August 24th - First We Learn ...

This morning was our training – the TEFL basics – the one that stood out for me, was the concept of 'graded language' – meaning to keep your speech as simple, clear and concise as possible – as opposed to the usual British / English tendency to dress up every sentence in as many words as possible. This will be particularly good development for me ... :-)

Then we moved on to English grammar ... uh oh ... this is why my entire family chuckled when they heard I would be teaching English ... and as anyone reading this blog will also testify, grammar is definitely not my strong suit ... And I lost confidence fast ... what are counting and non counting nouns? Was I ever taught them? I don't think so. But if I was, clearly I didn't learn them ... However, my confidence picked up with our discussion on verbs, adverbs, nouns and adjectives – we were laughing hard as we realized how little we all remembered from school and even more so, that the one who had the most trouble, was the guy actually studying English ... Bottom line, English is a damn difficult language to learn ... and even teach ... how do you explain why the rule just doesn't apply in a particular case, we decided the TIE expression would come in handy ... This Is English ...

We also learned more about the organizations we'd be working with. The main school is the Olives Rehabilitation School (still not sure why the name ...). It was started by Steven in 2001, a local man who wanted to help his community and who couldn't turn away the children literally praying for an education. Primary education is free in Kenya, however, by the time you add the uniforms, books, supplies and lunch, it becomes relatively expensive – especially for the families in Bombolulu. The school evolved to where today, Steven, his brother Michael, wife Jane and 3 other volunteer teachers, teach just over 100 kids – completely for free. They get support from a few places (e.g. a local organization provides lunches) and in part due to their recent partnership with GVI they are able to move into the new school which will also allow them to increase the number of students. Here is the link for the program as well as the blog which explains far better than I.

We then headed off for our first afternoon with the kids. Because it is term break, it is very informal – the afternoons seem to be games, including volleyball for the adults which we're encouraged to play – brings back some high school memories but I have to say, playing with what seemed more like a soccer ball is tough on the arms ... The kids are excited to see new faces – especially the guys who quickly become human jungle gyms – seriously, at one time there had to have been 6 or 7 kids hanging off the arms, back and chest of one guy – who needs the gym?!? The kids love to be twirled around – which I discovered sets a dangerous precedent as before long there are a lot of kids wanting to be twirled and I'm more than a little dizzy. I hang back a little, just trying to take everything in.