Teaching English
February 9, 2009

During the holiday break for school in Rwanda in November and December, I taught ALARM’s Youth Advocacy Program’s (YAP), Youth Reference Group, a body of student leaders who organize activities to promote reconciliation and forgiveness in Rwanda through music and drama. The time I spent teaching them English during holiday break consisted of experimentation with different English lesson plans. Since the young adults in the Youth Reference Group are secondary and University students, I selected grammar assignments and readings that would challenge them with a higher level of difficulty; I wanted to see what they knew already and how quickly they could pick up new information. I found out students were at all levels from beginner to intermediate. Inconsistent attendance by students, which is not uncommon in Africa because of unforeseen disruption to daily schedules, made it difficult for me to keep everyone on the same lesson, but overall I believe each person in the class was able to learn something useful.

In each lesson, I tried to start with something simple everyone could easily learn, like a song with simple words and a lot of repetition. I also tried to accommodate the university intermediate learners needs by assigning readings that were a bit difficult. Inevitably, someone was either bored with easy grammar or overwhelmed by difficult reading. In the end, I found everyone liked the songs the most.

After experimenting during the holiday break with the Youth Reference Group, I tried similar methods with the students at IWE, which I have since modified to accommodate different language learning needs there.

Since mid-January, the new school year has started for the girls at IWE in Rwamagana, Eastern province, Rwanda. IWE is a secondary girls’ school sponsored by ALARM, which hosts orphans in the rural area who can apply their mind to benefit from an academic education. Each week on Thursday and Friday morning, I ride a taxi van from Kigali and travel about an hour to Rwamagana. I am teaching second and third form. The teaching material I use consists of: simple songs and readings, as well as common greetings and other conversations. The songs seem to be greatly welcomed by the girls, since they like to sing; they seem to pick up the melody quickly. The readings are a bit more difficult for the students and I find some fad fast after about 15 minutes.

Since the beginning of the year, the government has abruptly forced schools to convert lessons from French and Ki-Rwandan to English to meet Vision 2020 goals. Students and teachers alike are faced with a steep learning curve integrating into an English lesson format at school; many schools including IWE are managing as best they can. At times when I am teaching English, I sense the girls’ frustration with seemingly insurmountable goals to learn and understand lessons in English, especially when there is a high chance they will not learn what they need to know to pass the national examination, which is required to receive government scholarships to attend University.

Overall, my hope for the students amidst their hardships is to know someone cares about them. Faustin is a teacher who has worked at IWE for four years. He told me some students who trust him have asked him advise about hard life decisions they must face at a young age. As a teacher and sometimes a father figure, he feels it is a great compliment to find students who will share their feelings with him and seek his advise.

As for myself, one positive sign I have made a connection with the girls during my short stay with them was when they told me during a class session last week: we are glad when we see you come.

It is hard to know what the fruit from these girls’ lives will look like when they grow up. But I trust whatever they have seen of Christ through the teachers at IWE will not go void.