Observing the Ethiopian teacher was quite the experience. Most teachers lecture with their backs to the class and just write on the blackboard. However, we have a lot to learn from the teachers on black board use!! Dang. You have to be so organized and watch your font size. Students were very respectful, besides the side talk classroom management went well. The toughest lesson to learn so far is how detailed we need to be at giving instructions(and do it verbally and written). The practicum has been such a great experience. We are beginning to understand the culture of the Ethiopian classroom and really enjoy it. We have three days left of practicum now and it has flew by. Both Sylvia and I have become a bit attached to our students and it will be difficult to say good bye. They are so bright and eager to learn. We have focused mostly on grammar, reading and speaking in the classroom. We were able to get our students to do a presentation, all in English, to the rest of the class and have had many other successes with getting shy students (a big problem in Enlgish class) to speak up. Also, attendance is sporadic. In the short four weeks that we have taught it has been difficult to keep a steady class. Many students have a huge work load to help their families outside of school, especially during the summer. This is particularly a problem for the female students who help the family inside the house with chores, going to the market, cooking and cleaning. This will be a big obstacle which we will face at our site, as well. Some of our students which we have encountered are so bright, but we only see them once of twice a week. We will talk more about how we combat this issue as we continue our service.
More about our pre-service training…. Besides lesson planning and teaching a class, we also have many other obligations throughout the day. Our typical day is very long! We begin teaching at 8am until 10am, then technical training or language until 12:30, then lunch, then back to language training and finish off the day at 6pm with lesson planning. As soon as we finish our lesson planning we usually hang our with our host family for a while and then right to bed; to do it all over again the next day.
We don’t have time to study our language which is a bit frustrating but I really want to take advantage of the feedback we can get practice teaching so I concentrate more on that. We’re also trying to interact with our new community as much as possible (learn how to cook, hang out, go to social things, etc) while balancing our training duties. Oh and on top of that 50 bug bites, diarrhea and mud, everywhere!
Wednesday night our mom’s sister left to work as a maid in Dubai. I think it is pretty common for folks to go work there since there aren’t many jobs here. She just got married a couple months ago and will be abroad for two years. It was pretty sad and humbling to see her have to leave. We went out to eat the night before. On our way downtown all the electricity went out (as it does most evenings). We were walking down a mud/stone road (frequented by cars, horses and farm animals throughout the day). Walking in near pitch black dark with an occasional cell phone light was an experience! We then ate at the hotel in the dark. Great way to get me to eat onions!!
Also, we just got our first package. YAY TAMMY YOU ARE THE BEST. Especially the unexpected cliff bars and foot exfoliator! Also…how did you know we needed a mirror!!!? Frosted animal crackers have NEVER looked so good. That was like an endless Christmas gift. We definitely won the best package contest.
We would love to hear from you all out there! We don’t use internet much so please mail us letters!!!