School Attachment at TTC De La Salle: Trials and Tribulations

School attachment refers to the practical component of teacher training in which a student teacher spends a period of a school term in a school environment, applying theory learnt at college to real classroom situations. During that period, tutors regularly visit student teachers to check on their progress and give feedback, especially on lesson preparation and delivery. This study investigates what is happening on the ground as far as school attachment is concerned. Problems faced by Year 3 Teacher Training College student teachers on school attachment in Rwandan primary schools will also be explored. Suggestions for improvement will be proffered. We adopted the phenomenological case study in which we collected data from the natural setting, namely: five purposively selected primary schools. We did our pilot study at the sixth school. We used three methods of data collection namely: direct observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis (Triangulation). Our participants were TTC student teachers on school attachment, their pupils, school administrators and the school attachment coordinator. Our findings showed that pupils faced conceptual and communication challenges because most of them were not yet proficient enough to use ESL effectively to learn in class. Student teachers were proficient enough to use ESL as the medium of communication in class albeit they sometimes used broken English to communicate concepts to their learners. When student teachers and their pupils failed to communicate effectively, they code-switched to Kinyarwanda, their L1. The use of media, which in most cases was absent, could have helped to ease that problem. Pupils and student teachers are encouraged to speak in English when they are in class and outside. Debating competitions in English should also be held frequently. TTC tutors should visit student teachers on school attachment at least three times, and not just once as is the case currently.