To engage or not to engage: Cameroonian primary school teachers’ investment in an extended professional development experience

Abstract

Literacy skills are critical for an individual’s quality of life (Harber, 2014) and allow for numerous opportunities that would not be possible otherwise (Akyeampong et al., 2013; J. Anderson & Matthews, 2010; Prins, 2010). However, many students in Cameroon finish primary school without basic literacy skills (Examen National 2015 de l’Éducation Pour Tous: Cameroun, 2015). Because of the country’s linguistic diversity (over 250 languages are spoken in Cameroon (Kouega, 2008)) students typically attend school in a language that is new to them, which also affects their literacy development (Ramachandran, 2017). Different approaches to teacher training have been used with the goal of equipping teachers with the skills they need to address these challenges. However, if the applicability and potential benefits of the teacher training are not clear to teachers and administrators, they are much less likely to support these efforts and they will lead to very little change in pedagogy or literacy outcomes. Using Norton’s concept of investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton Peirce, 1995), this study explores how teachers at a primary school in rural Cameroon invested in an extended professional development experience. Based on these findings, I argue that the theory of investment is applicable beyond second language acquisition; it can also be used to describe how and why teachers engage with professional development and pedagogical change. Teachers might be motivated to improve their practice, but unless they are able to invest in the new pedagogy, they likely will not change their teaching and the innovation will not be implemented. This study was designed as a collaboration with the teachers at a primary school in rural, Anglophone Cameroon to find instructional strategies they could use with their students. As an embedded case study (Yin, 2014) that employed participatory methods (Patton, 2002), this study looked at the teachers’ experience and engagement with an extended professional development experience as well as how they viewed language and literacy in their students’ lives. The findings are based on three months I spent working with teachers at this school. During that time, I immersed myself in learning about the context of the school and about the teachers’ lives. Based on my own training and emerging knowledge of the school, I offered workshops related to literacy and language instruction, observed the teachers in their classrooms, talked with them about their teaching, taught demonstration lessons, and co-taught lessons with the teachers. A qualitative analysis of these data revealed a number of things that influenced teachers’ ability and/or willingness to engage with the experience and invest in the proposed pedagogical strategies. Both the official language policy required by the government and the teachers’ individual beliefs about language likely affected how they interacted with and invested in the professional development. Apparent dissonance between the teachers’ reported and observed identity, ideology, and perceived sources of capital from those represented in the professional development presumably limited the teachers’ ability to fully invest in the experience. Because of this seeming disconnect and the lack of observed investment in the professional development on the part of the teachers, they generally did not implement the new teaching strategies I had introduced. Based on my experience at Community School , I argue that for pedagogical change to be lasting, both the proposed new teaching methodology and the trainer must be cognizant of the many items that influence teachers’ ability to invest in the program, or the teachers will not implement it in their classroom. Any professional development introduced in a context such as sub-Saharan Africa must navigate a complex web of sociocultural, linguistic, and postcolonial tensions. Failure to do so will most likely result in training that is not appropriate for the context and consequently precludes teachers from investing in and implementing the new pedagogy.