The first half of May was a busy time for us as we taught our last literature class lesson, facilitated a Conversations With America session at the American Embassy on the culture of volunteerism in the U.S., and helped organize, set up and presented at the second annual Africa TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Conference in Kigali.
We - and our students and participants - dealt successfully with the refreshing differences that challenges demand. We reached new horizons!
It is hard to believe that we only have a month-and-a-half left of our adventure. Preparing a smooth exit out of the Land of a Thousand Hills will be done gradually. Each day, there are items to check off our to-do list: donations, such as books, clothing, and household items; selling electronics and most importantly, Frankie, our RAV4. However, that's another story for later post.
College of Education, University of Rwanda: Introduction to Literature in English
It was a tad ironic that the last lesson of our last day with our literature students focused on the genre of drama. We involved our students in a reading from a play adapted from a book by John Steptoe called Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters. You, reader, will recognize this African tale's similarity to the Cinderella story where good triumphs over evil. Mufaro has two daughters, a bad tempered one and a loving, kind one who must pass a series of tests in order for one of them to be a worthy wife for the Great King. Beatrice, one of our students, was the perfect choice for the goody-two-shoes role, while Marie Gisele outdid herself playing the mean sister out to win no matter the cost. We played Narrator 1 and Narrator 2. The four of us read to the class from the projected PowerPoint slide of the excerpt.
However, the highlight of the last day with these lovely students came at the end of the lesson with the distribution of Florida Gulf Coast University blue and green pens and White Castle butter cookies (two per student ONLY). We had 46 students and 100 cookies, some of which had to be removed because they were broken. The students chowed down on the cookies and some attempted to trade with their classmates green pens for blue ones. A 20-minute photo session followed after we took a couple of class photos. Because of our experience with last semester's class, we were prepared for the onslaught of students approaching the front of the room to take photos with their own phones and to get in as many photos as possible with us and their classmates. As the students left, some privately thanked us for our teaching. Others posted in our WhatsApp group comments like the following: "The blessing of Lord be with you."; "Thank for this we are going to do our best so that we can succeed exam."; "Thank you our beloved teachers. May God bless you."; "Our professors must be given a thank." As we exited the room, we exhaled, took a final picture of the room, and thought, "One down and two to go!"
Observations on teaching LIT 103 Introduction to Literature in English:
Teaching literature without a textbook to non-native speakers of English who don't have a culture of reading requires hours and hours of sideways thinking, lesson planning, research, and innovative delivery methods.
WhatsApp class groups are effective for creating not only a social space for students and teachers but a collaborative learning space.
The concept of creating aisles in a Rwandan university classroom is problematic. No matter how much space a teacher has in his or her classroom, students will sit on top of one another and get as close as they can to the front of the class.
Despite electricity outages, having a classroom projector is both a luxury and a necessity for teachers without access to textbooks or free photocopying services.
Introducing learner-centered teaching is challenging but possible in environments where rote learning and teacher talk are the norm. However, it does require patience on the part of the teacher and lots of pregnant pauses for students to realize that learning is not about absorbing and regurgitating information.
No matter how often students are told to speak louder, they will not do it. However, students' soft voices seem to be heard by everyone but us teachers. Go figure!
Conversations with America - Culture of Volunteering
Our second Conversations with America session at the embassy's Information Resource Center (IRC) was on the topic of the culture of volunteering in the U.S. This talk was attended by about 15 people. Typically, the audience consists of students who are either at the secondary or university levels. Some may have recently graduated from university. After discussing the who, what, why, and how of volunteering, we showed a slide of the two of us with our students from our Peace Corps days in Senegal and Ivory Coast in the mid 70s. This segued nicely into the participants telling their stories about giving back to their communities.
One older gentleman in his 50s shared his story about living in Rochester, New York and joining the Kiwanis Club. He said that there wasn't a Kiwanis Club branch in Rwanda but that the Rotary Club was active here. In fact, it celebrated its 50th year anniversary in 2016. Rwandan Rotarians have initiated projects in health, water sanitation, education and the environment.
A mandatory community service day in Rwanda, Umuganda, is the last Saturday of the month from 8 a.m. - 11 a.m. Umuganda is loosely translated as "coming together in common purpose to achieve an outcome." Everyone from 18 - 65 years old is expected to do yard work in public parks or help the community in some way (e.g., help a neighbor repair his roof). Even expatriates are encouraged to participate (though it seems that we are exempt...because of our age?). The country comes to a standstill during these hours of Umuganda as business stops; public transportation is limited; there are no cars on the roads. Although there is a strong police presence on Umuganda Day (as there is every day), there are no penalties for littering in Rwanda. Though much of Rwanda is generally clean, Kigali has garnered the reputation of being the cleanest city in Africa. Some credit this cleanliness to the practice of Umuganda.
