My name is Haliyamutu John Fiacre, born in Rwanda in 1981 in southern province. Americans and British call me “Johnny English” and many Rwandans call me “Teacher.” Every one is right because I like teaching English. My father could speak a little English and I grew up with an insatiable desire of becoming an English teacher. I liked praying and reading and at the age of seven, I went to a very good primary school of that time that was in our town.

My first burning memory that I will never forget was French. Everything was taught in this language that I have never heard before. I simply recall this simple French dialog: “Bonjour Louise. Bonjour Thomas. Où vas-tu? Chez Monique.” It was projected to the wall, in the dark room, and as a result of fear, I hid g under the desks until it was over.

Lack of language knowledge impeded my learning, and as consequence, my results were not good. I immediately left the school after the first year and joined a rural elementary school where my family lived. No more lights, no running water or cook stoves at home! However, the head of school could speak English because he had been an ambassador. We started greeting each other in English with a few words I picked from my sisters. My dad passed away when I was 13 years – only three months away to begin high school. I augmented my appetite of English in high school, spent much time for reading, working hard, discussing with my teachers and whoever who could speak English. By the end of my high school, I had already become a bookworm.

Leaving the high school, I served as a waiter and then started purchasing English books for deepening my reading skills although some of them were beyond of my knowledge.
Unfortunately, my mother and elder brother decided for me to go to a French college again in DRC. I didn’t indeed dislike French but I have had always a challenge to access quality French instruction from a younger age. At this college, I was the only one freshman who had the difficulty of pronouncing “dit” and “dû” correctly in French, consequently, I dropped out. (Food for thought: never say never. I now train people who want to improve their French or sit for TCF!)

After dropping out of college, with my uncle’s dictionary at hand, I copied words phonetically from A – Z in my notebooks.

In 2003, I headed to eastern province of my country – a place that I have never neither visited nor have known anybody. Here, life was a different story. I had nothing on me except books to read so that I could teach myself this foreign language during the day only because I couldn’t afford a candle or a lamp oil! Starved, strange, thin and homeless guy I was, I didn’t lose heart and in 2004 I started sensitizing people who were not motivated to learn English. Keep in mind that English language in Rwanda was almost unconsidered language in that time.

Four people finally came and I went to ask a room from a director (Djouma) who was running a primary catholic school nearby and he accepted. I was over the moon that day. These students were my first ambassadors in the whole town and ever since I could see more trainees kept coming ever since.

Today, lot of preschoolers still face the same language barrier I had when I started the school. I understand that many mothers still have little or no knowledge at all in the language of instruction, parenting skills as my mom had none. Many teachers around the world are not well trained and still underpaid. A big number of children are on “wait – to – fail” list because of their learning differences. STEM is still largely taught theoretically with less little consideration of developing HOTS.

A lot of students still cannot access higher education after high school graduation because they have not had career guidance and college admission and application assistance. College graduates who have no relevant job market skills are still increasing. Teachers and education policy makers still don’t know the correlation between mind, brain and education. The use of educational technology is very limited despite its benefits to education.

To respond to these life success and happiness inhibitors, together with a team of top minds, we have strong conviction that educational technology and educational neuroscience can be used to provide a top – tier education to anyone from anywhere.

I dedicated myself to education because is the best way to serve the humanity.