Today we spent more time at the high school watching lessons being taught in Spanish and English (EFL - English as a Foreign Language). It has been interesting to watch lessons being taught not only abroad, but also in high school - since I have always been an elementary educator. As I have mentioned before, in Senegal, students stay put in one classroom and it is the teacher who roams to teach. Our host teacher, Papa, has arranged for us to observe lessons in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in addition to Spanish and Physical Education. We will also be observing and teaching at a public primary school and a private primary school. We had an opportunity to teach the high school English Club as well.
For the English Club, students gather weekly often 1-2 hours at a time in the evening. I have come to learn that not much is planned between the hours of 1-5pm. Lunch is often at later in the day - like 1 or 2pm. People rest in the afternoon, or don't do much because of the heat. Dinner is also later, much later. Dinner is usually 8 or 9 or 10pm. So after the afternoon break, around 5pm, students may go back to school for another class. After THAT class, they go home, do homework, or play soccer. Soccer is very popular with the boys. Girls may have to go home and help with the household chores. The girls also like to practice dance. The English Club offers extra opportunities for students to learn English and practice oral speaking skills. The students we visited had memorized English poems and skits and were happy to perform them for us. They did well speaking in front of a crowd (especially with two native speakers in the audience!)
Today, our first lesson observation was in a 12th grade EFL class. The lesson was about reported speech. It included verb tense, type of sentence and how to change between declarative and reported speech. For example, if the teacher wrote:
"Shut the door," Dad said.
Students would have to identify the type of sentence and change it to reported speech.
Dad told me to shut the door.
There is a lot going on in those sentences in terms of knowledge. Students have to know the different verb tenses, in addition to verb agreement. Students also seemed to know correct spelling for the sentences being written on the board. The particular lesson we
watched was two hours long with no breaks in between. The first part of the lesson was direct instruction/lecture. Students sat quietly - despite the background noise of donkeys, goats, other students walking to and from class, and shuffling flip flops on the tile floor. Students were attentively listening to the lesson. One thing I have noticed is that students snap their fingers as their raise their hands, and say, "Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!" until somebody is called upon. Children do not just raise a hand and wait. There is always snapping of the fingers as they raise their hands. It makes a nice little chorus as students volunteer for an answer. I have also noticed that during instruction, teachers often say PART of the word, and the students will join them for the REST of the word. This has happened in every class we have been in so far. For example, a teacher may ask, "What part of speech is that students? It is a pro-pro-pro-pro....." and then everyone collectively says "pronoun." While it may seem that it's like giving a hint, I don't believe it is. Teachers will also say it in the course of the lecture, I believe it is to engage students and be sure they are paying attention. For example, today in Spanish class, we learned about the government in Spain. The teacher would be giving the lecture and may say "in the Spanish gov-gov-gov GOVERNMENT there were five leaders." The students would respond with the word "government" to finish his word, but he would carry on with the lecture. This happened frequently. Students also participated by writing answers on the chalkboard when called upon.
The two-hour lesson flow began with direct instruction/lecture. During this time, students were NOT taking notes, they were listening. The teacher wrote on the board, gave examples, engaged the class and called on students. The students listened and paid attention. During the second part of the lesson, students got out their journals and took meticulous notes. I noticed they were very neat in writing and most of them used a ruler and multiple colors of pens to distinguish areas of their notes. The teacher also did this - but with colored chalk. During the second part of the lesson, the teacher wrote the definition on what they were learning on the chalkboard along with several exercises. We would call this the "guided instruction" part of the lesson. The students were allowed to ask their table mate if they did not understand the concept - but I heard a few students directly say to the teacher, "I do not understand." I love that students feel empowered to be able to advocate for themselves and say when they do not understand. The teacher would repeat, or clarify when needed. After giving students time to write everything down off the board, students would answer the problems and the teacher would then go over them one by one. When going over individual problems, the teacher would call students to the board to write down their answer. There were MANY times when students came to the board to write. MANY.
I noticed that students are VERY respectful to their teacher. When the teacher enters the room, students stand. The teacher greets the students, and the students respond chorally. In all of the lessons we observed, students responded politely and were very courteous. The teachers in Nioro follow their students. Meaning, if a teacher has an English class in 10th grade, the teacher will also be their teacher in 11th grade and 12th grade. In the US, some call this "looping." The teachers and students were very welcoming to us in their classrooms. They greeted us kindly and one class kept clapping for us when we were there. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have spent time in classrooms today. This evening, we will experience the Nioro Tuesday Market. We will also be taking a horse cart ride! Tomorrow, we get to visit a primary school. Our water was out for the last two days, and we finally got water today! I am so thankful to be able to have a shower and fill up my reserve bucket. Water is so important, it's like GOLD.
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