Back to School...

Another interesting turn of events occurred the day before school began on the 8^th. Brad and I were asked to teach at the Global Revival Mission School (primary school from Kdg. to 7^th grade). Brad would continue teaching Math and Science the 6^th and 7^th graders and I would teach English to some of the grades. Though quite exciting, this stirred a strong nervousness in me for many reasons. First of all, I am not trained as a teacher (I don’t think playing childhood “school” in my barn was quite enough), secondly, I don’t know how to teach English as a second language, thirdly, I don’t speak Siswati, and lastly, this is a big job!!! However, I went with it and Wednesday was our first day of school. After participating in a rousing assembly complete with group songs with hand motions, a sermon message, special choir numbers including “I Will Call Upon the Lord,” and a specific thank you to us for painting the desks, we began our first day of school. After speaking with the teachers, we determined what our schedule would be and Thursday we began working with the students.

The first class I taught was the first grade class and it was pretty much a disaster. The students could hardly understand me and they were a rowdy bunch. Their elderly teacher seemed very eager for me to teach for her and she left! I spent most of the class time trying to read the kids’ names on their workbooks and pass them out (too many letters and clicks!), trying to teach “in, beside, behind, under, and on,” and trying to play “Siphiwe Says” (Swazi version of Simon Says).

Today, it went a little better. I wasn’t supposed to teach today, I was just going to assist the teacher. However, when I arrived, the teacher was gone and the kids were chaotic! She had written some things on the board, so I just jumped in. We worked on action words, which was easy to convey and something I could act out. I was walking, winking, jumping, crying, sitting, holding, and eating all over the classroom! We had fun having the children come up in groups to act out the words as well. The difficulty came when we began the workbook page. As we were counting and identifying positions, I asked them to, “Write a 2 beside the two balls.” I received many blank stares and even the most accomplished English speaker in the class said he could not understand. I repeated myself several times, paused for many seconds, and wracked my brain. Finally I said, “Rrrrite a too by tha 2 boals.” “Oooohhhh,” they said and starting writing (this had a feeling quite similar to the story of We call her Leenda. J). Therefore, the rest of the hour consisted of Grace speaking in some sort of Swazi-British-American accent to communicate the instructions. Though, still not a wholly successful venture, hopefully, I can continue to assist the first grade teacher in English class.

I was supposed to teach my first lesson to the sixth graders today. I prepared diligently and was geared up to go; however, somehow, when it came time to teach, all the children were outside playing, eating, or getting ready to finish for the day. Since I have been genuinely confused by their class schedules already, I approached the teacher to figure out what was happening. He said that the day was over and they were skipping the last period. Apparently, on Fridays they start a ½ hour early to let out early. No one bothered to tell Brad or me until the day was finished. (That’s why I seemed to be late to every class today!) So, obviously, there is a lot I need to learn about Swazi schools, communication, and timing. What I can figure is that, 11:00 means 10:30 on Fridays, and 12:00 on special days or days with delays, and 11:30 or 11:35-ish on normal days. I will never understand. Anyway…after observing the teachers in the 5^th-7^th grades over the last two days, I am very excited about teaching those classes. They understand English much better and I feel like I have a grasp on the content. I’ll keep you updated on how my first lessons go next week and we’ll see what happens with the first graders!!

-Grace