Teaching the wonderful kids at Bishop Forson

Week four is over and it is amazing how fast it went. I have tried to take the chaos in stride and just focus on what I am doing. There are definitely things that drive me nuts about the school system here, like the totally unpredictable schedule of when classes start, end, break times, or even if we are having school that day. Last week one of my classes was shortened from an hour and a half to 30 minutes because the students had to work on the maize. The next day that same class did not happen at all because all classes were cancelled for a teacher meeting. So my stage 6 class only got 1.25 classes last week, stage 5 got all three, stage 4 two. I am learning to write down what we did each day to remember what class is where.

On my walk home from school

 I think I am the first volunteer to actually teach regular classes for the whole term. Lots of other volunteers help with reading and other subjects but more as a supplemental tutoring, like what I am doing with the junior high school. I have to give these students tests, homework and their grades for the term. Since all the students I am working with were picked to be in a special, small class because they were far behind in reading, the difference between the stage 4 and stage 6 is negligible. This makes it easy to plan lessons since they are all doing the same thing, but when the schedule gets messed up it is hard to remember who has learned the long vowel A and how is still on Pat the Hat.

The one thing I have to learn quickly is how much and how fast I can teach and expect them to learn. One of the reason I think this was difficult is because the verbal, reading and writing are all at wildly different levels. Most of them speak and understand English very well since that is the language everything is taught here. But with limited use of textbooks and no handouts, learning is almost all listening to a teacher or copying verbatim the notes on the board. So reading is far, far behind the other English skills. I was disappointed/surprised that when I have my students a simple vocab quiz using the four words we learned: big, small, heavy, tiny (adjectives we read about in a dinosaur book) It was a fill in the blank and even when I read the sentences out loud several times, they all got the one wrong comparing small to tiny, and most got only 1/4 or 2/4. So I am taking a step back and focusing on reading comprehension in verbal exercises and not having written quizzes. When they do not know the difference between “b” and “d”, maybe writing and understanding a full sentence and thinking about how to fill it in is too much. 

My stage 4 students taking their first quiz

This also brings up the idea of giving these students grades. They are the ones failing regular English so I am backing up and giving them work that they should have learned three or four years ago. Do I grade them on what I teach them, which is tailored to their current level of understanding, so they will get much better grades than they ever have before? Or do I still grade them against what their stage should know? I am going to do the former but I am worried that when they continue onto the next two terms they will have very uneven grades. But maybe, hopefully, with the small and individual attention they will have caught up a bit so they can do better in regular class.

Except for the occasional US volunteer, there is no regular help/tutoring for students that are slipping behind. Repeating a grade is not uncommon but that happens when they are failing in more than half the subjects. If they are consistently failing just one or two, they stay woefully far behind and there seems to be no system to help them catch up. It is too small a school to have different tracks but too large of classes, or too poor of teaching, for teachers to be able to give the help needed to the ones falling behind.

So far I have made this sound like nothing is working but that is not the case at all! I have had a lot of luck with other lessons. The oral reading, round reading and sounding out words is going well. I try to have at least one game/group activity that involves rewarding them with stickers. They get super-duper excited about these games and came up with great team names like Team Eagle vs. the Red Devils. Or Chelsea (the favorite team here) vs. The Lizards. Maybe these games are not as efficient as more drilling or reading but I really think if they see English as fun they will have an easier time in the future.

Selase vs Cofe in a word competition, Selase went 2 and 0

I am also having fun exploring the library and finding books to use in class. They have a pretty great selection of books and I have been using them daily either reading to them or having them read. I try to find books easy enough for them to understand but also with some semblance of a story that students as old as 13 may find interesting. We have been reading a lot of nonfiction books like about dinosaurs and African wildlife. Though simple they are not as silly. Although I love Madeline or Harold and the Purple Crayon, I felt it was a harder sell to the older audience. I also am borrowing books for myself to supplement the kindle. So far I have read The Hobbit, Loser, and a book about the women’s professional baseball league. (Full reading list so far below)

Love the poses they chose for pictures

I certainly remember idolizing certain of my teachers but it is surprising and interesting to see which students are latching onto me and which are not. I am sure now there is still the novelty factor of having an American teacher. I have several of my students and some of the younger ones that seek me out at break time and seem to want to be around me whenever possible. There is one student who has been labeled a “problem student” who has been an absolutely great student in my class so far. He always shows up, helps to extra little things like bringing chairs or collecting assignments and he always shows up which is the big problem with his other classes. I also love all the super quiet students and think I will be able to get them out of their shell. These are mostly girls, but not always. In my small classes of five to seven, everyone participates, reads and answers questions. This is not the case in most classes where they just yell out or raise hands so only the eager ones participate. Or, if these shy, quiet ones are called don it is humiliating. I sit with the students around a table and if a student is having a hard time I speak with them one on one, and quietly figure it out. I hand out tons and tons of verbal reinforcement for these shy ones when they do talk and figure out something. This morning a new girl that was just demoted to stage 3 from my class since she did not understand English at all. She still came in with a new stage 3 friend at break and sat with me and read a little book together. She would not look me in the eye or say a word to me the first two weeks. So I hope the small class is a good experience for the super shy and not just helping with the reading.

Some of the junior high kids, hanging out

 I also love the little ones who are not reading yet just grabbing handfuls of books and making up their own stories based on the pictures. “See, see!” is a common phrase in the library instead of saying “look” to point out something they want their friends to look at. “See, see! A shark!” “See, see he is eating it!” was the story this morning.

So far this is what I have read on my trip. I’m averaging about a book every two days but considering half are YA this is not that impressive:

Adult Fiction

American Wife

Far-Seer

Foreigner

Fossil Hunter

Gold Boy Emerald Girl

Lilith's Brood

The Fellowship of the Ring

Young Adult Fiction

The Extraordinary Adventure of Ordinary Boy

The Secret Garden

The Hobbit

Maniac McGee

Loser

Animorphs #1

Nonfiction

A Whole New Ballgame