N is for Onion

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  Mwanza, Tanzania
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

N is for Onion: Challenges of Teaching English
 
Hands of Mercy July 7 - July 16
 
By the second week, I had developed a steady routine. I am usually the first one awake in the house. With the exception of the rooster's crowing (which happens twenty-four hours a day), the mornings are generally quiet. I use the time to slowly drink my coffee and read, write or work on my fall lectures.  Most mornings I eat a piece of toast and then buy a banana from one of the many fruit stands on the way to the orphanage.  Since the children's holiday is over, the younger children are in nursery school class in the morning easing our arrival. Mama Betty, as the children call her, is employed by HOM to teach the 3 to 6 year olds. The orphanage also enrolls neighborhood children to help cover the expense.   As they use one of the two classrooms at the orphanage we often hear them singing songs like "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." Since the room is packed with small children it can often be quite loud. Sometimes Mama Betty is not there, and a young man Dennis substitutes for her.  One day last week, I was working with my third graders, Margreth, Neema, and Helena, when Dennis began English lessons with the nursery students. 
 
"A is for Apple," Dennis shouted followed by twenty voices screaming back. Besides in their English books, I have not seen an apple since I arrived. Do they even know what this is?  He continued to go through the alphabet and after "M" yelled "N is for Onion."  "N is for Onion," mimicked the unknowing children. The English level from child to child varies greatly, and I was beginning to understand why. I shook my head, tried to tune the class out, and focused on my students.
 
Dennis's voice broke through my subconscious again as he taught the children how to say their names. "My name is Lulu. I am a Lulu." The entire class chanted the phrase.  Did they understand they are saying their own name was Lulu or did they think they were talking about Lulu? And how ridiculous will they sound by putting an "a" in front of their names. I contemplated walking in the room to correct Dennis, but did not feel comfortable. I decided I would teach the children the right way if I heard them repeating this.  Dennis worked his way through the students and by the time I heard "I am a Happy," echo from the classroom; I could not contain my laughter.
 
In reality, teaching English to these children may be the most difficult things I have attempted. Not only do I have to struggle to break them of bad habits, I have to teach them self-confidence while always remembering cultural and familial sensitivity.  These things are further complicated by the language barrier and the fact that I trying to conduct lessons while dozens of other children play, yell and run through the classroom.  Actually, multiple children come and purposefully interrupt every single class.   I do have a good Swahili phrase book with a dictionary, but it is certainly not comprehensive. If only it had the phrases "Be Quiet", "Keep your hands to yourself," or "It's OK to make mistakes." The children's schoolbooks, although made in Tanzania, do not contain an English-Swahili glossary.  My phrase book does have some of the words the children are learning, but there are other words I desperately need.  It is difficult to try to explain the difference between "sometimes" and "usually" when the children only know a little English and you can not directly translate the words. I try to draw pictures and pantomime, but it is not always possible depending on the word. Even with drawings and actions, it is also difficult to determine if they truly understood the concept.  English grammar is already difficult without lacking the ability to say "noun" and "verb". My Swahili is improving everyday, but my knowledge consists mainly of nouns and adjectives.  I struggle with sentence construction.  I have tried to convey this to the children, but how I wish I could clearly say, "It's OK you are learning. I am learning too."
 
Not that I expected to be impressed with the Tanzanian school system, but I strongly disagree with some of their methods.  The first grade English book begins with lots of pictures. Apparently the teacher goes through the book pointing to the image and saying, "This is a tree," and the children repeat.  "This is a house." The children repeat "this is a ..." for all of the pictures.  This explains why one neighborhood boy will follow behind me saying, "this is a motorcar, this is a motorcycle, this is a dog, this is a cat." Since these are still the only things I have ever heard him say, I believe this may be the extent of his English retention.  It also sheds light on why my students may fill in the blank in this sentence," I like to read _________." With "I like to read this is a book."  After further inspection of the first grade book, I realized it really pounded this pattern into the children. A picture of a cow is next to "This is a ______." The next picture of a goat is accompanied by  "______ ___ __ goat.". It took me a minute to realize the correct answer was in fact, "this is a" How often do we speak or write like this?
 
