Tilly is a Principal Teaching Fellow at Warwick who volunteered in 2017.

Imagine this – you have to teach reading but to give your students a text to read, you need to spend an entire lesson dictating it and correcting spellings. Only then do they all have a text for them to work on for your comprehension and discussion questions. This is the reality for Kingsley, a young English teacher in the Agona region of Ghana. It was my privilege this summer (July – August 2017) to meet Kingsley and 79 other English teachers for a four day workshop organised by Warwick in Africa. Talking to him and other teachers at the workshop I was amazed at their eagerness to learn, improve their teaching and engage their students despite their lack of resources. Facilitating the sharing of their wealth of knowledge was a real joy – as one of them commented ‘We are enjoying discussing and learning from each other’.

After a week in Agona we moved to Accra to run a similar programme with over 70 English teachers there. The workshops were both based in average Ghanaian schools so the days began with rearranging the ranks of front-facing desks into circles to model a classroom where collaboration, discussion and sharing would be easier. Working with two Ghanaian English Teachers in each location we delivered a programme of topics based on their requests – warm ups, how to teach tenses, giving feedback on writing etc. In each session I felt in awe of the breadth of knowledge in the room – there were so many dedicated, experienced, motivated English teachers, overcoming all kinds of barriers to improve the life-chances of the children in their schools.

Back in UK I am a keen user of technology but in Ghanaian schools where printers and photocopiers are rare, many of the tools we now take for granted are unthinkable. However there is still a place for ‘learning technology’ in the original sense of ‘tools to facilitate learning’. We found uses for washing lines, pegs, bags, but perhaps most versatile of all, a piece of A4 paper. One of my co-trainers, Solomon, gave an excellent session on the different ways you can get students to fold a simple piece of paper and use it to organise their ideas – ‘Foldables’. A very simple idea but all the teachers in both workshops were soon thinking of their own ways of using this in their classes – showing the power of a ‘technology’ that is contextually relevant and appropriate.

I came away from Ghana inspired in so many ways. The warmth and friendliness of the people made me feel so at home and humbled by their readiness to share and learn from each other and me. I loved the food, the sunshine, the beauty of the coast and countryside. I am looking forward to returning and sharing again with such an incredible community of professionals.”