First Day Teaching

To start the day off we headed over to Bethel Chapel to our welcoming service at 7:30am. We weren’t sure what to expect at this service but it was pretty much just a regular chapel service for the students before they started their day. One of the students, Titus, preached and we followed the order of Morning Devotion. I just love hearing them sing the hymns a capella and add their own harmonies. The welcoming portion came right at the end when Pastor Kawiliza just stood up and welcomed us and explained a little bit about what we would be doing here. They gave their traditional welcome clap—three claps. Now we’re not quite sure what the three signifies, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or what, but it was a nice welcome.

After chapel we went over to Dee and Dave’s to pick up the big white board we want to use for English. No one was home over there, so we’re assuming they just left pretty early this morning to take their trip to Vic Falls. They left the house open for us though, and Mr. Zulu was over there working so we got the board without any problems.

When we got back to our guest house we already had 3 little guys waiting for us to tutor them. Justice, Ndamiwe, and Elias. They are all in my group because they’re all similar grade levels, one and two. Erika had her two girls show up, both 6^th graders and pastor’s children. They were really sweet girls and knew English very well, so Erika is going to have a fun time challenging them! They already started the novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. A little later, my fourth student showed up, Kevin/Junior. His dad must be named Kevin as well, because everyone kept calling him Junior. Having no idea where these boys were at, I just brought a whole bunch of things outside with me: construction paper, pencils, flashcards, my white board, and picture books. We started out with introductions and getting everyone’s names down. Then I thought I’d just see if they knew the alphabet. So we sang through the ABCs and then I passed out construction paper and we went through the uppercase letters. I wrote the example on the white board and then they copied it. I tried to have them figure out as many letters as they could and it was cool seeing how instead of just guessing or sitting there not knowing, they went back to the beginning and sang through the song ‘til they got the letter they needed. We had a few issues with the forming of the letters or saying them correctly. They had trouble with H I J because they wanted to blend them all together, and also M and N, those were too similar to get much distinction between them. After we got through the whole alphabet we practiced finding which letters made up their names and then they practiced writing those several times as well. To break it up a bit we then read Clifford. By the time that was all done, it was time to go already. It might not seem like we did a whole lot, but they were engaged the whole time and really enjoyed going through the alphabet, and now at least I have an idea of where they’re at. We’ll practice again on Friday when I have them, and try to work on getting them to figure out what each letter is without having to sing through the whole alphabet to find the letter they need. So I’m thinking we’ll play some games and use flashcards and mix it up with stories and learning about other things like shapes and colors etc.

After tutoring we headed over to the chapel for English. We introduced ourselves again and as a little icebreaker we played the game “Going on a Picnic”. We didn’t know how well that would go, but the ladies did just fine! They understood the concept that you have to bring something on the picnic that begins with the same letter as your name. We introduced our kitchen theme and had them think of different words having to do with that theme and then split up into groups. I have the lower level English speakers, so 6 women total: Kalua, Bertha, Rhoda, Parksen (Paxene), Doris, and Monica. They are all very sweet ladies and we had a lot of fun today! I was nervous as to how much English they would know, and if they’d be able to do the worksheet we had prepared, but they could! I was very pleased and impressed. The first side of the worksheet had pictures of kitchen items and they labeled what each item was, with correct spelling. On the back we had fill in the blank sentences using those nouns, but they had to fill in the correct verb. For example: I boil the water. They picked the verb from a word bank. That was a little trickier, but I think they got it. Bertha and Rhoda know English fairly well, enough to understand me at least. So it’s nice having them in my group because they help out and translate to the other women if they need help. That was the basic lesson, but then as practice we played “What am I?” where I read off a little riddle and they had to guess which kitchen item I was describing. We also played Pictionary where someone drew a kitchen item and then the other ladies guessed what they were drawing and then had to spell the word correctly underneath the picture. Finally, we started on drawing diagrams of our own kitchens—the floor plan and labeling where everything is. I assigned some homework as well. They had to study the spelling of the nouns we learned for a little quiz tomorrow and also find a kitchen item in their own kitchens and write about it—describing what it looks like, what they use it for etc. At the end we had about 5-10 minutes just to chat, so I asked them where they were from and about their families. 4 of the 6 are from Malawi and 2 from Zambia. I explained that I am “Malawian” as well, and made the connection of my dad to the Dr. Wendland they know from the seminary here. They seemed a little surprised but happy to make that little connection. Erika and I begged them to sing for us before the left and they sang the most simple, yet beautiful song. I wish I would have brought my camera to record them. We will have to do it another day. I just sat listening with the biggest smile on my face; it was such a peaceful sounding song with beautiful harmony- almost like a lullaby.

When we got home for lunch break Anne had fritters waiting for us. What a saint! It just made our day that much more fantastic than it already is. She had already cleaned the majority of our house and changed our bed sheets, and now fritters! We cannot say enough awesome things about her.

We had some down time for lunch to regroup and relax and think about the rest of the week now for teaching, before our afternoon tutoring group came at 1:00pm.

It’s been less than one full day of teaching, and already it is making me appreciate teaching in America. In the States it’s so easy to take for granted the amount of resources and things available at your fingertips. It’s easy being a teacher in America. And I know that’s a broad statement, but I mean it in the sense that America is a 1^st world country and has access to resources and materials. In Zambia we’re already challenged to think outside the box—what we can do to engage these children and teach them the best we can without the vast amount of materials. It’s taking old college lesson plans I wrote and tweaking them to fit the context here and the materials we have available to us. We might never have a teaching experience like this again, but this one is definitely going to make us appreciate and be thankful for the blessings that come with teaching in America. I think the challenges here are a blessing as well—they’re going to make us better teachers!

The afternoon tutoring went well. We did most of the same things as the morning group, but I only had 2 children this time, which made it a little easier. I had Shadreck and Sovereign this afternoon. Shadreck is quite the little character—reminds me Joe when he was kid, or someone like a Maddox from my student teaching. Teaching and drilling letters and sounds reaffirmed my dislike of that process. Especially for these young kids (both of my afternoon kids were 1^st graders) it’s just not the most appropriate. I will really have to brainstorm ways to make it more engaging, especially for someone like Shadreck. Or just do the letter drilling right away and then move on to more active things with them like games and songs and drawing.

We ended the day with a lovely evening walk again. Today was one of the cloudiest days we’ve had since we’ve been here—it was raining through the majority of our outside afternoon tutoring (good thing we have that nice big tent to tutor under). Since Dee is gone and Erika’s foot is injured, it was just Mrs. Birner and I on the walk. Erika took a bike and rode in front of us and did her own little route. I had a really nice walk/talk with Mrs. Birner. We both feel she’s sort of like our adopted mom (along with Anne and Dee) since we spend a lot of time with her.  We came home to a delicious meal of rice, green beans, meatballs and salad. Again, delicious.

We did some final details for our lessons tomorrow, tried to figure out a more concrete preschool routine and once again tried to tackle the finances and figure out our money situation.

Overall, it was a wonderful first day of our normal routine and we feel really good about how things went! Thank God for his mercies, they’re new every morning, and I know I feel that here every day!