Training guide

1. Introduction

Welcome back!

This enhanced SPRINT programme offers resources and suggestions to develop more active teaching approaches and to work more collaboratively with peers.

This programme is designed to support active teaching and learning in line with the revised Zambian school curriculum. The programme provides resources for six terms (two school years), and the current resources focus on supporting literacy across the curriculum. The resources will be the focus of your Teacher Group Meetings (TGMs) and provide ideas for collaboration, planning, discussion and reflection among teachers.

In Year 1, you covered nine teaching approaches in the three courses.

Course 1: Classroom management for learner-centred teaching

using questioning to promote thinking
using pair work
using the local community/environment as a resource.

Course 2: Inclusive teaching

using group work in your classroom
storytelling, songs, games and role-play
involving all learners.

Course 3: Assessment for learning

monitoring and giving feedback
eliciting prior knowledge
assessing learning.

In Year 2, the aim is to consolidate this learning by focusing on:

Course 1: Managing and supporting learner-centred classrooms.
Course 2: Supporting literacy across the curriculum.
Course 3: Being a reflective practitioner.

_{Literacy lesson in a print-rich classroom.}

Supporting learners’ reading and writing skills is everyone’s responsibility. Being able to read and write fluently is very important as it will help learners in ALL subjects. Supporting literacy doesn’t only have to take place in literacy lessons – all teachers can do it, whatever subject they are teaching.

The resources in this course are presented in three sections:

supporting reading and writing through active teaching and learning
supporting reading and writing across different subjects
supporting reading and writing across different levels.

The activities in these resources are designed for you to try in TGMs and then to do with your class. The classroom examples will give you some ideas to adapt for your class. They all provide examples of how the different teaching approaches you focused on and developed last year can support literacy. You will find more examples in the TESSA modules you started using in course 4. It is important that you continue to work with colleagues and discuss with them how you could adapt them for different classes.

The aim of these training resources is not to show you how to teach literacy, but to give ideas on how you can support literacy across the curriculum in all your classrooms. It is a good idea to keep a separate section of your Teacher Notebook where you write down any ideas you have and activities you try for supporting literacy and share them with your colleagues in the TGMs.