Strengthening multilingual teacher professional development in francophone Africa

• In Event: Laying the bricks for foundational learning through effective language of instruction decision-making

Proposal

In most francophone African countries, governments have long been exploring ways to implement education and language policies that incorporate local languages alongside French to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Recent research findings (that we presented at CIES 2024) indicate that across Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Senegal, approximately 62% of students, on average, in Grades 2 and 4 are being taught in languages they do not use or understand well. Most children in these contexts are monolingual in a local language or are “emerging” bilinguals being taught in French, when they are unable to comprehend it well enough to learn. Other research shows that teachers have limited access to materials to support both the teaching of local/regional languages as well as the timing of transitioning to French across the three countries. Notably, more than half the teachers across the three countries have not received any in-service teacher training related to language teaching, be it French or the local language, and less than half of who received it say that it was sufficient.
In response, we have developed a program that aims to address the lack of effective and efficient pre- and in-service training of teachers to teach foundational skills in one language and smoothly transition into another. AIR’s project team and our research partner, Dalberg, will evaluate the effectiveness and scalability of our innovative and tested teacher training package and approaches – the Foundational Learning Improvement Package (FLIP) - on teacher and student outcomes in the three countries. To evaluate the program, we are using a mixed-methods; randomized controlled trial using data from a teacher survey, student assessment, and classroom observations, we will assess teacher, student, and classroom characteristics across 2-4 regions each of Cote d'Ivoire, the DRC, and Senegal. We will supplement this data with qualitative data from another recent study in the same regions that reported on teachers' attitudes and perceived needs for teaching in a multilingual environment.
In this presentation, we will discuss the process of co-designing and adapting the FLIP teacher training package with national stakeholders in the three countries. In addition, we will describe a stakeholder mapping process, the steps taken to engage and co-design with ministry of education stakeholders, and stakeholder needs respective to the country’s education context. We will present this along with baseline findings from schools and teachers and describe how this data is being incorporated into our project design. In keeping with the conference theme, we will highlight how technology facilitates adaptation of materials and stakeholder connections, and how our goals to improve literacy will help prepare children to participate in a digital society.

Authors

• Hamidou Dodo Boukary, International Development Research Center

• Jill Pritts, American Institutes for Research