Experience Sharing /Girls' Night Out

Today we had two new ELIC (English Language Improvement Center) events. Since one of the goals of Debre Markos University is community outreach, I took 8 students to one of the local high schools to encourage the 9-10 grade students to speak more English. They prepared a short debate entitled "Teachers are more important than doctors". I must say, as a teacher, I was pleased to hear the impressive arguments of the ninth grader arguing on my behalf. "If it wasn't for teachers, there would be no doctor". Thanks you! Another student read a poem he had written. The university students were proud to serve as role models for the 9th and 10th graders. I doubt if they are given this kind of chance often. One student performed a (very) short drama in which he pretended to be a very drunk university student who failed college due to his bad habit. Two other students delivered a short debate about the necessity (or not) of school uniforms. The English teachers and school director at the high school were as eager as the tudents to share experiences together. We all agreed that we would meet again in two weeks.

 

Our second program today was Coffee Talk for only female students.  Since the women tend to be shy and lack confidence in front of the male students, we decided to try this. Although only 14 females came, I learned a lot by chatting with them. The program tonight was Problem Night. The women wrote down their personal problems and then discussed them in groups of four before sharing with the everyone.  The topics of discussion were about the lack of water, unclean (pit) toilets, freezing outdoor showers, and problem of  lack of baskets to throw their soiled sanitary pads. The school cafeteria was the next topic. Apparently, if the boys are not satisfied with the amount of food they are given, the cafeteria workers will give them more. But if the female students request more food, they are denied. All women in the Coffee Talk group agreed with the student who wrote that the young men in her classes felt that the female students were not able to accomplish what a male student could. I wasn't surprised at what they said, but I WAS surprised that these women were so aware of how they were discriminated against and they didn't like it!

Quarreling Night

Coffee Talk was a success once again. This week, we had Quarreling Night, led again by Gabre, an engineering student who learned about it at his English school in Axum. He divided the room into two sides..for and against Affirmative Action for Women. The games began as students from both sides were nvited to shout, insult, take the floor, or do whatever they had to do to get their voice heard. It was hysterical and the audience was so fired up, they didn't even realize they were speaking and listening in English, which of course was the whole point!

We are thinking of trying to have a Coffee Talk for females only, since they tend to be intimidated by the male students. The English skills of the women tend to be lower than the men's due to this. As in the U.S. in the past, women in Ethiopia are socialized to let men take the lead, so we are fighting that tendency here on the campus.

Return to Adama University

On Friday, December 14, Semira (my supervisor at the American Embassy), Tahra (Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer) and I piled into an embassy vehicle and headed to Adama, my old stomping grounds. We were there for the kickoff of the latest site for the Access program, a two year program to introduce high school students to American culture and values and improve their English Language skills.

Back in 2007-2008, I taught in the English Department at Adama University, so seeing my former colleagues in the English Department was like a homecoming. After Tahra and Semira introduced themselves and the Access program, it was my turn. I had prepared a lesson about the women's suffrage movement in the U.S. to honor International Day of Human Rights (December 10). I gave the English teachers, who would eventually be teaching the high school students, an idea of how an Access class could be organized and run using technology. I had a cloze exercize for listening to a short documentary, song lyrics to analyze as they watched the music video, and newspaper stories in which they eventually had to use to write personal letters to characters from the suffrage movement.
Fortunately, Adama University has internet and the budget from the American Embassy will be used to buy any supplies the Access teachers may lack in order to create interesting and powerful lessons.
The teachers' comments concerning the imprisonment, beating, forced feeding, and torture of these strong and persistant women was pure amazement. They could not believe it had happened in the U.S.!

            Tahra explaining the Access program to the English Instructors at Adama University.

