To teachers of foreign languages the world over, I
would like to express a new found appreciation for the difficulty of your task.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been engaged in the practicum portion of my
pre-service training, and it’s been an eye-opening experience to say the least.
The practicum took place during our weekday
afternoons at one of Huruta’s primary schools. Since it’s summer break and
school is out, we taught classes of students who had volunteered (or been
volun-told) to give up two weeks of their summers. We taught grades 2-5, and
each class had between 35 and 50 students, depending on the class and the day.
For the first week, we taught in pairs, although I taught in a trio, because we
had an odd number. The second week we taught individually, one 45 minute class
per day. Each class was observed by a
mix of our fellow trainees, current/veteran Education PCVs, and our own
language teachers (we call them LCFs – Language and Culture Facilitators), and
we would receive feedback from them after we finished.
The challenge is the same for any teacher of a
foreign language, although perhaps compounded for us. The students are at
varying stages of just beginning to learn English, because it is taught as a subject
here in Ethiopia until the students get to 9th grade (much as
French, German, or Spanish is taught in the U.S.). At the second grade level,
they don’t even know instruction words, such as “listen,” “write,” “read,” or
“repeat.” Where the problem gets compounded is that we are at the beginning
stages of learning their languages, and we don’t even know those words in
Amharic or Oromiffa. Then there’s the problem of our accents. We pronounce
things differently, so even if they know a word, they might not recognize it
when we speak. How did we manage to teach a class? Yep, you guessed it –
charades.
The wonderful aspect of the experience was the
students themselves. They are incredibly eager. They raise their hands to be
called on before I’ve even finished explaining (miming) the instructions, and
they listen and watch intently, as long as it’s not too long into the lesson.
They are children, after all. It was a joy to work with them, despite the
obvious roadblocks. I taught “Prepositions of Location” the second week, which
is a fancy term for words like near, far, in, out, on, under, behind, and in
front of. I had a blast with the younger two grades, playing a form of Simon
Says to get them to associate the word with a physical action: “Teacher says
put your hands under the desk; Teacher says put your hand near your face;
Teacher says put your hands on your shoulders.” Luckily, a fellow trainee had
taught body parts the week before!
A side effect of the practicum is that now roughly
130 kids in Huruta know my name. It is such a nice improvement to walk through
town and hear my name called by the kids, as they come running up to shake my
hand, instead of hearing, “Ferenje! Ferenje!” (Foreigner! Foreigner!) I can
take that knowledge with me to Fincha, to help with integrating.
The best aspect of the practicum though is the
self-confidence it gave me. I have had some experience with varying levels of
teaching before, but never with teaching English on my own to more than 40
children. I had my doubts, about whether I could keep control of the classroom,
develop lesson plans that actually taught the kids what I wanted them to learn,
and whether I could stand in front of the classroom without simply panicking
and freezing. But, lo and behold, I could do all of those things! I was even
praised for my slow and clear instructions, for developing activities that both
engaged and taught the students, and for my general composure (once I told them
I was super nervous). Thus, even though those two weeks completely stressed me
out and exhausted me, I’m very glad the Peace Corps added it to our training.
The next two weeks we’re back to the usual
schedule. Monday through Wednesday of both weeks, we’ll be in Assella for big
group training sessions on health, safety/security, and techniques and theories
behind teaching English in Ethiopia. Then Thursday and Friday of both weeks
will be 8-5 of Afan Oromo language class. After the next two weeks, we begin
reviewing and studying for our big language exam, and that Wednesday we travel
back to Addis to finish up training and make the transition to becoming real
Volunteers. It’s hard to believe that I’ve both already and only been here for
7 weeks, and that we’re entering the final leg of training.