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.
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.
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