Ethiopian Universities

One thing I appreciate about Ethiopia is that even the poorest child can become a doctor here. The universities are not free anymore, but students attend without paying until they get a job after graduation. It is called cost sharing. This is amazing to me because I have not been in any developing countries where this would ever happen. In order to continue one's studies, one has to have money. At least in Kenya, Mexico, and other places I have lived or visited. This policy means that many of the students are from the countryside.  Going to university is a big step for them, coming from their small farms without access to computers, television, newspapers, or even electricity. These young adults are shy and tend to be quiet in the classroom. Wheras in the U.S., I can't keep my students quiet, I have the opposite problem here. Getting the students to talk, ask questions, or make comments in class is like pulling teeth.

Students in the universities are divided into "batches". For example, all first year English students take all the same classes for three years. All fifth year engineering students are together for 5 years. They get to know each other intimately. If the teacher needs to schedule a make up class or can't be in class, he/she just has to call one student in the "batch" and the message will get out to everyone in the group. It is not unusual for an instructor to cancel a class and then hold a make-up class in the afternoon of that day or on a Sunday morning. Most students in ethiopia do not have jobs like in the U.S., so it is no big deal for them to attend classes whenever the instructor reschedules them.

Students are students everywhere. For most, it is the first time that they have been out of the watchful eyes of their families. Some find romance and spend time in the bars drinking or chewing chat. But most students are serious and focus on their studies. They are dependent on their families to send money for personal needs. The majority of students here do not have money to burn. Some receive nothing in their 3-5 years of university and have to depend on friends to help them buy soap, printing of handouts, an occasional cup of tea or a glass of beer.

A Day in My Life

My life is easy here compared to in the U.S.  My salary is enough that I don’t have to scrimp every month.  I have two young women living with me who are the sisters of one of my friends from Wollega.  I give them a better wage than any “servant” (they don’t feel like servants since I know their family so well)  in Ethiopia, but they have to manage their money. They both pay for school each month.  I save part of their salary in the bank so that when any medical or personal need arises, they can pay themselves rather than being dependent on me to add more money.  Tarike and Sintayo wash my clothes, cook my meals, clean the house. It is something amazing for an American. Giving women jobs is helping them in some way, but they work for such low wages that it is not enough to go to school or better their life. They are simply at the beck and call of their employers.   Keep in mind that all washing is done by hand and all food is cooked from scratch. No fast food or easy meal.

You must wonder what I do with my spare time since I have so much help in the house. I spend time on the internet, although the past few weeks it has been almost non-existent. I plan some lessons and prepare for English Club activities. My days are spent at the university, preparing for class, designing trainings, and organizing English Club Activities. The latter seems to take most of my time, so I feel pressured with creating lesson plans. My teaching partner, Zelalem, is wonderful and  we work well together. I am really blessed to have a counterpart who I can get along so well with.  We have a hard time getting any students to speak English.  The women are really dominated by any men in the class and barely speak a word or hide their faces with their head covering.

I have a good social life here and make time to enjoy the culture.  I ride my bicycle every day to and from school and in the beautiful countryside. So few people have cars here that the roads are almost empty. So much different than Addis Ababa or Adama, where I used to live. 

About once a month, I travel somewhere in the country to teach a workshop. The State Department has something called the ACCESS program for high achieving high school students. They attend Saturday morning classes for two years to improve their English and learn a bit about American culture.  I’m happy that I am creating lessons for the students rather than teacher training for the reasons I mentioned above. I want to feel like I am making a difference in peoples’ lives and be challenged intellectually.

 

 Tarike and Sintayo washing clothes. They are my friend's sisters from Wollega.

 

 

Coffee Talk: Boasting Night

On December 3, the ELIC hosted another successful Coffee Talk. Students seem to be attracted to the coffee and kolo rather than the event itself perhaps, but, hey, whatever works!  We showed a music video of the Backstreet Boys (yes, I know they are from the 80’s, but some students still like this band) and asked the students what they think the lyrics were about. We wrote all suggestions on the board and then played the video again. Once participants started coming, we began the program. Gabre, an engineering student from Tigray, explained how Boasting Night works. The idea is to pretend you are the person you have chosen and stay in that role while you are “on stage”. Gebre chose to impersonate Wayne Rooney,  a hot-headed professional soccer player.  Once he boasted about his accomplishments, he was challenged by questions and comments from the audience.  Two other volunteers followed Gabre. One impersonated Meles Zenawi and the other pretended he was Emperor Tedros. The group suggested that we limit the time if the Boasters to 3 minutes and only allow 3 questions so that more people have a chance. 

