Teaching

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Hi all,

The teaching here is going well. The school I teach at is called Anna Mkapa Secondary and is about a 40 minute walk from the house. It's in a run down area of Moshi, and I regularly get swarmed by kids on the way who are forever shouting "Muzungu" (White person) and "good morning" to me, even if it is the afternoon. The school didn't have a physics teacher so thats where I fit in. I teach 4 classes in total,and about 13 lessons per week the largest having 87 pupils and the smallest 67. Teaching is made diffiult due to the fact there are no resources avaliable (meaning practicals are out of the question), the communication barrier (they speak Ok english but don't understand a lot of Science terms and its difficult to explain them), and the sheer number of pupils in each class means its hard to give one on one help. There is also a wide range of ability within each class as some pupils will have finished all the questions set before others have even opened their books!
I would estimate that at the school Im in about 1/2 - 1/3rd of all lessons go untaught, the kids will sit in their classrooms and the teachers sit in the staff room when they are meant to be teaching! As a result I often continue my lessons into the following period, if the next teacher doesn't show up.
They still use the cane at Anna Mkapa and for most schools in Tanzania (needless to say, not by me), although I rarely see it being used. I've been talking to other volunteers and apparently its more common in primary schools and used even if the kids get the wrong answer as well as when they're naughty.

All that said, I am really enjoying it and they are really keen to learn, everyone is very apprechiative and I can see progress being made.

I also teach english to adults every week day, 4-5pm. There are 3 groups, beginners, intermediate and advanced. I teach the intermediate group of about 10+ students. So far I have gone over time, personal descriptions, directions and have started on simple present tense. They were all a bit quiet at first, but have now started to respond and interact more to the questions.

Haven't managed to take any photos of the school I'm at yet as people over here don't respond to well to having their photo taken. One volunteer took some photos in a market and ended up gettig banannas thrown at her! I will try to get some taken near the end, when they all know me a bit better, wish me luck!

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