First Week as a Teacher

This week I taught my first classes! Exciting, yes. Scary, yes. But I survived! First I will explain the Tanzanian education system, then tell about my experiences.

Tanzanians begin school at Pre-Primary (like Preschool), around age 5. Primary School is seven years: Standard 1-7. The majority of primary schools are taught in Swahili. However, in wealthier areas (like Morogoro), there are English-medium schools. These are private schools with high tuition fees. My home-stay siblings attended an English-medium Primary School and the cost was around 500,000/= per year for tuition, books, uniforms, transportation per student. That is EXPENSIVE here. Anyway, Standard 7 students take an exam to determine if they can pass to Secondary School.

In Secondary School (basically like high school), the language of instruction switches to English (or is supposed to). It doesn’t matter that the only English they know at this point is “Good morning, how are you?”. They are supposed to learn all the content (which is obviously more advanced than Primary School) and a new language all at the same time. At the end of Form 2 there is a national exam (NECTA) for all subjects. This test is written in English. This year, they are supposed to start implementing a new rule that if you don’t pass the Form 2 NECTA, you are done with school. Assuming they pass, they continue and then take another NECTA at the end of Form 4. The students who pass Form 4 are pretty bright.

Then there is Form 5 & 6, which I think I would compare to junior college. However, even if a student passes Form 4, they may not be able to afford to go to high school. Most villages don’t have high schools, so they would need to move to a town that has a high school. Of course then they would need to find a place to live. Most high schools are boarding schools, so that increases the cost. Or, students would need to “commute” to school each day. The closest high school from my village is 12km away. That would be about a 3-hour round-trip bike ride just to go to school….not really allowing time to study or make money to pay for school. Technically it is called High School. Once they graduate from High School, they can go to University.

Each school year starts in January and ends in October/November. So, I am coming in at the end of their school year. Form 2 & 4 students are preparing for their NECTAs and they are also preparing for graduation.

I am teaching Form 1 & 2 English. Each form meets 3 days a week for a double period (an hour and twenty minutes). My Form 1 students have copied a book called “Baseline” word-for-word into their notebooks. Baseline is supposed to be used to prep Form 1 students for basic English and is just a compilation of short lesson plans for teachers to use the first 2 months before going into deeper subjects. That is literally all they have learned in the past 9 months. Now, we are learning how to talk about routine and daily activities. It takes awhile for them to understand what I want, but they seem to be getting it.

There is a national syllabus for each subject, which outlines what students need to know for the NECTA. My Form 2 students have covered 2 of the 12 topics on the syllabus in the last 9 months. They should have finished at least 10 of the topics. They are taking their exams in 2 months and can barely write complete sentences in English! I have a book of the past 11 years of NECTA exams and am searching for patterns. So far, it seems pretty consistent: reading passage, multiple choice, adding prepositions, re-writing sentences, changing verb tenses, and a short composition.

I have no idea who their teacher was. There is no documentation of what they have been taught, except looking at their notebooks. They don’t know enough English to even know how to ask for help or explain that they don’t understand. They just say  “Yes” if you ask them anything. Here’s a typical dialogue from my class:

Me: “Are there any words that you do not understand?” (on the blackboard)

Them: Blank stares

Me: “Do you understand ALL of these words?”

Them: “Yes”

Me: “Ok, what does _____mean in Swahili?”

Them: ……

Me: “Let’s look in a dictionary! _____ means _____”

Them: “Yes!”

Me: “What other words should we translate to Swahili?”

Them: ……

Also, I have only seen one other teacher teaching! It seems like the students just sit around all day waiting for someone to decide to come to class. Most of the students seem to only be at school so that they don’t have to do chores at home. There are a few that stand out and show that they really want to learn. I hope I can at least help them. I offered to start tutoring students for the NECTA, but my Mkuu didn’t really care.

Other than teaching and making lesson plans, I have been cooking this week. I made banana bread, Tanzanian “Rice-a-Roni”, and French fries this week! I feel settled into my house finally. I also picked up my skirt from the fundi. I love her. She thinks that everything I say is so funny and that it is hilarious that I want clothes made like Tanzanians. I taught my neighbor boys how to play Uno and they taught me a similar game with a regular deck of cards. I’ve gotten hassled to buy water a lot this week and one man showed me his phone that had a picture of me as the background. Gross. Some students have started coming over to “ask for water”. They don’t really want water, but just want to be invited into my house. I painted my Mkuu’s daughter’s friend’s nails the other day and she loved it. There are kittens at my Mkuu’s house, so I’ve played with them. I watched a bird be sawed apart with a dull knife and have it’s intestines unwound. There was blood everywhere. Since I switched my medications, I haven’t had hallucinations and nightmares so I’m sleeping a lot better! Now I just need to get myself to deal with the heat. I spend a fair amount of time lying on my cement floor to cool down. I really like the neighbor boys that live with my Mkuu. They were amazed by my banana bread. I literally don’t think they have ever tasted anything other than rice, beans, uglai, and other staple foods. I’m going to invite them to bake with me in the future. They help by bringing me water, delivering my kitchen cabinet, hanging my clothesline, etc.

So that is pretty much my life! Right now I’m by the beach in Lindi with about 10 other volunteers and going to get Italian food and go to a disco tonight.