Teacher Training Workshop

 

 Abayneh introducing the Lifeplayer to English teachers in Debre Markos and surrounding areas.

                                      Teachers exploring the capabilities of the Lifeplayer

The British Council is an amazing organization. They work in more than 140 countries, their main goal being to improve English Language and the teaching of English Language. In addition, they have other social programs, which I am just learning about. The latest genious of the BC are Learning Boxes, which are currently being delivered to high schools in the Amhara area of Ethiopia. Inside each Learning Box are resource materials designed for teachers to use with extracurricular English Clubs. Although there are a variety of materials in the kit, the heart is a radio/MP3 called a Lifeplayer. This ingenious device was created in South Africa and it is an engineering miracle. I attended one day of a three day workshop designed to train English teachers on how to use the Lifeplayer and the materials inside the Learning Box. The main reason I went was to meet the local English teachers in hopes of doing community outreach. The English Clubs we have established at the university would like to visit some of the schools to show off their talents in drama, debate, music, and poetry. Besides giving authentic goals to DMU students, we hope to encourage high school students to work to improve their English.

Coffee Talk

 

Our first big ELIC event was very successful. It was called Coffee Talk. We attract students by offering coffee, bread, and kolo (roasted barley). The first night of the program was a bit like Dear Abby, where students write their problems on a small piece of paper and insert them into the Coffee Talk box. The participants broke into small groups to try to solve the students' problems. The goal is to develop oral English, which most Ethiopian students are quite low in. About 55 students participated. The students will help plan future Coffee Talk nights using formats such as debate or what one student called Boasting Night.













 

Learning and Teaching

Kim, Zeylelam, and Adignaw at the Assessment workshop in Addis in November, 2012.

 

Two colleagues from the English Department and I attended a two day workshop in Addis Ababa hosted by the Addis Ababa English Teachers Association, headed by AbaynehHailu. Every two weeks Abayneh organizes a professional development workshop in Addis for English teachers from elementary to university. His latest endeavor was to bring Dr. Cristine Coombs and her two colleagues from Dubai. After we heard that all students in Dubai have laptops and wireless internet, we immediately knew they were out of our league. The training was about how to assess all areas of English language; reading, writing, speaking, and listening. One of the most interesting parts was the writing of multiple choice questions. We discussed the cornerstones of testing which include usefulness, validity, reliability, practicality, washback, authenticity, transparency, and security. We went over various types of tests, focusing mostly on how to create a multiple choice test. I never knew how complicated it was to create a good version of a multiple choice assessment.The presenters all work at the university level in Dubai. Most of the assessments at university level are considered high stakes. Zelalem, Adugnaw, and I will be responsible for training the other English teachers in the English department at DebreMarkos University about what we learned.

 I stayed in Addis for a few days preparing for a workshop I was to give to high school students in Harar. I decided  to travel east a couple days before the workshop to do some experience sharing at Dira Dawa University and Haramaya University. Dira Dawa was HOT. This small city in Eastern Oromia district of Ethiopia is literally a lowland bowl surrounded by scrub-dotted hills. Since there were very few trees or grass, the houses were made of  stones and mud. Once I arrived in Dira Dawa, I contacted Daisy, the VSO volunteer who worked in the English Language Improvement Center at Dira Dawa University. I met with her and her counterpart Nega. They were frustrated because after 6 years, there was still no center. The university had not yet given them a space. They were trying to organize English clubs, classes for secretaries, and other trainings, but none of then had come to fruition yet.

