Pictures with the children

Ornella and I making french fries 

Amie and I- Big smiles

Evodie and I at a late night veillé

Inspector Ruth

Yesterday, I had the priviledge of going with Todjimbe to his work. Todjimbe is one of the English teachers at CENTRAM in the evenings, but during the day he works as an English Inspector. He goes to different schools and sits in on English teachers’ classes. Then he gives them advice and writes up a report.

I was able to go to College Poitiers, which is a Middle school that teaches 6 ^e, 5 ^e, 4 ^e, 3^e, and 2^nd (equivalent of grades 7-11). We arrived and were greeted by a few teachers who directed us to a class of 3 ^e  where an English teacher was preparing a lesson.

The lesson for the students was a bit of review. The teacher wrote 10 singular nouns on the board (eg. man, glass, knife) and wanted students to put them into the plural form. He called students to the blackboard and they would give one of the questions a try. Some students were able to complete the exercise without problems but for others it was difficult. The second exercise involved having the students translate 5 sentences from French into English.

After the lesson, Todjimbe, the teacher and I got together for a small conference. Todjimbe explained to the teacher that some of the words he was saying (e.g. knife) were not pronounced correctly. He asked if the school had an English-French dictionary which would help the teacher look up pronunciation before the lesson.  The teacher replied that he had asked for one, but as of yet none had been given. 

Another important remark that Todjimbe made was that the teacher tended to translate words into French when students did not know them. Todjimbe suggested using drawings, acting out words or explaining using English synonyms. I realized that this alone would help students a lot with their learning, as instead of being given the answer in French, they would have to think in order to understand new words.

Then, suddenly it was my turn. I was supposed to make remarks. I must say I did not necessarily feel qualified to do this but I also had a couple of suggestions. I began with positives- I liked that he walked around the class instead of standing in one place, and that had many students participating. My main suggestion was to get students speaking. During the hour the students spoke very little in English and I feel as though the ‘speaking’ aspect of a language is very important.

The teacher took all our suggestions with great enthusiasm and seemed happy to receive feedback. This made me realize the importance of receiving feedback throughout a teaching career. Whether it has been 1 year, 5 years 10 years or 30 years it is important to ask fellow teachers to come and observe your classes. This is something I hope to remember in my future teaching career!

Computers, Cookies, Children

Computers

For the last couple weeks, I have had the privilege of teaching my fellow teachers at CENTRAM some tips about computers and a number of activities that work well in oral lab classes. In these tutorials, I taught the teachers the basics of PowerPoint and then we did a practical application, where they worked on creating a presentation with the new skills they had just learned. They learned and applied tips for presentations like using dark text that is large, using many images, and not too much text on each page.

I also gave the teachers resources to help vary their lab classes. I suggested using a variety of video clips, games, pronunciation drills, tongue twisters, dictation, and presentations. I was happy that the teachers were particularly excited about the possibility of using games to teach and practice English.

Cookies

This past week I had two cookie baking parties. The first one occured at Village Altonodji where Maddie works. She wanted to bake cookies and give them to all the children that live there. I helped prepare the cookies and they were cooked in the bread baking ovens. It was a big success as the children enjoyed eating the cookies and we enjoyed making them.

The next day, I brought Adeline and Salome (my two 20 year old cousins) over to Gene’s house to make cookies. It was the first time that they made cookies since they do not normally have access to an oven. We made peanut butter cookies, and we drizzled hazelnut chocolate spread (like Nutella) over them before eating. It was fun to share the new experience with them.

Children

I still continue to be amazed by the positive power of children. After returning from a choir practice (which actually had been a small church service instead) I really wanted to do some singing. I went over to my neighbour's compound to find many children sitting on mats. Soon one of them started singing "Come all you people, come and praise your maker," a song I had taught them and the neighbour adults a couple months ago. We sang this short song probably 100 times to the great joy of them and me.

Three new activities this week

Water- In Chad, women carry many things on their head- from water to flour to fruit to wood.  Carrying objects on your head is for Chadians the most practical way to transport objects. I've always admired these strong women and frankly I have been a bit scared to try it myself because I have poor balance and I did not what to drop the object. This past week I watched my ten year old sister skillfully carry a bucket on her head as she transported water from the tap to a container in the kitchen. I decided that I wanted to give it a try, so I picked up a bucket (about half the size of my sister's) and successfully transported the water with only a few little spills!

Veillé- My compound is connected with our neighbours' compound (which has a number of families living together). Last week, one of my neighbours held a veillé at her place with members from her church. This meant that sometime in the evening people started coming over to sing, dance, pray and eat. I ended up going over around 11 p.m. and decided to stay until close to 1 a.m. There was singing from a choir who played the drums and I danced with the women. It was really fun, and when I went to bed I continued to hear the music throughout the night!

Bouillie- Yesterday I had the priviledge of making bouillie which is the porridge like drink that many Chadians drink for breakfast and dinner. But preparing bouillie is not as simple as making porridge. You begin by lighting up the charcoal with kindling and a match. Then you put a little water in a pot to boil. Next you take some peanut butter and slowly mix it with water, mixing with your hands. The peanut butter water gets drained into the boiled water (with the excess peanut butter shifted out and the process is done a second time.)

Then half a cup of rice is washed 3 times and put in the pot to cook. While cooking, other rice is put in a mortar in order to make rice flour. This is then ground and sifted to produce the flour. Once the rice in the pot is cooked, the rice flour is slowly added to the mixture. Next some lemon juice is added, and finally sugar is added to the whole mixture. Then it is time to grab a cup, and drink up!