content analysis, interpretation and argumentation. The findings reveal that the principles of the CBALT largely align with Freire’s Dialogical Model of education. However, the top-bottom manner in which the CBAELT was introduced does adequately respond to the demands of Freire’s dialogical model of education.
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