American Corner inside the Dira Dawa Public Library          Nega and Daisy in front of their office

Posters advertising ELIC in Dira Dawa

Haramaya was a different story. Gary, the VSO volunteer who had been there for more than two years, and his counterpart were an active pair. English Clubs ran themselves. It had 5 officers and they had their own office. They even had a key to the ELIC. They only had one club, which is different than the way we organized our English Clubs in Debre Markos. They held movie nights and showed English language films. They hosted Literature nights and Debate nights. Gary informed me that last week there were 600 students who attended the movie that English Club organized. They charged 2 birr entrance, so the English Club can use it for whatever they want at the end of the year. The ELIC in Haramaya was most famous for its support of freshman girls, who drop out at a rate of 30% , mainly due to lack of English skills. The ELIC hired 16 graduate students to tutor 1,000 girls throughout the year in 32 hour, 8 week courses. It was an amazing feat. The tutors were responsible for organizing their own classes, leaving ELIC staff to tackle other needs on campus. They also hosted some workshops on the IELTS, which is an English Language assessment that all Masters and Doctoral candidates have to take before being admitted to Addis Ababa University.

                               The ELIC staf and student leaders at Haramaya University


After Haramaya I moved on to Harar to teach the English Access Microscholarship Program students. I was preceeded by an awards ceremony for the winners of an essay writing contest hosted by the Cultural Affairs Office of the American Embassy. The Access program is aimed to high school students from poor families in various countries throughout the world. In Ethiopia, we have two Access programs running. The kids have to compete for this two year class, held every Saturday, that emphasizes English Language and American culture. I prepared a class about Veterans Day, which included clips of songs from World War Two (for those of you old enough to remember the Andrew Sisters) and the Vietnam War Era (Country Joe and the Fish at Woodstock, protests against the war). I showed them a Veterans Day Parade, several memorial monuments in Washington DC, and clips from Born on the Fourth of July. I wanted the students to see the contrast in feelings that American citizens and veterans alike had in the U.S. concerning service in the military. They were a shy bunch in my presence and didn't practice their oral English as much as I wanted them to. This is a common occurance for me in Ethiopia. Since I am a native speaker, many people are afraid to speak with me, thinking I may judge their mistakes. Emphasizing descriptive adjectives throughout the class, the students were assigned to write a poem about an imaginary soldier using an adjective list to help them.

                                                        Obsa reading his essay

Top: Molly and Tahra from the American Embassy with the winners of the essay contest;

Two of the female winners with their prizes;

37 of the 42 Access students in Harar

 

 

 

University Life

                           Hanging out with my fellow teachers in the countryside, sharing a meal.




When I arrived to Debre Markos University I could not help notice its lack of beauty. Compared to Adama University, which has been around a long time, DMU only began construction five years ago. This may seem like a long time to a Westerner, but it is barely a scratch here in Ethiopia. Things take time. Construction is ongoing. Flowers and bathrooms will have to wait. In spite of that, internal beauty of the staff and students make up for lack of external beauty.

When I first arrived to Debre Markos, I was warmly greeted by Zelaylem, an English teacher and coordinator of the English Language Improvement Center (ELIC). Although it is required by the Ministry of Education, in almost every university the ELIC is an unfunded program that gets little attention. So imagine my surprise when I was told that my job would be to work in the ELIC. I literally had to beg for 5 weeks before they would give me classes to teach. So now I am scheduled to team teach two classes in December. Advanced Writing 1 and Advanced Writing 2. DMU, as well as many other universities, has started the Modular system. That means that during a span of 12 days, the students earn 3 credit hours. Class is 4 hours a day. Imagine. Worse than summer school. Like a night class every night. It is tough on both teachers and students. No one seems to like it but that is the direction things are going here in Ethiopia.

Zelaylem and I are in the process of organizing English Clubs and trying to make the ELIC more than an empty shell. Students have the choice between Drama, Music, Debate, or Magazine clubs, debate being the most popular and music the least. We've managed to talk several teachers into being club advisers and hope the clubs do not die a slow death once everyone gets busy. We are planning Talent Shows, English language films, Coffee Talk (sort of like Dear Abby, but the students solve their problems over coffee and popcorn), and a year-end field trip.

