15 February 2011. Tuesday. The panic that beset me last week has subsided. On Wednesday last I learned I was supposed to start teaching Microsoft Excel and English on Monday, i.e., yesterday. So for several days I scrambled, whenever our highly irregular electricity was on, to find on the internet lesson plans and ideas for teaching these subjects. In no time I discovered that the internet holds several good and usable tutorials for Excel. One of them, in 27 lessons, complete with assignments, has become the mainstay of my Excel lesson planning.
English is another story. While there are lots of English as a Foreign Language lesson plans and ideas on the internet, I have no idea where to begin or what to teach. And just because I am able to speak reasonably good English, that in no way translates to teachable knowledge of reflexives, objectives, connectives, and intransitives. (Are those actually grammar terms?) After much flailing about in a rising sea of panic, I finally just started writing down some scripts for in-class conversations. Who are you? (Always the first lesson, it seems.) Formal and informal introductions of self and others. At the office. And so on. But I still don’t know what ability level the students will have.
Adding to my panic is the fact that the teacher in charge, Mwalimu (Swahili for teacher), has been absent from the school ever since our first meeting on Wednesday. So I can’t ask her if she has any students signed up. I don’t know what day class begins. Or what time. Or how long it is. Or what days of the week. I am in the dark.
By Saturday I had concluded that the English class would not start on Monday. I have a couple of lessons prepared, but there are many more to prepare once I learn something about the students and their abilities. Since the head teacher still hasn’t returned as of today, Tuesday, the classes have still not begun. I am so glad I didn’t have to start 2 brand new courses on the first day of my teaching career. I’m not a teacher!
Excel, however, did start on Monday. Not as scheduled at 9 AM, because the power was off. Without electricity, there is no teaching on a desktop computer. And I won’t even try teaching Excel on a blackboard. Besides, there is no blackboard.
The first Excel class went well, I thought. My three students were interested. They seemed to understand, for the most part. One young man spoke English well enough to be able to translate my words into Swahili when it was necessary—which didn’t seem to be too often. The students were able to demonstrate on the computer (we have only one to share) the things I taught and asked them to do. In the middle of our lesson the electricity went off again. I looked helplessly at them as we sat in silence for a minute. Then they started asking questions, and so did I. We took the chance to learn a little bit about each other. The young man wanted to know about American clothes and food. I learned they are all hoping to learn computer skills to help them get jobs.
By the time we all had a chance to talk a bit, the power came back on. So I resumed the lesson and we made it all the way to the end. I gave them a short assignment (open a new workbook, give it a name, and save it), and then watched them do it. Success!
I was actually looking forward to today’s second class (see how much the panic has gone!) But just minutes before the 9 o’clock class time the electricity went off again. It is still off 9 hours later. This is the 9th day out of the last 10 in which we have had no electricity for at least several hours once, sometimes twice, a day. It is supposed to be a 2 week class. Because of the electricity problem, they actually plan for at least 3 weeks to complete the course, maybe even 4.
So now I am Mwalimu Tans. I’m ready to go with Excel. But English ….
