Teaching English

(Pictures: Photos of our students taken earlier this month at the handoff celebration as we took over the English club from teammate Beka, the center prides itself on teaching “American” English, hence the flag)
“Good Morning Class.”
“Good Morning Teacher,” is the response of twenty or so enthusiastic students now waiting expectantly to see what we are going to do. We have begun to teach. Every Wednesday Tom leaves the house at 7:45 and walks to his class. Then at 10:00 Megan comes and hands off Grace to teach the next class from 10 to 12. The classes, which we are teaching only once a week, are geared for students on vacation from normal school. The classes are an amalgam of ages from 10 to 38 with an equally wide range of English proficiency, but all of them have smiles and seem excited to be learning from a “real native speaker.”

Okay, time to get started. Time to begin that wonderful process of bonding with a class. Start with their names. Names are so important and shouldn’t be too difficult, right?

“What is your name?”
“My name is …”

At this point we realize just how different names can be in different cultures. “Hadidja, Raopvwati, Haji Uthman, Moinaanrafa, Zoulfati…” This is not going to be easy. After having students repeat their name three or four times, it is a bit intimidating to try saying it again, but a good teacher knows their students’ names.

Slowly we ask, “Ra..o…pvwa..ti, How old are you?”
“I have 70 years old.”
And so begins the first lesson: “Let’s go over the words 70 and 17. And while we’re at it 40 and 14, 60 and 16, 90 and 19. Also we don’t say ‘I have 17 years’ we say ‘I am 17 years old.” Soon the class is repeating as a group “14” “40” “14” “40.” And the board is full of numbers and phrases. Many minutes of the class have gone by and we haven’t even gotten to the day’s actual lesson: adjectives.

We move through the lesson, filling the board to its max capacity with different describing words. For some students this is a lot of review, for others it is mostly new, but everyone needs work on pronunciation and confidence in speaking. We pass out objects and the students practice describing them. Things are going well. We’re teaching. They’re learning and it seems like we are all having fun.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The new kids on the team have been sleeping better the past few days. The team is getting along well and the orientation for new team members is going well. English teaching has been encouraging.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
While our Wednesday classes are limited in size, the English club we are leading on Saturdays is completely open and gets as many as 50 students from advanced to beginner. Pray for our creativity as we think of activities to do with them. On Monday our new team members begin their homestays (living with an island family) and we return to our normal life. Our local language learning has been on hold somewhat while we have helped with orientation and watched the team’s seven children (including four kids under 3 yrs), so pray that we can get back into it with excitement. Also pray for the homestays that the kids will do well and that everyone will enjoy this challenging week of culture learning.