The Ambassador of Equatorial Guinea in Lisbon defended the International Institute of the Portuguese Language’s (IILP) own teaching staff to meet the Portuguese language teaching needs in his country and its associated CPLP observers.
According to diplomat Tito Mba Ada, the transfer of these resources to the IILP “is a great opportunity” for the institution integrated into the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP).
The diplomat suggested that he was presenting a proposal to revise the IILP, which he would defend on the day of the launch ceremony of the campaign to collect books in Portuguese for his country, which will take place next Tuesday at the CPLP headquarters.
The IILP has “a mandate to pilot the process” of teacher training to teach Portuguese in Equatorial Guinea since the last CPLP Summit of Heads of State and Government, which took place in August in Sao Tome and Principe, recalled Tito Ada.
“Despite the presence of IILP, this institution must work towards having its own staff of teaching specialists to immediately respond to the educational needs of Equatorial Guinea, and not only that, but also the CPLP family,” he said.
According to the ambassador, there are “observers associated with the general need for the introduction of the Portuguese language,” so CPLP member states should “consider allowing the IILP to have its own team of specialist teachers.”
“This proposal,” he suggested, because “the family [CPLP] has grown and there is a need to teach Portuguese throughout the world,” remembering that Portuguese is for “academics, but also for business and diplomacy,” and IILP “has the opportunity to capture this market.”
Regarding the teaching of Portuguese in his country, the only Spanish-speaking member state of the CPLP, the ambassador said that it “is a priority on the agenda of the government” of Equatorial Guinea, which is “working on several fronts” to achieve the goal of teaching Portuguese in universities, secondary and secondary schools.
In addition, “eight days ago, the Minister of Education convened a meeting to review the country’s school curriculum with the aim of adapting the teaching of Portuguese at different levels of education,” he indicated as an example that the country is working to make the Portuguese language dynamic.
The University of Malabo already has an approved Portuguese degree, but it is still being implemented.
In practice, he admitted, teaching Portuguese still doesn’t work.
“In this new phase of cooperation in Equatorial Guinea, the key word is Portuguese, Portuguese, Portuguese,” he said.
According to Tito Ada, “strategy [para o ensino do português] is focused on teacher training in the country’s education system.”
“We have teachers who are already teaching but have not been trained in Portuguese, so our plans will be to program ongoing Portuguese language training” for these people, he said.
On the other hand, there is “a group of professionals trained in different universities in the Portuguese-speaking world (…) in different subjects, engineers, doctors, but who, interestingly, are willing to collaborate with this ambitious program.” They know Portuguese well, but they need teacher training, he said.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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