Last month saw the historic formation of a professional association of English teachers in the Eastern Cape, the fi rst one of its kind in the country.
Last month saw the historic formation of a professional association of English teachers in the Eastern Cape, the fi rst one of its kind in the country.
The Eastern Cape English Educators Association (ECEEA), which was preceded by two years of planning, was launched at the Networking conference hosted by the Institute for the Study of English in Africa (ISEA) at Rhodes University.
The conference brought together some 150 current and past students from the Institute’s ACE (ELT) and BEd programmes, as well as district managers, subject advisors and librarians to consider current challenges to effective English teaching and how best to surmount them.
English is known to be a critical subject area, because of the widespread dependence of other subjects on good language performance in English.
This is one of the reasons why it was decided to form a discipline-based association at provincial level – the aim is to enhance educational performance in a specifi c subject area.
The guideline followed in conceptualising the association has been to put in place something that will make a positive and sustainable difference in Eastern Cape classrooms.
The ECEEA is not a political organisation nor is it intended to fl uff the professional self-esteem of teachers, but is wholly dedicated to improving the quality of English language teaching.
While the focus is currently on English, the association is open to all language educators and it is hoped that the scope of the association may broaden to cover the full fi eld of language education in the long run.
The ECEEA has been launched in partnership with the provincial education authorities. To be successful in transforming classroom practice and bringing it into the mainstream of education, such a partnership is critical. It ensures that there is systemic and ongoing buy-in from all concerned parties.
In the words of Prof Laurence Wright, head of the ISEA, “Educational renovation comes from the hard work of committed professionals working in classrooms, supporting each other intellectually and emotionally, and from the efforts of those ancillary professionals who can in turn support them in intelligent and reliable ways.” The Eastern Cape and Grahamstown can be proud of taking the lead in this regard.
