ELIC Exhibition/ELIC Awareness Night

                                           Students learning English through music or grammar.

                                           Coffee ceremony for ELIC Exhibition

                                            Zelalem cutting the bread to celebrate the ELIC

English teachers loking over books in ELIC.

 

 

We wanted to promote ELIC (English Language Improvement Center) so we decided to hold two events..one for teachers and one for students. Sorry to say that the ELIC Exhibition was so poorly attened that we had to literally beg teachers to come. We invited all teachers at the university and posted fliers all over campus, only English teachers came and that was only because Zelalem asked them to come. The event for students was much more successful. At least 1,000 people came to the outdoor event at the Student Lounge. Music videos, powerpoint about ELIC, interview of ELIC coordinators, grammar games, and photos from ELIC events made up the exciting program. The goal was to increase participation in ELIC and our activities. We'll see what happens.

The ELIC Awareness Night was much more successful. At least 1,000 students came to the outdoor event. We held it in front of the Student Lounge. The ELIC leaders organized everything, while Zelalem and I only provided support. They showed English music videos, a powerpoint about ELIC to let students know what services we offer, a slide show of photos from our activities like Coffee Talk and experience sharing. Andualem created a grammar game somthing like Jeopardy on the computer and we chose 5 students to compete, the winner receiving a 25 birr phone card. Aduna interviewed me about my program, English Language Fellow, my family, and my dreams for the future of the ELIC.

English Movie Night

The ELIC hosted an English movie night on campus which drew about 300 students. We used it as an opportunity to promote ELIC (English Language Improvement Center), showing a brief power point about our services and programs. Karate Kid had a good message, some action, and an engaging plot..much better than our previous movie, Tekken, which was mainly about fighting. The student ELIC members were so inspired by the turnout that they wanted to have a movie every week!

Teacher Training for High School English Teachers

Zelalem and I created a stellar powerpoint for high school teachers entitled The Cornerstones of Assessment. All kinds of jumping animation and hands-on activities. But 10 minutes into the workshop, there was a blackout. We continued using Plan B, but it could have been so much more! About 19 teachers appeared for the workshop on Sunday morning, but the not high school teachers we expected. Most of the participants were 7-8 grade English teachers from schools that even Zelalem hadn’t heard of.  The goal of the training was to help English teachers analyze and improve their assessments. After collecting samples of mid and final exams, we found that 99% of the questions were multiple choice and that only reading and grammar were tested. Who knows what they took away from it, but I hope they will think about assessing other skills.

Coffee Talk: Spelling Bee

The first Coffee Talk after the semester break was a Spelling Bee. We divided the participants into groups of 5. Once they created team names, Mindesnot, the MC, announced the word that had to be spelled. Everyone had 30 seconds to decide on the spelling their group wanted to present. If they spelled it incorrectly, the next group had a shot at it. If the group spelled the word correctly, they received 1 point. They then had an opportunity to use the word in a sentence, which could earn them another tally. Each member of the winning team received a pen. 

 

Kim and Zelalem dancing after the program .

The winning team and their "prize" of a pen.

Abasiniya group discussing the spelling of a word

High School Visit

Five university students and I loaded onto bajajes and headed towards Gozamin Secondary School near the outskirts of Debre Markos. Our goal was to teach the English Club about some of the activities we do in our Coffee Talk programs. We want Alamayu, the club leader, to encourage speaking skills since our university students come with almost none.  Various students led boasting, singing, and share your problem programs. Although most the of high school students were shy, a few of the bold ones took part. For example, one boy pretended to be Haile Selassie and his classmate was Belay Zelaka, a famous Gojami hero who was taken to the gallows by Selassie.  Several students also gave advice to solve the problem of the student who claimed he was always late for school and therefore beaten by the guard for his transgression. Another university student taught the youngsters how they could learn English through song.

Students in small groups solving a student problem and then giving him advice.

Peter pretending to be Messi, soccer player on Barcelona.

 

 

Student pretending to be Haile Selassie in the Boasting program.

 

Alameyu, the head of English Club at Gozamin High School

Wolaita Sodo Writing Workshop/ELIC

Wolaita Sodo University in the Southern Nation area of Ethiopia, is relatively new, about 5 years old.
The 22 English teachers who showed up for my workshop on Process Writing, seemed interested and engaged in my power point and student-centered presentation. I chose process writing because when I was co-teaching a writing class at Debre Markos Universit,y I knew that the students could have written much better essays if they had more explicit instruction and equal weight was given to all phases of writing rather than just the end product. I don't expect the teachers to make any dramatic changes in their teaching...I have been around longer than that. However, just planting a seed on new ways of approaching teaching I hope will broaden their thinking.

I took a visit to the English Language Improvement Center on the campus and was impressed by the energy of the coordinator. Among other things, they were teaching English to 2nd and 3rd year students 5 days a week using volunteer teachers. That is almost unthinkable here in Ethiopia, but they seemed to have pulled it off. The programs we are doing from our ELIC in Debre Markos are different from what Sodo is doing and vise versa. We decided to keep in touch and send each other materials.

A Visit to High Schools

              Between Addis Ababa and Wolaita Sodo, I visited 4 high schools and interviewed the English teachers about English clubs, plasma TV, attitudes about speaking English, and the English for Ethiopia curriculum. In Tullubolo, Dedo, and Wolaita Sodo, I did not find any English clubs so I offered to send some materials such as English songs and lyrics, my blog posts outlining what we do at DMU in our English programs. However, in Wolkite, two very energetic English teachers explained the English language show they were to put on a couple days after I left. I will also send them the materials and they are the most likely to take advantage of them. In all schools I visited, plasma TV was not working, mostly due to lack of technicians to fix it. When I watched the plasma program at the Preparatory School in Debre Markos, I was impressed. Compared to 5 years ago, this program, recorded and broadcast from South Africa, had improved by 100%. The speed of the speech had slowed considerably, the content (now about Africa rather than Western countries) is engaging, and the plasma guide is beautiful. However, none of the schools I spoke with even knew there was a plasma guide, which of course doesn't matter since they were not even using plasma to teach with, but still amazing that there was such a severe distribution problem. Teachers told me that when they tried to speak English to each other, other teachers often thought of them as arrogant and felt they were trying to show off how "educated" they are. Most likely, many of the other teachers were jealous or embarrassed that they had so many years of English and still couldn’t hold a conversation. They told me that it was similar for the students as well..something that discouraged both groups. There were a couple of schools in Debre Markos who also impressed me. Gozaman had a caring and motivated teacher who was in charge of the English Club. Alamayu was the one who brought 8 students to our Talent Show at the university last month. The preparatory school in my city was on my “Fantastic” list as well, largely due to the director,  Melkamu.  He even set aside 10,000 birr to recognize and honor outstanding students and teachers! This seems quite rare in Ethiopia and this young man knows his psychology and how to stimulate those under his care.