Another unfortunate thing I have learned is that the teachers hit the children when they are incorrect. As a result, they are all terrified of making a mistake. It is rare for them to admit they do not understand. We try to constantly praise them in English and Swahili, but their confidence issues are hard to overcome. I work with one girl Diana who is in sixth grade but is working with the third grade English book.  I actually began teaching her along with another sixth grader, but split them up when I realized Diana was much further behind. I knew she was struggling, but it was only this Monday that Diana began to admit how little she understood. When I first arrived at HOM, I was told what page each student was working on in their English book. I used the school exercises "completed" to measure their level of understanding. I am now realizing that all but a couple of my students are much further behind then I was led to believe. In actuality most of the children can read aloud from a book in perfect English. If I or other volunteers use the exercises in the book (the easiest method when there is a major lack of resources and time), the children match the words in the question to a sentence in the reading.  They then copy the next sentence and ninety percent of the time they provide a correct or semi-correct answer. It was only when I began to feel comfortable or forced to make my own exercises did I realize there was very little comprehension.
 
Besides testing the children's understanding and adding variety to their learning, I have felt forced to create my own exercises due to the reality of the children' situation. They are orphans.  They rarely go anywhere besides the orphanage, school, or church. Therefore, I will not assume they know anything besides what I see at HOM.  Once I began to think about this it eliminated a lot of questions I would ask children at home such as "What's your favorite food?" Since they eat the same thing everyday this is either a dumb question or a cruel question.  "What's your favorite toy?" is also unfair as I have seen very few toys around the orphanage.  A lot of the exercises in their books are about their parents.  The children may have to encounter this at school, but I want to ensure they avoid this with me. I even found a book someone had donated called "The Case of the Missing Mother".  For someone to donate a book about a monster that loses his mother but is happily reunited with her at the end to an orphanage is something I can not comprehend. I know I can not protect this children from these things, but want to be sensitive to their situation.
 
The last few days I have honestly been quite frustrated.  The children's moods are often temperamental. Unfortunately there is little adult supervision at HOM, and I believe that bullying does occur. As I realize that many of my students' progress is an illusion, I have began to back track.  This is devastating to me as I feel I have largely wasted the last two weeks.  The students are irritated because they have been taught that copying sentences without understanding the meaning is in fact learning. They do not understand why they are going backwards instead of forwards.  I try to create new assignments, but they see that I am repeating words they have written in the front of their notebook. It is hard enough building their confidence and their trust in me to have to have them discouraged. It also does not help that by the time they trust me, I may be getting ready to leave.  I am also coming to accept that I won't be the one to succeed in teaching them English. I am a mere piece in a very large puzzle that hopefully will come together for each child. 
 
I have devoted a lot of time over the last few days thinking about the best way to approach this situation. Diana has consumed many of these thoughts.  This sounds absolutely horrible, but I have been tempted to throw in the towel. She is in sixth grade. She has one more year of school.  Students only progress beyond seventh grade if they are at the top of their class or can afford private school. The reality is that neither of these things will happen for Diana. She will finish her education at the end of seventh grade. I do not know how she is doing in other classes, but I suspect she has a learning disability. I would not be surprised if she finishes school with little knowledge beyond a fourth grade level. In actuality the best thing that can happen to her will probably be to find a job washing clothes or maybe to get married when she is a bit older. I know this sounds cruel, but this is the truth. Perhaps my time would be better spent working with some of the younger children. I have also been frustrated as I have a very difficult time determining if she even wants to learn.  On Monday, July 14th, I decided to give her a little more time and began to contemplate switching her lessons to mathematics. Maybe with math skills, she could work in a local shop slightly increasing her potential for employment.  This was actually my plan for yesterday, but for some reason I thought I would give it one more try.
 
