WELCOME ON BOARD

TELTA

Welcome on board!!

Historical Background of the association (TELTA)

The name stands for Tanzanian English Language Teachers Association with the aim of making English Language Teachers share ideas, interests, experiences and building their teaching capacity by conducting different activities in regional and national levels. TELTA is the legally registered as the subject association by the Ministry of Home Affairs with the registration number S.A 18354. TELTA is the product of what so called Teachers’ Development Meeting (TDM) as initiated in 1990’s during the English Language Teaching Support Program. In 2011, TDM was transformed into TELTA, since its inception, TELTA has been organizing and facilitating workshops for teachers and students activities for the sake of developing their English language skills. TELTA is now an Associate member of IATEFL (International Association of Teaching English as a Foreign Language) based in The United Kingdom and the affiliate member of TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) based in United States of America. TELTA has chapters in Mwanza, Arusha, Mbeya, Dodoma, Tanga, and Morogoro. The plan is to open more chapters to the other regions. TELTA has also mutual relationship with the Island association named Zanzibar Professionals English Language Teachers’ Organization (ZAPELATO)     

Vision

To promote the learning and use of English Language in our schools.

Mission

School management, teachers and students to be committed to the learning and use of English language.

Objectives of TELTA

1.         To enable teachers to highlight areas of strength/weakness in their classroom teachings and to meet stated goals of the curriculum and/or to develop the knowledge /skills needed for high stakes exams in their context.

2.         To promote an appropriate approach in the choice of English language teaching materials used in secondary schools and giving other teachers a forum where they can share ideas and explain exactly how decisions are made about which materials are used in their classrooms, and describe any problems that they experience when participating in the decision-making process, and/or when using the materials that have been chosen.

3.         To bring English language teachers together to share ideas, knowledge and experience on new approaches to teaching.

4.         To create room for teachers to discuss and adopt a more positive approach to teaching that employs negotiation, interpretation and expression; for the creative unpredictable and purposeful use of English language in communication.

5.         To enable teachers discuss and ultimately device methods of giving learners appropriate tasks to transact rather than items to learn so as to promote the natural language learning process.

6.         To make teachers exposed to the diverse and most recent pedagogical trends in English language teaching.

7.         To enable students master all four English language skills i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing through different activities.

8.         To enable students perform well in their examination and develop English language speaking behaviour in our schools.

Tenures to become a member of TELTA

Joining TELTA is free, but once the school becomes a member, it is required to pay annual contribution fee declared by the members in the annual planning meeting.  The Heads of Schools are responsible for providing bus fare and other allowances that will be incurred by the invited teachers. Provision of breakfast and lunch is the responsibility of the member school where the meeting is hold.

TELTA administration

The top officials of the Association are;

1.      Coordinator

2.      Secretary

3.      Treasurer

4.      Events Coordinator  

5.      Other two members.

These six officials shall comprise the Executive Committee.

The benefits of becoming a member of TELTA

1.         In - service training within teachers themselves that will be facilitated by both local facilitators and others from British Council freely four times a year.

2.                     Receiving different modern teaching strategies and techniques on teaching English language in their schools.

3.         Accessing different materials from the British Council, US Embassy Dar es Salaam, TESOL and IATEFL.

4.         Training outside the countries through different programmes including ILEP, FLTA etc.

Success of TELTA

1.      Conducting several workshops for the English Language teachers in the year

2.      Conducting several students’ activities such as Debate, Drama and Essay Writing.

3.      Managing to organize the online training for some members in collaboration with US Embassy.

4.      Strengthening the relationship among English Language Teachers and increase their exposure.

5.      Widening the relationships with donors and other English stakeholders e.g. British Council, US Embassy, Ministry of Education, Publishers, WorldTeach etc.

6.      Attending international English Language Teachers conferences and meetings.

7.      Involved by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training in the interpretation of the national English Language curriculum for the 2005 new syllabus form I – IV by participating in the writing English Language Teachers’ Handbook

Conclusion

Since its formation TELTA has proved succession!  Majority of the planned activities are successfully undertaken and objectives achieved in all programs, there were also a number of challenges. Through media and visiting school’s programs more teachers join the association and more new issues rise. Many lessons are learnt and teachers really appreciate the way we have been organizing our activities.

The lessons from our activities have contributed significantly into strengthening the quality of TELTA’s work as we move ahead with our efforts to enable the individual teachers to bring changes in teaching and learning processes in our schools.

We have also learnt that there is still a big challenge for the Ministry officials, Educational stakeholders, Heads of Schools and other English Language teachers to accept and understand the efforts that TELTA does towards English language teaching and learning revolution. Our ability to impart modern Language Teaching and Learning and creating space for the teachers to gather and share ideas and interest are not taken very positively by our colleagues.

A call is made for all Educational stakeholders and other people to help us on how we can improve the quality of English Language teaching and take action in order to realize quality language teaching and learning for all children in Tanzania.

Thanks in Advance

Executive Committee

January 2017