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Welcome back to THRASS GOES LIVE!
There has been an interesting development arising from our journey and in
particular from the THRASS two-day Certificate Course in Gauteng, South Africa
on 6 and 7 June.
Soraya Sayed Hassen, Head of Humanities Faculty, De
Chazal Du Mée (DCDM) Business School, Quatre Bornes, Mauritius was one of those
attending that course and she has now returned to Mauritius, where the
mother-tongue is Creole and only a small percent speak English, determined to use THRASS to help improve
this situation.
Soraya was extremely impressed by the THRASS course she attended and by Alan
Davies, Educational Psychologist and author of Teaching THRASS, and this is what
she said:
"I have thoroughly enjoyed the course. Alan is a passionate and
convincing presenter and an excellent teacher! I hope he can come out to
Mauritius as we badly need to implement THRASS in our schools. Too many children
are unfairly branded as ‘stupid’ and THRASS could be the key to solving many
of the problems our children face. No regrets whatsoever for having come all the
way from Mauritius."
This very positive course evaluation will be good news to Odylle Charoux,
Director of Studies, DCDM Business School, for it was she that first contacted THRASS UK about
the possibility of sending a representative on the 'Wits Workshop', 5-9 June
2006. She had heard good reports about THRASS from South Africa and DCDM
Business School is keen to help improve matters for local under-privileged
children.
THRASS synthetic phonics was the subject of the Mauritius Broadcasting
Corporation’s TV programme, ‘Le Journal de 19h30’ on 16 July. Even after six years
of school, many pupils in Mauritius still haven’t mastered the basic
principles of reading and writing English. Examiners have therefore suggested
that teachers should change their approach. The programme shows Soraya
demonstrating THRASS which the DCDM Business School is now promoting and the
presenter explains the principles of THRASS and tells us about its use and
success elsewhere.
An article about THRASS and how the THRASS Phoneme Machine and SMART
interactive whiteboards could revolutionise the teaching of English in countries
where children struggle with it as a second language appeared in the July
edition of ‘The Propagator’ – the Newsletter of the DCDM Business School.
If you would like to view the videostream of the Mauritius Broadcasting
Corporation coverage or read the article in ‘The Propagator’, click on the
links below the pictures on the left.
The DCDM Business School
Professor Eric Charoux, Executive
Director, says that the shared vision at DCDM Business School is "To become the region’s
leading centre of academic excellence, revered for its modern and passionate
approach to teaching and learning."
The ‘Business School’ is the leading private tertiary institution in
Mauritius, with 1250 full-time students and 70+ full-time and part-time academics. It has
five main beliefs/responsibilities of which the fourth is particularly relevant
in the context of improving literacy: "We believe that our fourth
responsibility is to the community at large. We must strive to become good
citizens; participate in the promotion of civic improvement and maintain in good
order, the property we are privileged to use."
The DCDM Business School is an academic partner
of various universities and institutions around the world, including Curtin
University and TAFE (Technical and Further Education) in Western Australia and the University of the
Witwatersrand in South Africa.
For more information see http://www.dcdmbs.mu
THRASS in Mauritius
Discussions are taking place with representatives of the Mauritius Government, DCDM Business School,
private businesses and THRASS UK concerning the implementation of THRASS in a
number of government and private primary schools from January 2007.
Training, which is likely to be in December 2006, will be for about 80+
delegates, including teachers, headteachers, cluster co-ordinators and
inspectors working in or with the government ZEP (Zones d’Education
Prioritaire) schools.
THRASS is also likely to be incorporated into the Teacher Training provided to
government school teachers so that it becomes easier to implement the THRASS
methodology nationwide.
If the pilot scheme goes through as planned, the partners involved are: DCDM
Business School, the Government
of Mauritius (Ministry of Education and Human Resources), the ZEP
stakeholders, such as the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and private sector companies, the Beachcomber
Hotels and the Mauritius
Commercial Bank.
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