At the conclusion of the discussion, we all decided to pose with the POTUS who is displayed in a prominent place against one of the walls of the IRC. It seems like yesterday that we were all posing proudly with President Obama against that same wall. Alas, the times they have changed.
Africa TESOL 2nd Conference 2017
Shortly after our arrival in Kigali, we joined a professional teaching organization called Association of Teachers of English in Rwanda (ATER). ATER's mission is "to advance teacher-driven professional development in English language teaching and learning for teachers of English in Rwanda."
By the end of November, we were on the ATER leadership team to sponsor Africa TESOL 2nd Conference 2017 in Kigali on May 12 and 13th, 2017. We volunteered to be on the Program Proposal Committee with four other people. Our initial job was to review over 88 300-word proposals and select 45 of them. We had several meetings at Akilah Institute for Women, where two of our committee members worked, to finalize the criteria and descriptors for the evaluation rubric, to ensure peer review reliability, etc. We divided up the proposals and met again to agree on acceptable, acceptable with reservations, and unacceptable ones. We also had to make sure that there was a balance of primary, secondary, tertiary and adult proposals and also a good distribution of workshops, papers, and teaching tip presentations.
We were a very amicable and efficient team. For the final selection, we all brought snacks and tea and coffee was provided by the Akilah administration. Naively, we thought our work would be over by the end of January when all the proposals were reviewed. Not the case! We then moved on to the program schedule, editing of all the abstracts of the accepted proposals, room set up, tabling, badge distribution, certificate distribution, IT set up, and various other necessary conference duties.
The day before the conference started, we received an email from the logistics chair with the subject heading Urgent Problem: Laptops. Of the eight laptops that were supposed to be used in the presentation rooms, only three worked. Ah technology...don't you love it when it works and...! A mad scramble to come up with the remaining laptops resulted in some of the executive team members volunteering the use of their personal computers. Crisis solved (as long as everyone had adapters and extension cords that fit into Rwandan electrical outlets).
At 5:30 a.m., two and a half hours before conference participants arrived, we picked up two of our team members and headed to the venue, the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Center (IPRC). The IPRC is a technical education college that offers vocational training at the high school and college level. When we arrived, it was clear that nothing had been set up for the conference - no chairs, no registration tables, no evidence that a 350-attendee international conference was about to begin. In fact, there were students sitting in classrooms preparing for their final exams. The corridors were strewn with papers, broken student desks, and other sundry items.
Stress levels were running high at this point. By 6:30 a.m., the man with the key to the room with chairs and tables arrived. The cleaning staff was summoned and like Dorothy clicking her heels and going back to Kansas, a transformation occurred. Buckets of soap and water were poured on the floors. 350 chairs were wiped clean and distributed throughout each of the seven presentation rooms. Tables, tablecloths, and chairs were delivered to and set up in the exhibition/food area. Projectors and laptops were placed in each of the presentation rooms and connected. Signs were posted and banners hung. Badges with lanyards were alphabetized and laid on the tables. Voila! By the time the first attendees arrived, everyone was at his or her station.
Although the opening plenary was delayed due to inclement weather resulting in a late start to the first concurrent session, all conference logistics somehow got back on track. We gave two presentations on interactive activities for primary teachers using the newly implemented Rwandan competency-based curriculum. One was for listening and speaking, while the other targeted reading and writing.
Participation was high in all of the seven rooms, and discussions and networking were productive. Lunch breaks for us were across the street at local restos (restaurant-bars). Unfortunately, no one had informed these small businesses that the conference across the street would provide lots of customers. In one resto, there wasn't enough food in the kitchen to serve customer demand. However, everyone took it in stride and ate the bananas, chapati or chips which were available, and enjoyed the company.
The closing speech was short, but the raffle lasted longer than a university graduation. It seemed like every attendee in the hall walked away with something. Next year's Africa TESOL Conference will be in Nigeria. Who's in?
The following video clip is six minutes long and captures photos and video clips from our last class in the College of Education, University of Rwanda; our U.S. Embassy Conversations with America, Culture of Volunteering in the U.S presentation; and, the TESOL Africa 2nd Conference 2017. The sound track is from Vodaphone Foundation's World of Difference Programme.
Suggested Reads:
This non-fiction book of essays by Leslie Jamison is a fascinating read on the theme of empathy. The first essay draws on the author's experience as a medical actor paid to act out symptoms which medical students would then attempt to diagnose. Jamison's essays explore questions like, "How can we understand others?", "How should we care about one another." Here is an excerpt from the first essay:
I used to believe that hurting would make you more alive to the hurting of others. I used to believe in feeling bad because somebody else did. Now I’m not so sure of either. I know that being in the hospital made me selfish. Getting surgeries made me think mainly about whether I’d have to get another one. When bad things happened to other people, I imagined them happening to me. I didn’t know if this was empathy or theft.
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