Daniela Tigasi, a teacher from Saquisilí, Cotopaxi in Ecuador, shares a story about the transformation that one of her students, Esther, experienced because of the CETT program.  

"I work at the bilingual intercultural school, Toribio Choloquinga, located in Saquisilí district in the province of Cotopaxi.  Because the school is on a mountain, I usually leave my house at five in the morning because I have to walk nearly an hour to arrive at the school.

My boys and girls are Kichwa-speaking Indians. Their parents work mainly in agriculture.  The children help in the afternoons and the weekends, shepherding the sheep and in other agricultural activities.  These families are very poor, which is why many of the fathers and mothers migrate to the city.  The great majority of children are left alone or in the care of their grandparents or older brothers.

Thanks to the training that I received from the Andean Center of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT Andino), I understood the importance of having a good atmosphere in the classroom and positive relationships with the children.  In past years, I had used the syllable method and I considered dictation and copying to be very important.  But I realized that reading and writing is not taught well by dictating and copying.

At the beginning of the school year I was very worried because I did not know how I was going to put into practice the new teaching approaches proposed by CETT Andino. But now, at the end of the year, I feel very happy with what my children have learned, especially Esther.  She is six years old and lives alone with her grandparents, and she has to walk a long way to get to school.  At the beginning of the school year, she didn’t speak in Spanish or in Kichwa; she didn't play with the other children; her class participation was very limited; and she also missed school a lot.

Applying what I learned with CETT Andino, I motivated Esther to participate.  At the beginning it was very difficult, but little by little, she started to talk. Songs and poems helped me a lot, because I found out that she liked to sing. Using the techniques I learned, I began to work on the phonological, lexical, and semantic awareness with all of the children, but especially with Esther.  In April, she was already writing and reading words. At the end of June, she read quite well and could put sentences together. This helped Esther to feel more secure.  Now she even dares to read short sentences to her classmates and tries to tell stories to her grandparents. She still needs to read with more fluidity, but she likes to sing and read very much.

I am very happy with the training I received from CETT Andino because I see the results: my boys and girls learned to read and write more quickly. One very important thing is that they understand what they read.  [I know] because they recognize the same words in different contexts."