I worked in Norway for many years before immigrating to Canada. One of the things that amazed me in Norway was that many people could understand and speak English very well. The city I lived they started teaching English in grade 3. They do this, for the first whole year they just teach and emphasize on verbal communication, no writing or reading at all. Verbal and listening skills are the top priority in understanding the language. Many of us who grew up in Tanzania, were taught English the other way around, I mean they were very good at reading and writing. These are the top priority for English education in Tanzania. This is wrong because most of us learned our native languages by just listening and verbal communication. Children in the young age are easy to learn any language as long as they are surrounded by people who speak that language. If Tanzanians want to master the English language, there is no other way than follow the Norwegian's teaching method. To achieve this:
- the government needs to train high qualified English teachers for elementary school;
- hire only university graduates to teach English.
In Europe and North America you cannot teach K-12 if you don't have Bachelor of Education Degree and have a teaching license. It is a profession like any other profession, and they pay them a good salary.
I know it is hard in Tanzania because of the economy, but starting slowly to change the system, will eventually give positive results in the future.