JAMAICAN schools have been benefiting from professional and academic support provided by Cuban teachers, following the signing of an agreement between the countries in 1997.

On April 1 Gregory Park Primary School hosted 19 Cuban teachers from Kingston, St Thomas and St Catherine schools to meet and develop the second scientific and methodological workshop, which is an annual event.

Teachers from 10 primary schools and nine high schools shared their pedagogical experiences in Jamaican schools since they started on the island. Topics covered were related to the development of the four language skills — listening, speaking, writing and reading — the use of didactic and complementary materials, the importance of the motivation and the technologies, inclusion in the educative context, and the interdisciplinary relation between the subjects of the National Standards Curriculum and Spanish as a foreign language.

Reynel Isalgué Isalgué, coordinator of the programme for Cuban teachers in Jamaica, and Yuritzan Cuba Viñals, head of the brigade in Kingston, attended the event.

Organiser of the event, Gleimer Martinez Medina, Spanish teacher at Gregory Park, said the workshop was successful and the Cuban teachers were able to propose innovative alternatives to better the teaching and learning process of Spanish, physics, and integrated sciences in Jamaican schools.

“We are proposing to generalise these proposals all over the island and to continue supporting the educative process in Jamaica as long as the Government extends the agreement,” Medina said.