 
Using a first grade book, my level of Swahili and my phrasebook, I printed twenty-four words (and some phrases) in Swahili. I knew all of these basic words and verified they were spelled correctly. I chose words such as friend, cow, school, and thank you. I also included the phrases "I understand" and "I do not understand" as I want her to use these throughout her lessons.  I told her to write the English word next to the Swahili word.  She could only complete about a third of the words confirming her English level is actually first grade not third grade. I also discovered that she even had difficulty reading the Swahili words.  "Siku" is a simple word, but she was confused until I said "siku" out loud to her.  At that point she was able to tell me that "siku" means day.  I taught her the other answers and then made flashcards for her (I had stumbled upon some index cards at the house).  I know knew her level of understanding, but wanted to see her level of interest. I gave her the kids and did my best to explain that she needed to study and would have a test tomorrow.  "Test" is a word that we normally do not use with the students as we try to ease their anxiety. However, I wanted to convey that I was serious.  She left class as I wondered if tomorrow would bring any progress.
 
Having issues with my computer, I spent the next morning in town with Sarah having it fixed. Although I felt guilty missing my morning classes, I needed the break. Not only was a frustrated with teaching, but was losing patience with the other children who were constantly interrupting class. Honestly, when I left the orphanage on Tuesday I was at my wit's end. Sarah and I had a long discussion about teaching and Diana. Not that I was overly optimistic, but she cautioned me that the flashcards likely became a toy never to be seen again.  I arrived at the orphanage after lunch and procrastinated teaching by cuddling with Joy for a good fifteen minutes.  Josef, age nine, is my first student and his lesson went fairly smoothly. During the lesson, his four-year-old sister entered the room.  Sesey is usually quite loud but today she merely curled up in my lap. Although I try (often unsuccessfully) to keep other children out during lessons, I let her stay.  She did not say a word as I rocked her to sleep. I reminded myself that as annoying as these children can sometimes be, they do not have a mother to hold them. I could not imagine being four years old, thirteen years old or really any age without my mother.
 
Josef finished class. Filled with dread, I went off in search of Diana.  She was helping with the wash and took what felt like forever to come to class. As I waited a climbed a tree with Happy and Joy and wondered if Diana had given up. Eventually she showed up, and I handed her the test. She reached for her book, but I pulled it away reminding her it was a test. She ran out of the room and returned with her flashcards. I was happy to see them in one piece, but took them from her.  I needed to know what she learned. She easily identified the first words although her spelling left something to be desired. We both got more excited as she worked her way through the list.   Although struggling to write all the words in English, she could at least verbalize every single one.  I feel she must have put forth some effort to learn them. She finished the test and I repeatedly told her "very good" in Swahili.  I drew stars and smiley faces all over her paper while silently cursing my phrasebook for excluding the word "proud".   I handed back her flashcards and decided to end class.  I wanted her to enjoy the feeling of success and honestly, I was scared to remind her of what she still did not know.  I told her we would make more flashcards tomorrow.  She began to walk away, but then turned back. With her head held high and with more confidence than I had yet to hear from her, she said. "Thank you, Ginger. Thank you very much."
 
I know that tomorrow may prove to be difficult again, so today I will try to enjoy Diana's much needed victory. In actuality, I needed the victory too.  As I waited for Michelle to finish her classes, I watched Happy, Joy and other children play with their homemade airplanes.  They had pulled big leaves off the trees and then stuck a twig in the middle. By running fast, they could make the leaves spin like airplane propellers. They shrieked with glee running back and forth screaming, "Airplane."  I realized they were playing this game when I arrived a few hours earlier.  When the leaves broke, they simply climbed back up the tree to get a new one. I was amazed and overjoyed to see the amount of fun they were having.   Maybe I can ask them what their favorite toy is after all.
 
  PHOTO_ID_R=happyxs_airplane.jpg
 

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