WP360. Preparing teachers to work multilingually: A Gambian pilot project

This report presents the outcomes of a pilot teacher training initiative designed to support the integration of multilingual pedagogy in teacher education in The Gambia. The pilot focused on equipping pre-service and in-service teachers with the knowledge, confidence, and practical tools to incorporate pupils’ home languages (or L1s) into primary school teaching—particularly in written form which remains significantly more challenging for teachers than oral use.  The pilot was implemented at the University of Education The Gambia (then called Gambia College), the country’s leading teacher training institution, and reached over 500 student teachers.

The training was delivered through a newly developed, teacher-led toolkit, Multilingual Pedagogy in The Gambia (https://megambia.com/toolkit/) co‑created by the project lead, Dr Clyde Ancarno, in collaboration with Gambian educators and language experts, using a participatory and context‑specific approach. This co‑creation process was intended to ensure contextual relevance and institutional alignment and was identified as a key factor underpinning the positive uptake of the training during the pilot. The toolkit introduces the core concepts of multilingual education as understood by international scholars of education and applied linguists, while the Multilingual Resource Bank (MRB) (https://megambia.com/resources/resource-bank/) is a repository of teaching resources in the seven national languages (Jola, Mandinka, Manjaku, Seereer, Olof, Pulaar, and Sarahule), Arabic, English and French. Its content is guided by the needs of pre- and in-service teachers (for example, we have a unit on ‘plane shapes’ because a senior teacher considered these are notoriously difficult to teach in English to young learners). The MRB therefore allows student teachers to explore the practical application of multilingual education concepts.

The course  employed a flipped classroom model and blended digital and offline resources to accommodate infrastructural constraints. Under this model, core concepts were introduced through short, pre-recorded videos and text-based materials that student teachers were encouraged to engage with outside scheduled class time, while face-to-face sessions were used to focus on discussion, practical activities, and reflection on how multilingual pedagogy could be applied in Gambian classroom contexts. This approach enabled more effective use of limited contact time while supporting active learning and peer interaction.

This report was co-authored by the project lead, Dr Clyde Ancarno and the seven lecturers who delivered the course during the pilot: Ebrima Bah, Ida L. B. Ceesay, Lamin Ceesay, Fatoumatta Colley, Lamin B. Jammeh, Naisatou Konteh, and Michael Hamadi Secka . It outlines the rationale for the pilot, its design and implementation, key findings, and implications for national policy and teacher education, before setting out recommendations for future scale‑up and sustainability.