Liz Rose - VSO Teacher/Adviser - latest Report

I would first like to thank Robin and Linda Clarke, and Olivia Boyle (Ashurst, London) for what they have done to help with education in the village:

ZAP volunteer Olivia Boyle’s law firm , ASHURST in London, made a very generous donation of 490 Swahili/English dictionaries which Olivia brought out in the summer; they have also contributed a large quantity of pens, pencils and notebooks, some of which have been used for exams. 

Linda Clarke – star ZAP fund-raiser - brought out two books for young children when she and her husband visited Jambiani in August, one of which has a CD. We have used it extensively with one of the nursery classes which comes into the library. The children love it and the other day, an elderly lady came in and she was also captivated. She stood right in front of the computer and traced the animals on the screen. The children had to wait. 

We are almost at the end of the academic year here. Everyone has made me very welcome and I seem to be known by name by every child in the village.

My brief at Jambiani School is to improve the academic results in both Maths and English. For the last 3 months I have been working with classes in Standard 7 and Form 1 in both subjects. All the teachers involved especially Abdullah and Selma, have been extremely cooperative and supported me whilst I get to grips with the very different system here. It has been great having Simon and Nan Oliver here and we have spent many hours discussing the situation at the school and working with Mr Maabad, the headmaster, and Abdullah Musa, the teacher in charge of the academic development of the school, to decide how we can progress.

These are many problems in the school and they result in the teachers working in very difficult conditions. The most obvious are that the classes are very large and that there are few textbooks. Trying to teach 50-80 students without textbooks or a photocopier is hard-going.

The students and the teachers have many calls upon their time outside of school hours and often come to school tired and hungry. Some of the teachers earn much less than the minimum wage, which for Tanzania is about $75 a month. They have to have a second job to survive. At school, I am supposed to work with the teachers but often I teach on my own as teachers disappear in order to earn a little more money. Many of the local families have to manage on even less. I also teach maths at the other village junior school but last week when I turned up, I was told that because of the heavy rain, there were no children to teach. But then with no cars and no waterproof clothing, what else can little children do in a torrential downpour, except stay home.  

The national exams and the overloaded syllabus are very difficult to work with - even more so because they are in the student’s second language. I do feel that because of the heavy demands of the Tanzanian syllabus, the content teaching for both maths and English is best left to the experts – the teachers in the school. 

After much discussion, we feel that we need to develop our work in the following areas:

·        the development of English as an academic language i.e. language suitable for dealing with all Form 4 exams.

·        ensuring that students have strong grasp of the basic mathematical structures in order to work more quickly. 

I took 60 five year olds for a maths lesson the other day and faced with no teacher and no books (and no chairs or desks either) we did clapping games – 1,2,3, up, 1,2,3 down etc- which had them all laughing and trying to count up (eventually) to 12. I don’t expect the little ones to be very speedy with numbers but I have been surprised at how weak the older students are in multiplication and other basics. We are going to implement a period of time once a week (perhaps half a lesson) when students are tested on basic mathematical functions. There are plenty of books available (which I can bring from England) with 15 minute tests, where the questions are read out to the students. The students can mark each other’s work and a formal, teacher-marked test need only be done once a month. The teachers already spend far too much time marking and I really don’t want to add to it. In fact we are looking at ways of reducing it.

I am also learning songs and games suitable for 5 year olds and one of the teachers is teaching me the “Boogie Boogie” in Kiswahili. I couldn’t actually tell which language the children were singing in, but they had great fun putting their left legs in and out etc.

Jambiani School has a wonderful library, thanks to ZAP and other charities and donors, and I am working my way through the shelves. I had sorted out all the adult fiction and children’s books into various categories but then discovered that the librarian had come after me and changed it all as she had her own system – from tallest to smallest. I have also discovered a complete reading scheme in a cupboard (first shipment from ZAP I gather) and I am working with some other teachers to make use of it. It’s not culturally specific but it’s all we’ve got, so we’ll do our best. Trying to organise reading sessions with 60 young children, without one desk or chair between them, is an interesting challenge.

Reading is an important part of language development, yet in Tanzania there is no real culture of reading, so having these books is a real advantage. I want to start the reading scheme with Standard 3, with the possibility of using it with other years later. I also want to train some of the teachers and the librarians to use it with the students as it is important that Jambiani teachers can continue this scheme when the volunteers leave.  In the future, it would be more suitable to buy culturally specific books for this purpose and I hope that ZAP will be able to consider this, once the initial scheme has been implemented successfully.

I also want to look at the possibility of incorporating a phonics programme for Standard 3, to ensure that the students are able to decode text more quickly since many students don’t actually understand much of what they are reading.

ZAP purchased a clock for the examination room and is in the process of buying 160 Form I English books for the new academic year. ZAP intends to institute an annual Mr Ameir Prize (in memory of the school English teacher, who also taught ZAP Ladies English classes for a number of years) for the best English student in Form 1. This would be in four areas – spelling, independent writing, debating/speaking and overall improvement. As the best way to learn a language is to use it creatively, e.g. in dramas and discussion, it would be helpful to set up a debating forum.  The Ameir Prize would act as an inducement.

We are also promoting a school magazine which will be a useful vehicle and tool for independent writing (and reading) by the students.

 I am waiting for the dates to run a short course in methodology and lesson planning, building upon the work done by TAP, the Zanzibari Teacher training programme. We would like all the teaching staff to have the skills to ensure that their teaching is focussed and effective. ZAP has agreed to pay a small amount to participants to cover food and expenses.

It is very pleasing to have so many plans for the new academic year, starting in January, and I am looking forward to working with everyone to put those plans into action!

Liz Rose   Jambiani November 2008

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