Let's start teaching! And those projects?!

THE SCHOOL YEAR HAS BEGUN!

Well, I have finally started the work I came here to do…TEACHING ENGLISH! The first school term started mid January and I have been spending the last 2 weeks establishing rules, distributing notebooks for the students to cover and trying to learn their names. At the moment, I have 2 grade 8 classes of English (40 students each) and 9 grades 8-10 classes of Basic Information Science. This class teaches learners about the library, finding information and using reference resources….all skills which these learners lack and don’t really care about. This class is ‘non-promotional’, meaning there is no grade for it. All the more reason for the learners not to care or pay attention. I was just getting into it and finding material for the lessons when I was told (yesterday) that I will no longer be doing the BIS classes but instead will do all 4 grade 8 English classes…Whew! I am relieved…fewer names to remember and can concentrate on what I know best.

Since the beginning of the term, I’ve been put on various committees: library, newsletter, ‘Wellness’ (collecting funds for lunches, weddings, funerals, etc  among staff members), athletics program AND a remedial reading or literacy group. Here, they just put anyone who seems willing on a committee because people don’t always volunteer. They LOVE  to set up committees, appoint people, set up ‘action plans’, make reports, write up minutes. It seems like a lot of bureaucracy in my view but hey! That’s part of the integration here, isn’t it? The projects which are most important to me and for my service are the library and the literacy group.

I felt strongly about the literacy group as there are many learners who are repeating grade 8 (about 30 out of about 160 students).I took the initiative to assess all the grade 8 learners in week 1 using the “San Diego Quick Reading Assessment” which I found on the Peace Corps Resource file. I had never used it before but it looked effective and brief. Basically, it assesses how well one can recognize and read words form a list out of context. It took more than a week to get around to all the learners and new students were still enrolling. The results were astounding! This assessment is not necessarily for ESL but it’s a good indication for learners with serious reading difficulties. There were some learners who couldn’t recognize words or letters at Primary or Grade 1…AND some had dyslexic tendencies and 2 were illiterate. I don’t know how they made it this far…they just got pushed through the system. I was told that the school is aware of these illiterate learners but they just give them remedial reading or individual tutoring (!) As can be imagined, many of the repeaters had real difficulties. The whole assessment process was familiar to me and I felt I was really using my expertise. I made up a report and gave it to the principal on the Monday. He then asked me to make an ‘Action Plan’ to get the program going…. I will update on how that project goes.

The other project is the library. Oh my! It looks nice and orderly but it is going to be a challenge! It was once the public library of Gibeon so it was properly established but then they set up a public library for the village and this became the school library. Once the Librarian left, there was no one to carry on the duties so they appointed some unwilling teachers (who were already overloaded and unqualified) and the school library fell into disrepair. It was ignored and it became a storeroom.  There was no stock control, new books were not catalogued properly and old books were not maintained. At this time, I can find no record of the books we have on the shelves. They DID try to make a record of books by recording them in a register but they left this to the learners and the adults didn’t guide them properly into maintaining a coherent catalogue. I have long lists of books, listed willy-nilly by fiction or non-fiction, in both English and Afrikaans, some in one register, some in another. There are about 15 registers, none of them complete, without dates so I can’t determine the order or how they were recorded. It’s a real headache and no wonder no one wanted to take on this project. On top of that, it was very dirty and dusty and old testing material, unused computer equipment and backed up files are stacked up in the computer room. Oh, yes! We DO have about 7 working computers, no wifi (yet) but these computers are stuffed into a small room teetering with old and newly-donated books that were never weeded out or registered.  The stickler is, there has been no electricity in the library since November so the learners that want to practice their computer skills can’t even use the computers! Not sure of the problem…fuse is blown or something but after several pleas, still no power. I will update on how the library is coming along too.

I am including some photos of some programs and my learners so you can have an idea of what I do. I feel this blog post is way too long and I need to make them brief. I am still learning…..bear with me.    

More to come…….

PS. not much progress on the language learning I'm afraid...ahem....

THESE SHOTS....learners at the library......running in the athletics program (Yes! they DO run in those plastic sandals and, damn! they are fast!)... 3 of my colleagues supervising the kids...(teachers are all young here).....my classroom and the kids waiting front the dining commons......shots of my place and some BIG African bugs making love on my doorstep...we live in peace...I try not to disturb...having my morning coffee at sunrise