The exchange programme is a fourth year elective unit for a degree at Edith Cowan University.  The principal goal of this unit of study is to provide students with the skills and understanding necessary for teaching English as an additional language.

It provided an interactive platform for trainee teachers and tutors from Australia and Mauritian pupils and teachers.

The eleven-day programme came as an enriching gush of fresh air, motivating them to learn and practise communicative English, says Sheela Thancanamootoo, Director of the Mauritius Institute of Education.

According to her, exchange programmes are very helpful to encourage rapport between people from different countries. They do not only help in the exchange of academic knowledge, but also in fostering exchange of cultures.

 “ The programme allowed  students from Edith Cowan University, along with their tutors, to come to Mauritius for training in the teaching of English Language to non-native speakers of English.  They worked in pairs in a classroom. MIE trainees were also posted as observers in the classrooms.

“The school normally benefits from the trainees as it obtains a number of teaching aids and resources from them as part of this programme,” she says.

The MIE, she adds, is planning to negotiate exchange programmes with Reunion Island for Mauritian students.
 “Several schools have participated in this project over the last nine years and they are all unanimous to acknowledge that our students learn a lot from this. It is also evident that our children, irrespective of the type of school they go to, have ample talent and willingness to learn the English language.

“They feel perfectly at ease in the company of the Australian trainees, even when the latter do not know any French,” she says.
The Edith Cowan University tutors also held two workshops for MIE trainees.  “Drama is part of the school curriculum as an essential teaching strategy for languages.

“The Mauritius College of the Air has recorded the workshop for an educational programme. Trainee teachers were initiated into the development of talking books for primary school children,” she adds.