First Day Teaching

This is from Friday. I just got electricity back today so I'm a little behind. Apologies!

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The day before yesterday I ran into my teacher for the first time since I actually met her. I went back to the school several times to set up a time. I left notes and phone messages to no avail. I started helping someone else as I needed some time in the classroom. She was excited to see me and explained why she hadn’t been around. She asked me to come teach today to meet the class and set-up times for when I come back in October to teach.

Once in class, I introduced myself and told the kids a bit about my family and where I come from. After the teacher left, I ran out of ideas. I told them all their vocabulary could understand. I began the lesson where the teacher told me that she left off. The class is so far behind the other standard five classes. My teacher has missed so much class time and teaching English doesn’t seem to be a priority to her. The students were enthusiastic to learn. There were only four books in the class and they snickered and laughed as I tried to explain sequence words. The class has excellent repetition skills, but their ability to understand what they are reading is so minimal. It is a challenge to work with this class. The best way to teach English is to do it through a conversation. There is only one of me and 45 of them. I hope that I can make a difference for them. I see the value of English here and how necessary it is if they are to continue their education to the secondary level. If these kids pass their standard seven exams they will be put in English speaking classrooms. Where they are now in their language skills, they can’t even ask for a cup of water. It’s so challenging to see. I understand the importance of knowing English for these kids. It’s frustrating to see that the lower level teachers just don’t care. They know that these kids need English skills to go to secondary school and university. It’s even helpful making their way around the city as more tourists come and go and companies need English speakers. Caroline and I discussed the situation and she said that many of the teachers have poor English skills themselves and so aren’t able to teach the material. This whole arm of the educational system seems broken and it looks like no one is trying o fix it.