3 Oct 2020
Introduction
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of human life in Sub-Saharan Africa, as it has elsewhere in the world.
For example, in Cameroon the government imposed lockdown from March to June. This meant that school children were left with little or no access to formal school-based education.
Ministries of education made efforts to organise lessons for final year students on national television and radio. This proved useful for children with access to television. However, many teachers and students were left frustrated or dependent on their own pragmatic solutions to education in the crisis.
Abigail shares her own experience of using WhatsApp to support her students’ learning during the lockdown. She highlights the different possibilities this app, commonly used in her context, can provide for teachers working in low-resourced contexts. She showcases some of the activities and learning outcomes from her work with the students.
Speaker
Abigail Ekangouo Awanga is one of the moderators of the Cameroon English Language and Literature Teachers Association (CAMELTA) WhatsApp group. She has run a series of teacher development workshops around the theme of teaching English through mobile technology. She has worked as an English language teacher at secondary level in Cameroon for 13 years and is interested in e-learning and working with learners with limited resources.