I bring you, my life of teaching in Rwanda in three acts:
Act I : In the Classroom.
There are three terms to the school year here. We just started the second one which will go until the end of July. Then we have a three week break before third term starts. The third term ends at the beginning of November. After that there is a two month vacation until the start of the next year. I am teaching two classes of mathematics: S1A and S2B. These are first and second year secondary students, which is about the equivalent of 7th and 8th grade. A few weeks before the end of first term I was asked to take a section of S2 physics, so now I am also teaching physics for 3 hours every week. S1 and S2 have 6 hours of math a week, so that puts me at 15 hours of classroom teaching. At first I was a little disappointed not to be teaching higher levels of math, but then I realized that the level 4,5,6 students still have most of their math and science classes in French. Levels 1,2,3 are the first in Rwanda to be taking all of their classes in English. It's really quite amazing that they are doing as well as they are when they are learning in a language in which they are barely proficient. On top of that, many of their teachers are barely proficient in it. But the Rwanda resolve to speak English is a strong one and the effort they put in is producing results.
The students have scheduled study times (they have their entire day scheduled, from the time the morning bell is rung at 5:30am until lights out at 10:30pm.) A few times a week I will go up to the classrooms during the study times and answer individual questions and do problems on the board. I try to answer questions in class, but I've found that it takes a really long time for the students to form the question they want to ask and actually spit it out when they are trying to think in English. They are also all very eager to ask questions, so I usually have to put a cap on the question asking time in class. Going up to help after school usually works out well because they ask away what they want to and it gives me a better idea of what they understand and what they need more work on.
Sometimes I also go visit one of the S5 classrooms. They stopped me one day to ask me to come help with a question on their math homework since they knew I was a math teacher. Their question was about graphing a function. It was a pretty complicated problem and something that I hadn't done in awhile so I went and got my graphing calculator. That upped my popularity by about 200%. Yes its true, I live in a place where having a graphing calculator and knowing how to use it is infinitely cool. Since then, the S5 students flag me down occasionally to ask for help or to see if I can bring my calculator for them to use. They do some very detailed graphing and work with involved problems, so a graphing calculator comes in handy. I am hoping to work on getting some old graphing calculators from the States to give them and then show them how to use them while I'm here. (If anyone has one they'd like to donate or wants to do some asking around for me, let me know.)
Act II: In the Staff Room.
Since many of the students have to take all of their classes in English, that means that the teachers have to teach in English. But they are starting at the same point that the students are with the added disadvantage of being older and having less of a capacity for learning new languages. This is why the country had a month of mass intensive English training at the beginning of the year, putting off the start of the school year. I can't imagine writing lessons in a foreign language and then having to teach it in that same language, but somehow the teachers here do it. It helps that the standard teaching method here is "chalk-and-talk" (write on the board and explain what you just wrote while the students copy down what's on the board into their notebooks.) But even so, many of the teachers spend twice as long on their lessons so that they can give them in English. Some of them sit down with a dictionary or at the staff computer to look up the words that they need.
To help with this, Katy and I try to give informal lessons whenever possible. On Wednesday afternoons we hang out in the staff room for an hour or two and sometimes give a lesson on administrative or classroom vocabulary. Other times we look over lesson plans for other teachers to make sure that they are using the correct terms in English. Sister Martha, the headmistress, teaches a religion class and I read her notes into a recorder so that she can play it back and work on her pronunciation. Most teachers do fairly well with writing down what they need, but their speaking skills are much poorer. We are constantly being asked by the teachers to teach them how to speak better. For me, not having much training in teaching speaking skills, I've found that the best aid for this is to just talk with them. With some of the teachers it is difficult to strike up a conversation other than the standard greetings and questions, but a few I've been able to talk with a little more. Yesterday I talked with Dominique, another math teacher, about geography and weather for about an hour and a half. He also studied geography at University and I was curious about what causes the rainy seasons here so he explained it to me. Afterwards I realized that that was a perfect lesson in English speaking for him.
Act III: Around Town.
Many of the people that we see in the community also are earnestly looking to learn English. It's hard to help most people who ask for it (on a typical outing to buy groceries and sit and drink a cup of tea, I'll get asked by one or two strangers to teach them English.) But there are a few people that I have regular contact with that I teach a few words each time I see them. The tailor in Mukinga is working on his tailoring vocabulary, Alexandre, my moto driver is working on his moto driving vocab. and the woman who owns my favorite convenience store is learning greetings.
The reason for the English learning craze is Vision 2020, a set of goals written after the genocide for the country to meet before the year 2020. The project is meant to strengthen the economy and boost Rwanda into competition in the global market. Technology advancement and bilingualism (English and Kinyarwanda) being the most important goals of the project. These goals are visible everywhere you look here. Billboards give friendly reminders, advertisements are made on the radio and it's hard to go anywhere without running into a business named Vision 2020. In Musanze, the nearest town to me, there is a Vision 2020 Tailor, a Vision 2020 foodstuff store, and a Vision 2020 buffet (the best in town). If I ever get my haircut here, chances are it will be at a Vision 2020 Saloon. (Don't know how the extra "o" got added, but whoever did it first started a trend because there are no salons, only saloons. And haircutting is no small market here, Saloons are to Rwanda as Starbucks are to Seattle.) It's pretty astounding actually how the country is communally putting forth such a great effort, or at the very least, wants to put forth a great effort to meet these goals. It makes us, as volunteers, feel useful. Which is always a good feeling.
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