Day 7 – May 6
Today was probably the most uneventful day at school thus far, but in reality that’s a good thing because it means (a) I am getting accustomed to the school and its environment and (b) that I have gotten into a regular teaching groove. I taught 3 periods today, one single and one double period with the Form Is. In the morning I got a bit of a look at the syllabus for Form I and was able to decide what I will do this week and next week. This week, we will study the present simple and its use to discuss personal routines, and next week I will teach them how to properly use dictionaries. This fits in particularly well since it was just today that we were able to bring to school all the dictionaries purchased with the donations I collected in Canada. Up to this point, they haven’t really had any dictionary access whatsoever.
In my double period with Form 1B today, I played little game using the blackboard and with students in teams. It was fun, but it got a little out of hand as the students got so excited that they would not follow my rule of one person from each team at the board at any one time. Even after I stopped them and repeated the instructions, they continued to crowd the board, writing madly. Good enthusiasm for English is one way of looking at it, I guess.
I don’t think the kids are used to having that much excitement in English class (or any class for that matter). Teaching here, from what I’ve seen, is strictly teacher centred lecture method, and its monotony is compounded by the complete absence of any resources, paper or otherwise. As the students have no textbooks and no handouts can be made, ALL information must be written on the board by the teacher and then copied by the students. They’ve got nothing else to go on. The same goes for all exercises.
Anyway, I paid a little price for bringing excitement like that into the classroom. After the game, I still had the second half of my lesson to go, but the students seemed no longer content with just a lesson. They shut down a bit. We’ll see how things continue tomorrow. Another thing I’ll have to work on is getting answers out of more than the regular 3 or 4 students that are answering. The B class is much better than the A class for this, but it still is a problem in both classes.
Another challenge is getting the students to do the work if they don’t want to. I’m a foreign teacher that has parachuted in for a few weeks. I likely have little authority in the minds of the students, and as I don’t know the system, I don’t really know the discipline methods used, either. As I’m only teaching the Form I class for two weeks, what weight can any discipline really have anyway? Not knowing the assessment strategies or timetables is also a bit tricky. I don’t know if any kind of summative assessment will figure into the two weeks that I teach each of the forms, but I will have to discuss that with the regular teachers.
A very positive sticky note to add here is that just after the morning assembly in the courtyard, the clouds over Mt. Kilimanjaro parted and a good chunk of the mountain as well as the summit was visible. It looks rocky and snowy and it looms over the whole north-western skyline. It is a shame we don’t get to see it more, as it is a breathtaking backdrop to this already stunning countryside scenery.
By the end of the school day at 2:20, I wasn’t so much exhausted as I was starving. Classes start here at 8:00am and aside from a 20 minute break at 11:20, they run straight until 2:20 with no lunch period! At 2:20, the students get a meagre school lunch, but the teachers don’t. And it’s not like there’s a cafeteria or a coffee shop around the corner. Even leaving at 2:20 doesn’t get me home until 3:30 or so, and that makes 8½ hours without a meal! How the teachers do it every day, I have no idea.
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