AIR, in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and USAID/Ethiopia, is implementing the Teach English for Life Learning (TELL) program, aimed at improving the teaching skills of English language teachers throughout Ethiopia.  Originally designed as a 9-month program, TELL trained nearly 20,000 6th, 7th and 8th grade English teachers in 2009.  In September 2009, the program received a 23-month funded extension to train over 55,000 1st and 2nd, and then 3rd and 4th grade English teachers during the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years, respectively. 

A central part of the training is the use of active-learning English for Ethiopia textbooks, developed by Alabama A&M University in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and with funding from USAID’s Africa Education Initiative.  These textbooks are designed to actively engage students in order to improve their learning of the English language.

To reach these large numbers of teachers, AIR is employing a cascading teaching model, which involves developing “master trainers” who will instruct carefully selected “teacher trainers,” who in turn will educate the classroom teachers. Each of the teachers will receive training focusing on English literacy, including strategies for improving students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Teachers will also learn classroom practice skills, such as effective lesson planning and classroom management strategies.

The program’s remarkable success in rapidly reaching such a large number of teachers and in providing effective training is largely due to TELL’s close follow-ups of the trainings, its rigorous monitoring, and its strong collaboration with the Ministry of Education at the central and regional levels. Also key to the success, TELL empowered each of Ethiopia’s 11 regions to plan and implement teacher training according to their respective needs and challenges. As a result, teachers received meaningful trainings that prepared them to meet the challenges and difficulties they face in the classroom. In order to monitor the impact of the large-scale teacher training effort, TELL has, and will continue to train supervisors in teacher observation skills to monitor the performance of the teachers trained in English language instruction under the TELL program.  The program will support these supervisors to conduct teacher observations, but importantly, the program will also develop a supervisor guide and observation protocol that will provide the tools for ongoing teacher monitoring and support by Ministry of Education staff. 

TELL’s successful ability to integrate the MOE in program activities, has not only provided the MOE with the experience necessary to mount a large scale nation-wide teacher training effort, but has also provided the MOE with the tools and skills to monitor and support continued English language instruction improvement in Ethiopia.