Kevwe finds geography difficult but is taught a simple song to help her remember the names of seven rivers in Africa.

TESSA: Active Learning - Audio

TESSA - Seven Rivers in Africa

Mama Fati's daughter and friend try to help in the kitchen. Unfortunately, they do some things wrong and Mama Fati has to advise them on the best way to cook and learns something herself along the way.

TESSA - Let me do the Cooking Mama

The four children create a drama for the school open day. They argue but the leader (Major) pulls them together so that they can finish the production even when one of them falls ill.

TESSA - The Open Day Drama

Ezekiel is trying to host the town meeting but his children are too noisy. He is angry and goes to punish them but Njideka persuades him not too. She quietens them with a story instead.

TESSA - The Town Meeting

The children create a drama in an allegorical style.

TESSA - Cast the Spell

Titus, the teacher, is multiplication tables. Some children are not paying attention and fail his test. Later he sees them playing a game using multiplication and asks them to teach it to the other children.

TESSA - The Maths Game

These short dramas portray a range of active learning techniques in a fictional primary school in West Africa: 'Cast the Spell' - creating a drama in the classroom; 'Seven Rivers in Africa' - using songs and poems; 'The Maths Game' - engaging pupils with games; 'The Open Day Drama' - pupils working in groups; 'The Town Meeting' - interactive stories and 'Let me do the Cooking Mama' - practical tasks. These dramas are not 'perfect' lessons but raise questions about different strategies which teachers can use to enhance their pupils’ learning. The clips in this album are designed to be used to support the development of teachers' classroom practice in both formal and non formal learning situations. This material is from the TESSA (Teacher Education in Sub Saharan Africa) initiative. This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.