Payback Time

The new English Club at Debre Markos High School invited the Debre Markos University students and the Preparatory students to share an English program with them.  The 9th and 10th graders spent hours creating activities to present to us, not wanting to repeat the programs we taught them last month. They came up with jokes, amazing facts, word games, tongue twisters, English songs, and quarreling. Unfortunately, the electricty went out after about 30 minutes and the rest of the program had to be done without the speakers or LCD projector. It was disappointing, but they were prepared with Plan B.

 

 

 

 

 

Elf Love

I just got back from 5 days in Dakar, Senegal, where I attended a conference for the English Language Fellows (ELFs) from subsaharan Africa. It was an unforgetable week as we shared our stories from our respective countries. From $30 hamburgers in Angola to teaching at the last Afrikaner University in South Africa, I learned to appreciate some of the things I have in Ethiopia. We cried, laughed, danced, ate, and sang together and parted as friends. During our Success Stories, I shared two of the activities we did in Coffee Talk and also taught to the local high school kids. The teachers fully participated in Quarrelling and Without Saying Yes or No.

 

 On the boat to Goree Island.

Debate Night: Abortion

Wow! We had the best debate night tonight. It was our first one. What made it so engaging was the way we orgnized it. Students chose which side they were on: for or against abortion. Then one person from each team sat in chairs facing each other. As they debated, anyone on their side could tap the debater on the shoulder and take his/her place. It was fast moving and done in a spirit of fun even though abortion is a sensitive issue.

 

Inspiring A New English Club

Students from Debre Markos High School  were so inspired by our talent show and the Preparatory School exhibition, they decided to start their own English Club..after 7 years of not having one! The ten university students included 5 females, which was quite an accomplishment on our part. They taught the younger students about boasting, quarrelling, without saying “yes” or “no”, spelling bee, and  sing-a-long. Students who were “disturbing” the class were given Red Card and had to dance as punishment. We agreed to meet again so the high school students could show us how they were using the activities we taught them.
 

 

Teaching Secretaries

Zelalem and I rewrote the English for Secretaries using  more student-centered speaking actviities and began the 5 week course. Most of the secretaries have limited English skills, but have to deal with teachers from India, Britian, and the U.S.  We cover subjects such as greeting, Western naming systems, titles, nationality, numbers, and taking messages. We tried to stick with reality and what the secretaries would be expected to do in the Ethiopian context. We designed a lot of speaking practice since our goal is to develop speaking skills. The only problem is that the teachers we gave the lesson plans to, rushed through it ( 3 or 4 days of lessons in 2 days) and I am sure there was very little speaking being done in class. We even went to the first couple of classes to model, but tradition took over once we left for Hawassa for the ELIC conference! We'll finish writing the lesson plans for the curriculum and send them out to all ELIC's. 

Coffee Talk: Solution Night

Coffee Talk tonight was called Solution Night, hosted by star students Mindesnot and Adunya.  All students were asked to write down their problems on paper and drop them in the Problem Box. The MC (Mintesnot) chose a volunteer to pick a problem from the box and read it. The attendees offered solutions to the problems. Not surprisingly, almost all the questions had to do with love, which reminded me of the joys of being 20 years old. One problem was from a male student who said he was in love with one of the women who came to Coffee Talk, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Mindesnot urged him to come forward to express his unrequited love. Esubalo came to the front of the room and described his secret love, who happened to be sitting in the front row. Everyone clapped and shouted as she was urged to come to the front of the room and hug her secret admirer. Adunya issued a“red card” to anyone who was talking when another student was expressing their opinion by holding up a pink piece of paper as in a soccer game. All the “offenders” had to dance in front of everyone at the end of the program as punishment.
 

 Red Card for class disturbers. They had to dance as punishment.

Preparatory School Talent Show

Our university students traveled to the preparatory school in Debre Markos to teach the English Club students about the activities we were doing in Coffee Talk. They were so excited they told us to prepare a hall on the campus for them the following week.  We advertised heavily and invited the other two high schools in Debre Markos. We weren’t disappointed by these talented 11^th and 12^th graders.  They showed us music videos, played games, sang, danced, read poetry, did debate.  In fact, the students and teacher from one of the other high schools was so impressed they formed their own English club, which hadn’t been done in 7 years!

Coffee Talk: Solution Night

National ELIC Conference