Cameroon Project background
2. Key features of the context Three contextual features are considered significant:
1. Description of the partners CELT is a family-owned private language school, established in 1989, which pre-COVID-19 primarily delivered General English and IELTS training to adults plus Young Learners (YL) programmes. Since 2018, the school has been more involved in teacher development and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. CELT was already involved in delivering online learning before COVID-19 and has experienced further development in this area in the past year. www.celt.co.uk CABITA (Cameroon Bilingual Letters Teachers Association) is the English teacher association in Cameroon supporting bilingual teachers (French and English). It promotes the professional development needs of its members face-to-face and online, mostly using Facebook and WhatsApp. At the time of its PRELIM application, CABITA had 221 subscribing members, who pay a small annual membership fee. CABITA is a not-for-profit association with an elected committee which runs the association and its services. It is clear from the CABITA Facebook page that it is an active association:
a)
Plurilingual landscape CABITA’s members are Francophone with varying degrees of English proficiency. The use of French in the English classroom is discouraged but is used where necessary.
b)
Impact of COVID This restricted asynchronous self-study time available to five hours per week.
c) Infrastructure Internet access is generally via mobile devices and their networks, and this is relatively expensive. The additional costs were covered by the British Council Connectivity fund of £500. However, an unreliable electricity supply affected attendance for a number of CPs.
https://www.facebook.com/ groups/917376055282472/
Cohort
Teachers who started the course
Teachers who completed the course
Male/Female Ratio
Urban/Rural Ratio
Cohort 1
49
33
17:16
15:18
Cohort 2
42
37
11:26
20:17
TOTALS
91
70
28:42
35:35
Partnered Remote Language Improvement (PRELIM) project report
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