ESL teaching is going to be my bread and butter in Tete, and there are already potential clients who are extremely keen to begin classes as soon as I get there. I absolutely LOVED teaching on our course, so I can't wait to begin teaching 'for real' in Tete. On the course, I was one of the teachers assigned to the 'beginner' level class. This was a very daunting task at first because simply giving an instruction to the class was a battle in communication. However, we came to have a very strong and positive relationship with the students. The majority of them are refugees from Somalia, the DRC (Congo) and Angola, and so they had a very high motivation to learn English which was a huge advantage for us teachers.
Me, in class, prepping the students for a group activity.
One particular student from Somalia has a better grasp of English than most of the other students, however he can only read and write in Arabic. In order to encourage him to learn the letters and sounds of the Roman alphabet, we gave him extra worksheets to complete and would assist him in pronouncing words where ever possible. As a result he felt a little more relaxed with the teachers and wasn't as shy as some of the other students. He is very enthusiastic and would often arrive early for classes. On one particular day, I had gotten to the class early in order to set up for the lesson; none of the the other teachers were there yet. This Somalian student arrived and was very chatty - asking me how I was and began telling me about his day. We had recently done a lesson on transport and he was excitedly yabbering on about 'car, bus, taxi... boom!' in between various Arabic words. I couldn't really make out what he was saying, so asked him to slow down and said I would help him with the words. He slowly pieced together the sentence, "I see very bad thing when I walking here". I encouraged him to continue. He mimed the actions of a car crashing into a bus and then a taxi crashing into the bus and car. "Ah, I see", I said, "it was an accident". "Yes, yes, yes!", he exclaimed excitedly, so pleased that I'd understood him. But he didn't stop there; there were more details that he wanted to fill me in on. Again, he filled in the gaps between his English words with Arabic, and I was lost. Exasperated, he finally burst out, "Teeeeasha (teacher), they go 'BOOM!' and LOTS OF MOTHER-F*@KERS DEAD!" I had to try very hard to keep a straight face, and very gently told him that that's not a very nice word.I then excused myself and went and laughed my butt of in the bathroom! LOL! Bless him!
Me with a bunch of the 'beginner' level students who I taught on the TESOL course.
I hope I'll have just as dedicated and interesting students in Tete. Between daily life, teaching and filmmaking I look forward to sharing all my experiences with you.
Wishing you all a very happy festive season and all the very best of luck for 2011!
Love,
Tash.
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