‘Good teachers are readers’

A CHIPINGE based English teacher has urged his fellow practitioners to be good readers. Speaking at a district English Panel Workshop in Chipinge recently, Mr Samuel Tusabantu urged teachers of English Language attending the workshop to become obsessed readers.

“How do we encourage, motivate students to read if we don’t read ourselves? Good teachers are in the habit of wide reading,” asserted the Paidamwoyo High School English teacher.

“Reading helps you to become a competent teacher of English Language. The reading habit widens your own mastery of language skills as you every day expose yourself to the various authors and writers,” said the former chairperson of the Chipinge District English panel.

Addressing workshop participants from various secondary schools and high schools in Chipinge, The English Paper 1 chief examiner expressed doubt about the teachers’ competence in general and kindly blamed the system of teacher trainee recruitment prevailing in most colleges.

“The calibre of student teacher who found his or her way into teacher education institutions a few years ago, now flooded in the schools, has something to do with the pass rate we see today,” he said.

Evidently struggling to avoid calling a spade a spade, Mr Tusa challenged language teachers to be role models and inculcate a culture of reading in their own blood before expecting students to enjoy reading.

He praised and commended newspapers, mentioning The Manica Post by name, for providing schools with an alternative source of reading material.

“Buy these papers. Read them carefully and encourage your own pupils to improve their own writing skills,” he asserted.

“Today’s children hate reading. We read everything we came across during our days; newspapers, magazines and novels. As serious English teachers we must resuscitate this habit of studiousness. But how do we, if we ourselves don’t read?

Mr Tusabantu’s school, Paidamwoyo, recorded a 45 percent pass rate in English in the O-Level English Language examinations, a feat not more than five schools in the entire district matched or surpassed.