First Day of Teaching!

First, Rachel and I went to 7:30 morning worship with the seminarian students so they could welcome us officially.  It was the Morning Worship from the hymnal.  Titus preached.  Rachel and I both really like Titus – he’s really tall with this huge smile and is the father of two of the sweetest kids in preschool, Stewart and Brian.  He’s very well-spoken, as is his wife, Regina, who I have a feeling will be my translator during the English lessons.

                After that, we came back to our house for tutoring.  All of our tutoring will take place under the tents in our little courtyard, so we’ll be outside most of the day (yes!).  Rachel and I have split up the kids by grade level – she has the younger kids and I have the older kids.  This morning, Rachel had four kids while I only had two, but that was the only way we could make that work.  Rachel had my little buddy Ndamiwe (we finally figured out how to spell it…of course we should have known it had the silent “n” J) and a few other little boys who pretty much only know how to sing the ABCs.  I had Betha and Mildred, both daughters of pastors here (Kawaliza and Mutentame – check spelling for those names later).  I am so excited about these girls – they already speak excellent English and are so eager to learn more.  Betha is 10 and has five older siblings (Benford, Beatrice, Brian, Barnabas, and Bridget…how adorable is that).  Mildred is twelve with two sisters, Haga and Margaret.  They’re both in grade six, which is quite high for the education system here.  For the first little bit, we just sat and talked. They understood me very well and I didn’t have to slow down my speech or anything.  I showed them pictures of my sisters and parents, which they loved.  (Looking at the pictures of all us girls from Emily’s wedding, Mildred said, “This is very nice!  What a nice picture!”).  I showed them the pictures that St. Marcus sent over, and Mildred recognized Dr. Kolander from his visits here.  Then I asked them to tell me what they hoped to learn.  Spelling was one area they wanted help on, as well as learning American English (since they learned British English), maybe a little history on America and Zambia, some geography, and some math.  They were really interested in the books that St. Marcus had donated and picked out “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” as their first one to read.  They read extremely well.  While they were reading, I made a list of some spelling words (all from “Charlie,” so they’re learning them in context).  I asked some comprehension questions along the way, which they answered very well.  I introduced ideas like the setting of a story, antonyms versus synonyms, and summarizing.  After we read two chapters, I gave them the spelling test of fifteen words (for example: extremely, altogether, young, awful) and then went through and corrected them together.  Each spelled about half the words wrong, so their assignment is to write each word five times and I’ll test them when I see them again next (unfortunately not for a while, we just realized – there are two national holidays coming up on Thursday and next Monday, which are the days I tutor them).  I also gave them two writing assignments so I can assess their writing skills: write about their typical day and summarize what we’ve read so far about Charlie.  Also, they’re going to bring their math textbooks so I can see where they’re at.  I was so excited after this hour and fifteen minutes with them!  They were super polite and sweet and I can see so much potential for them. 

                 At 9:30, we went back to the chapel for English with the ladies.  We played “Going on a Picnic” to get to know their names, explained our theme for the week (kitchen – things found in the kitchen and things you do in the kitchen) and then divided into our ability groups.  I have five women (who know slightly more English) and Rachel has six (who aren’t quite as advanced).  I have Regina, Besther, Sarah, Thokazani, and Ella.  We went through our worksheet and wrote down the English words that matched up with the picture, talked about verbs that go along with them (you “stir” with the “spoon”) and then we did a little mini-lesson about nouns and verbs.  Some women, like Regina and Ella, did really well and can spell everything well.  Others struggled a little more and needed help on some of the spellings.  After that, we played some Pictionary, which got them to open up and start laughing and teasing each other.  Then we played “What Am I?” (Example: I have four legs.  I have a seat and a back.  You sit on me.  What am I? …Rachel and I wrote these out beforehand after we saw that Abby and Tammy used them a lot).   Near the end of our time, I wanted them to talk more, so I had us go around and tell me about their families.  Regina came from a family of eight, but everyone has died except for her and one other sibling.  Sarah didn’t know how old she was – she said twenty-two, but then she said she had been married for ten years, so to clarify I asked if she got married when she was twelve, which she laughed at and said no.  They chatted away in Chewa, and then came to the conclusion that she forgot how old she was.  At the end, the women came together and graciously sang us an African song.  Again, I was struck by how beautiful these women sing.  I’ll try to tape it one of these times. 

                When Rachel and I came back for our lunch break (the English class was from 9:30-11), Anne had changed our sheets, washed our towels, did our dishes from breakfast, and made us fritters.  Sweetest woman ever! 

                Our afternoon tutoring session began at 1 (or 13 hours, as Zambians would say).  I had Miriam and Shain (I’ve written about him previously as Shy and Shane…this is for sure the correct name).  Both are grade 3 and are ten years old, but their knowledge of letters and reading is very low.  I suppose this is normal for Zambia, though.  I spent a lot of time having them write certain letters – both students often had to look at the ABC chart and sing the song in their head to figure out which letter was which.  Then we formed small words, practiced the sounds, and figured out what the words meant.  My experience and education on teaching kids how to read is limited, so I’ll have to brush up on techniques for this.  They’re good kids – quiet, but polite and worked really hard.  Next time I meet them, I’m going to do more work with individual letter sounds and then work on just conversational English, because they actually do fine with that. 

                After tutoring, Rachel and I prepped for tomorrow.  Tomorrow’s a busy day – English from 8-10 with the ladies, two different sections of tutoring, and two hours of preschool in the afternoon.   Then Rachel and Sue went for a walk and I biked.  While biking, I saw the craziest thing – someone wearing a Bloomsday T-shirt!!!  Only people from Washington will find this significant – Bloomsday is an annual 10k race in Spokane.  About 40,000 people participate, and each year they give out a T-shirt with a unique design on it.  I am so curious how this person got a Bloomsday T-shirt.  It is a popular race and brings in people from Kenya and other countries, but seriously…

                A couple other funny things on my bike ride: there were construction workers shouting, “Muzungu!  Muzungu!” and they got really excited when I understood what they meant.  There was a man on a bike swerving around on the road ahead of me, pretending like he was going to crash into me and then actually ended up biting it in the gravel.  He was fine though – when I came back down the road, he had recovered and started racing me for a while. 

Overall, I feel really good about how today went.  I’m excited to continue working with the students and the women and am really motivated to find stuff for them to do.