Trouble with English Lessons

Tuesday 22nd April

Good job I can touch type. Makes life a lot easier when having to work on battery power alone. Also very grateful for having brought along an extra battery! No power at home today. But power on at the office and the internet for at least part of the day.

Back to Kebele 16 school today to meet with the 2nd cycle English teachers and assess their training needs. There seems to be a problem over the book/s. The one they have is not the same as the one I have (which is much newer). Still haven’t got to the bottom of the book problem yet. It is that they appear to be using the wrong book. Spent part of yesterday looking through the teachers guide for Grade 1. This goes with a radio broadcast that I haven’t yet listened to. Thing is, it tells the teacher to ensure that she uses the correct pronunciation though I can’t find any guide to pronunciation in the book. I tried it out on them. Going through the alphabet it was clear they didn’t really know the sounds of the letters. After some prompting, they got the idea but agreed that they’re not teaching this. This means that a lot of the vocabulary is being learned off by heart and children continue to experience real difficulties in reading. As do the teachers!

I agreed to meet up with them again next week and do a demonstration lesson. And think about ways in which we could introduce the older students to the sounds of the language.

The Director, Eschete, walked me to the school gate and invited me to eat on Sunday. I said I couldn’t because I was going to visit Mekdes’ family. Totally undeterred, he asked what time? And suggested I go to his place afterwards. The thought of Doro Wot (chicken, egg and lentil – very rich) twice in one day was more than I could cope with. I apologised profusely and he was terribly disappointed.

I get the impression they’ll be quite a slaughter this weekend. Easter Sunday is a big day in the family calendar – 54 days of fasting (which means going without meat and dairy products) followed by a feast.

On the walk home tonight, I passed a group of lads I see most evenings having a kick around. Suddenly I heard my name called, looked over and they were asking me to go and join them – I laughed, they laughed. Sometimes, it feels great around here.

Back home to the remains of the food that Mekdes cooked for me yesterday. A spinach and potato wot and shiro served with her mother’s injeera.