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SMART way to learn English
Saturday Star Newspaper,
South Africa, 17 June 2006
By Noor-Jehan Yoro Badat
Their steady hands touched the SMART interactive whiteboard mounted
on the wall. Giggles could be heard from other pupils as they
watched their classmates shyly familiarising themselves with the
touch-screen board, which helps teach them to spell.
Their private school, Masibambane College, is the first in Orange
Farm township to have opened up a SMART board centre. The board is
only a tool in a much more ambitious initiative.
More importantly, the school has also implemented THRASS (Teaching
Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills) into its education system.
THRASS, a programme created by Alan Davies, a chartered educational
psychologist from Britain, is a phonics programme for teaching
learners about the building blocks of reading and spelling, using
the International Phonetic Alphabet Pronunciation System. It gives
them a good understanding of 44 English speech sounds (phonemes) and
120 spelling choices (graphemes).
Two weeks ago, Wits University hosted a five-day workshop “Time for
a New Phonics Approach for Teaching English in Africa”, which was
attended by several delegates from African countries as well as from
Britain. One of their pit stops was to see THRASS being applied at
the college in Orange Farm.
In the dusty expanse of Orange Farm, where the community has battled
with English, the Masibambane College has embraced this new teaching
method, says principal Darryl Geffen.
“Confidence,” says Geffen, “that is the only way to describe the
effect THRASS has had on our pupils. The children have a lot more
confidence when approaching a new word. THRASS derives a beautiful
frame of reference to give a child the skills to attack new words;
they keep going back to it. The teachers find it easy and a
wonderful system. The English system is scary, but this makes it
easier.”
When the teachers were trained last year, they felt empowered by the
programme, says Geffen.
“The beauty of THRASS is that it has a computer program with a
Phoneme Machine that allows children to hear the correct
pronunciation of sounds. The SMART board facilitates that as a class
activity.
Geffen hopes his school will be used as a conduit for the programme
to be rolled out to the 26 public primary schools in the area.
But he does admit that in order for the programme to be rolled out,
schools need funding. “It certainly isn’t cheap, the equipment isn’t
cheap. But don’t let money block the way for our future leaders.”
However, Mandla Maseko, the national Department of Education’s chief
education specialist for children and youth literacy, says their
approach to THRASS is more “tentative”.
“The challenge in this programme is that it uses a lot of material
in order for it to be articulated clearly. If you don’t have that in
the school, it is impossible to employ. The cost factor comes in,”
he says.
“Theoretically, the programme is good. For us to take THRASS into
the rural areas is confusing for teachers who are teaching at these
schools.
“It would be very interesting to see an implementation of THRASS in
our public school so that our observation is clear. We need to see
and observe many methods.”
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