7 News Belize

No More Sleeping Students In School
posted (August 13, 2009)
Ask any primary school teacher and they will tell you that it’s difficult to keep a student’s interest in the classroom.

In the short attention span era, it’s hard for anyone and doubly so for children to remain seated in their chairs for several hours just listening to a teacher talk.


And so this year, one annual workshop for primary school teachers is focusing on how to keep classroom activities interesting. Jacqueline Godwin found out more today.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
These educators have been learning how to keep their students involved in their subjects without becoming distracted and bored.

It’s mandatory that teachers get an annual summer course, but what is different this time is that the training is based on the teachers’ own classroom experience. The rationale is that there is greater success in the classroom when there is active interaction between teacher and student.

Audrey Gardiner – Lead Facilitator, Training Workshop
“Just as an adult we cannot sit for five hours still, so we need to be up and doing some activities and we all learn in different ways and not all people learn by listening, we have to learn by doing we have to learn by playing with children.”

And teaching them how to make learning fun is a group of Canadian educators.

They are Rotarians and have volunteered to prepare these teachers for their return to the classroom next month. That’s when they start the work to improve their student’s performance in core areas of the national curriculum.

Nelma Mortis – Education Officer, Belize District
“We do use the national exam as a measuring stick to determine where we need improvement and so math, science and language were those focal areas."

“Once we use to plan workshops from the Ministerial level but what we are trying to do is to look at the needs of the teacher based on a needs assessment then we decide what area of development was best.”

Audrey Gardiner – Lead Facilitator, Training Workshop
“So it is not an easy thing to do. You have to be highly skilled to figure out how to play with fractions right and what are the ways you play and what are the ways you learn when you are going to learn to teach the multiplication tables. Well we say drill and skill is not a good way to do it, so we are looking for activities.”

Nelma Mortis – Education Cfficer, Belize District
“To do more interactive activity rather than the traditional method. We have heard over and over that traditional method and where we are with it, that is another question. Let’s hope that with the interaction or the activities that they have received this week that they will go back with bright new ideas and make their classroom a learning environment.”

And that is exactly what some of the teachers we spoke with plan to do. They already had an idea of how they plan to make their time in the classroom an engaging learning experience for their young students.

Roberto Leal – Math Teacher, Queen Street Baptist School
“Let’s say for example you want to teach a certain concept let’s say fraction you might have to use a lot of objects, you might have to use activity cards, you have to use a little bit of colouring or whatever, so you incorporate a lot of ideas, you see a teacher is never, never, never just stagnant you have to be innovative, be creative and you have to think math.”

Esther Mccord, Science Teacher, Ladyville Evangelical
“Tap into those resources, get into more outdoor activities, get into more planning and more researching our lesson plans.”

“We have a very ideal environment to teach science, the country we live in is very beautiful and it has all the ideals that we need in getting the children involved.”

Shirley Saldano - Language Art Teacher, St. Luke Methodist
“Just not sitting in the classroom and today we come in and have grammar and we just write, write and write but we have activities, we can have them using a graphic organizers where they can role play and retell stories in their words. For example when we go back we go back into the September celebrations so we can develop our own theme, we can build a text using celebration, carnival, Belize’s independence.”

The teachers annual training workshop comes to an end on Thursday. Jacqueline Godwin reporting for 7news.

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