Ethiopia

An estimated 50,000 school children in Ethiopia now have the opportunity to learn English thanks to the British Council (BC) and Lifeline Energy. A special emphasis has been placed on girls’ instruction and those who are visually impaired. Watch this great video. 

The British Council, which aims to support more widespread and better quality learning of the English language, has distributed our solar and wind-up Lifeplayer MP3s to select rural secondary schools. Loaded with the British Council’s English language training (ELT), they were distributed with teaching training support materials. The Lifeplayers were also included in the British Council’s ‘ELT Learning Boxes’. Each Learning Box includes two Lifeplayer MP3s, Premier Skills, ELT materials for secondary school learners and BC’s World Words radio and print content to support teacher development.

The initiative will also provide teacher-training to roughly 2,000 teachers to help instruct in the English courses.  Furthermore, 200 British Council English Language clubs in secondary schools and teacher training colleges nationwide will be established to help others learn the language.

English is Ethiopia’s Most Widely Spoken Foreign Language

English is the most widely spoken foreign language in Ethiopia. From grades 1-8, the medium of instruction is the mother tongue (Amharic, Oromifa, Tigrinya, etc.),  English is taught as a subject. At secondary level, the medium of instruction shifts to English, which is the primary medium of instruction at tertiary level.

English proficiency will create many more opportunities for not only accessing Internet content, but for also securing a better job. Interest in learning the language is high. The first phase of the project was launched in Amhara and Hawasa regions through English Language Improvement Centres in Teacher Training Colleges. The initiative will eventually be scaled nation-wide.

A training programme is included to instruct teachers on how to use the Lifeplayer MP3s. These teachers will, in turn, train over 1,500 teachers across the country The British Council Learning Boxes are made from recycled paper collected from various sources. They are assembled by a group of unemployed youth working for a recycling NGO.