Information Gap

We tried something new for Flim Night tonight. We divided the participants up into 3 groups of four. They decided on their team name and then half of them watched the first half of a Mind Your Language film while the others played English games in another room. Group "B" then watched the second half of the episode. Groups "A" and "B" then met together and had to write a summary of the entire episode. The winning group, the Lions, each received a pen as their reward for writing the best summary. A Red Card was issued by Adugna to all "class disturbers" and they were "punished" by dancing! While the accused were being "punished", about 25 students heard the music and came to join us in dancing. Sorry that they didn't get to enjoy the Film Night program, but at least we enjoyed dancing together to Chris Brown, P-Square, and Beyonce.

 Dancing as punishment for receiving a Red Card.

 Red Card!!!

Racing to find a seat in Red Light.

Ethiopia's Got Talent!

After a torrential downpour and no hall to hold the talent show in, we finally got the party started (1 1/2 hours late) at 4:30 p.m. The DMU Idol English Language Talent Show rolled on for the next 3 hours without a glitch, thanks to the active student leaders and loyal judges. We noticed that the candidates were much better the second time around, learning from the first DMU Idol held last November. After the trials, held a few days before the event, the ones who made the cut went on to the compete in DMU Idol. There were winners in four categories" drama, music, debate, and literary arts, and prize money was given to the top three in each category. We invited the local high schools, who made up a good part of the audience. At 8:00 p.m., just as the last performer finished, the lights went out and we all scrambled for our mobile phones to give enough light to announce the winners and gather our equipment together. The winners of the DMU Idol as well as a few student leaders, will go on an experience sharing trip to Bahir Dar. We will share our talents at two high schools..one in Bahir Dar and one in Bure, a small town about two hours drive from Debre Markos. We all give thanks to the American government for providing the funds and moral support for all this to happen!

I'm Sorry, That Answer is Incorrect

Idiom Jeopardy was the activity for Coffee Talk last night. One of my brilliant students designed a Jeopardy game on the computer. We divided the idioms into 8 categories such as Love, Health, and Disagreement. Each team had one minute to come up with the answer to their chosen question. The questions increased in difficulty as the points rose. For example, for 100 points, the team only had to decide if the meaning of an idiom was true or false. But for 500 points, only the meaning was given and the team had to try to guess the idiom and then put it into a sentence. The winning team members received ballpoint pens as their prize. After the game, we punished all class disturbers who had gotten a Red Card during Fun With Idioms and they had to dance in front of the group. After that, we had a sing-a-long to some English songs.

 

 

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.