The most enjoyable part about being in Ghana right now (besides meeting all of the wonderful people) is working at the Zo Simli-Naa Junior High School. It is an all girls school, the ages range from about eleven to thirteen. I am assisting the English Master in his class. The girls immediately welcomed me with a very loud greeting in unison. They all had smiles on their faces.
The school is staffed by nice instructors whom were also very inviting. However, as an individual who has been an American student for about seventeen years, I feel as if I will no longer complain about the way classes are run, nor should I. American students often take for granted some of the things that the students at Zo Simli do not have. For example, it would be difficult for an American student to have class with no air conditioning. It's hard to focus when you are concerned about how hot you are. You need the wind to blow through the classroom, so both doors of the room must be open. This brings about a lot of distractions outside such as the many goats and sheep roaming around, people walking through the area, and children playing soccer outside.
Also as an American student, I have never thought about how a projector enhances one's chances of grasping the material being taught. It's a projector, nothing special right? Wrong. Imagine straining your eyes from the back of the classroom with about 10% of an electric light, the other 90% natural light, trying to read what has been written on the very used chalkboard. All that is seen is smeared chalk from previous lessons. Even as a teacher without a proper desk and chair, textbooks, and other learning equipment, there is much to be said about how quickly the students grasp the material. I wonder how easy it would be to find chalkboard cleaner in Tamale...
So the material I am teaching is indeed one of my favorite skills. English. When I begin a lecture in the class, I am always mindful of my enunciation of words. Ghanaians, and many Africans in general use very proper English with each letter usually enunciated. So my own pronunciation of words has definitely improved, the purpose being so that the girls can understand what I am saying. However, sometimes it is a bit of a challenge for me to understand their accents also. I have had to familiarize myself with the material I teach because much of what I am teaching was taught to me in elementary and was never revisited again. Proper use of adjectives, adverbs, verbs, pronouns and nouns, clauses, reading comprehension and punctuation. However, it is important to view this material with a wide lens incorporating a number of circumstances.
What I believe will be most interesting will be how well the students catch on to some American teaching strategies like singing songs for memorization, the pattern of writing papers with an introduction and conclusion along with three main points, and perhaps even doing more hands-on activities. I know I have some very helpful strategies to learning different concepts because they were taught to me, the challenge will be to identify the cultural differences between us and simply use the American strategies as tools, not as their foundation for learning the material. I look forward to seeing the results of my plan.
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