              First English Club meeting. Zelaylem, my teaching partner, addressing the English Club members.

The Countryside

One of my favorite activities is to visit the countryside around Debre Markos. Evey day I ride my bicycle on the main road, which was paved 10 years ago. Since I was here last in 2008, many of the roads in Ethiopia have been paved, which cuts travel time by 2/3. What used to take 6 hours may now take only 2 hours. There are few differences in rural life between Oromia region and Amhara region. Most are subsistence farmers. That means that the crops they grow are only enough for their family, There is not enough to sell for cash. Getting cash is not easy. I visited one farmer last weekend whose only source of cash was selling cow manure. A huge basket of dried manure, mainly used for cooking, costs 3-5 Ethiopian Birr. A Coke costs 7 birr, so you get some idea at how little that is. If a farmer sells 10 baskets a month, that is only 50-70 birr, about $2.50 0r $3.00. Some professions have more social status than others. Artisans such as potters and weavers have the  lowest social status, in spite of their importance in traditional culture. A jabana, used to boil coffee during a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, is made by potters who in some areas are not even allowed to marry outside their community. Weavers, who make gabis, a traditional cloth that men wear, also have little recognition, in spite of the importance of their wares. Here in Gojam, basketmakers spend 1/2 day weaving large baskets that all the rural women use to carry firewood, leaves, dung, and other goods, sell for only 6 or 7 Ethiopian birr. Remember that the price of a Coke is 7 -10 birr, so you can imagine how little these artists earn.

In the countryside I also found talented musicians. The washint is a flute made from bamboo or metal. They look easy to play but when I blow on them, there is no sound! The shepherds play them mostly to pass the time, but they send messages of their feelings as well.

The croqueted items I am holding in my hands are something like muzzles for the cows so they don't eat the crops. The bags that grain are carried in are unraveled and twisted into these muzzles as well as the whips the shepherds use to move the animals along. Nothing is wasted. It's truly amazing how resourceful Ethiopians are.

Back in Ethiopia

This is not the first time I have been in Ethiopia. I can't remember how many times I've step foot here. Six, maybe seven. But this is the second time I have been here as a teacher. The first time was in 2007. I was co-director of the English Language Improvement Center at Adama University in the Oromo region, giving teacher training and organizing English clubs. I came to Ethiopia through IFESH, an NGO based in the U.S. I am back in Ethiopia under a fellowship through the State Department. My new post is in Debre Markos, in northern Ethiopia. Being here is like being in Ethiopia for the first time. When I was in Oromia, I could easily communicate because I speak the language, Afaan Oromo. I knew the culture well. But here in Amhara region, there have been countless times when I could not say more than a few words in Amharic, unable to express myself or take in the feelings and ideas of others. Learning Amharic is challenging. The alphabet (fidal) is made up of 238 letters which are represented by symbols a bit like Hebrew or Arabic. All are Semitic languages.

In addition to teaching classes at Debre Markos University, I am also organizing activities at the English Language Improvement Center. Our first program is English Clubs: drama, journalism, debate, and music. We will host 3 talent shows a year and the winners will get some prize money. Whatever they do has to be in English.

I also do teacher training and student workshops through the American Embassy. My first job was at St. Mary's College in Addis Ababa teaching English to high school students through a program called ACCESS. It is hosted by the Cultural Affairs office in the State Department. These students come every Saturday to St. Mary's for English classes and to learn about American culture. Bertram (another teacher in my program) and I team taught about International Day of Non-Violence, which I didn't know existed. We showed a Michael Jackson video as a listening activity, did role play, dictation, scrambled sentences, and as much oral practice as we could squeeze in. The biggest weakness here n Ethiopia is speaking skills. Most English classes focus on grammar and rote learning taught by lecture. Although there may be some parroting in the classroom, authentic conversation is mostly absent.