My counterpart and I gave grade 5 the composition part of their test. We selected a picture from a book with an African boy sitting under a tree, looking at the contents of a shoe box. The scenery depicts life in rural Lesotho with typical Basotho rondavels, chickens pecking at bits of corn and other kids playing in a wheelbarrow.
I am sad to say that most of the students got 0/20. Their English makes no sense, and one girl, who seemed to write really well, was simply copying the text from the book. I gave her a zero.
This is an example of what I’m facing, and I really need help deciding where to start, as far as teaching them how to pass English, and move on to high school. All their subjects are supposed to be taught in English, but they are not. The teachers speak to them in Sesotho.
Here is an example of one of the “better” compositions.
“The boy is play. The boy are ran. Is the play. This is the boy is play the house. The boy his play. The three is the boy and girl. Is The play the car. This is the boedy and the boy is play the car. Is the play the car and the trees. My hous is clon the haus in the haus. Channg the haus is the boy is in the haus. In the tree cateng the three is the boy. The were his thing. Boy is play the box. The boy is play the car is the boy. Meke the lane the haus in the were theng the car and the three.”
I gave him 4/20, because it was one of the better essays.
Do you have any advice as to where to start with these 5th graders who are 10-12-years-old?
I try to follow the Government’s 5th grade curriculum, and even when I teach the present tense, only two kids in my class of sixteen seem to understand.
The other day I gave a pre-test, and even though I gave them the answers to 3 questions, the majority only scored 1/15. They should at least have managed 3/15.
I have a feeling poor nutrition, and being hungry has a lot to do with the lack of concentration during class. Most of the children just eat breakfast and lunch at school which is pure starch, and don’t get any protein. I feel sorry for them as the food is always the same: soft porridge with lots of sugar, and no milk, and papa (maize meal) and boiled dry beans for lunch. I know that beans and starch make a complete protein, but they never get eggs, dairy, vegetables, fish or meat. Several years ago, the lunches were healthier, but due to the cuts in government funding, and relying on WFP (World Food Program,) they are not getting enough food for a growing child’s body and brain in my opinion. They always talk about “nama” meat, and how they like Christmas, when they get meat.
The children have not been exposed to books except for the three books assigned in grades 5, 6 and 7. One of them is called, “The Crooked Path,” which I read, and found a little strange, but that’s due to cultural differences. They have to read the same three books and answer the same questions each year, however, at my school, seven children have to share one book, and they cannot take it home to read.
Since I also teach English in 7th grade, where the children range from 12-16, I found it interesting how different these children’s concerns and priorities are from those where my children grew up in California.
They were asked to write an essay about the season they like best. Here are some of their comments.
“I like summer because I eat breakfast.”
“The season I like best is winter because the people are pruning the trees and we get big fruits.”
“I like winter when we kill pig for meat.”
Others wrote a letter thanking their uncle for their birthday present. Once again, there were many mistakes, and I am concerned about the best approach to help them, as they will not graduate into high school is they do not pass 7th grade. Many of the older children have repeated 7th grade, three to four times, and are still failing.
Here are some of their letters:
“My uncle give me a present of a cake. I am happy for that.”
“My Uncle my birthday will be on 3rd October, 2016 You will give me the present for my birthday. Please give me the present like cake, sweets, tones and flowers to make beautiful present. I am happy as a lark to talk about my birthday.”
“When it’s my birthday party, I want to go to hotels and eat pizer and I want to make a sandwich. Sandwich is the power when our body. I want to eat some food everyday.”
There are about six children in 7th grade that are motivated, and five of them are girls. What surprises me is that three of the girls are orphans, and yet, they are able to study and are interested in learning, compared to so many of the remaining thirty students, who do not seem to care.
During the grammar part of the exam, I found some of their answers particularly interesting:
Question: “What do you call one who is married to your brother?”
Answers: “Good luck.” “Sorry.” “It someone who kill my brother.”
Question: What is the feminine of King?
Answers: A girl wrote, “Mistress.” Another answer, “Wife.”
Question: What is the feminine of “Son”
Answer: “Sin”
My counterpart, and other teachers agree that the majority of the students do not seem to care about learning, despite any effort to make it more fun, and offer activities. One thing they all enjoy though, are the DVDs, I started showing recently since electricity arrived in our village.
I believe that educational DVDs, might be one way to get them motivated to learn. Many of them have never seen a TV or a video, and are able to sit for hours and focus on a DVD.
Please let me know if you have suggestions on where to start with the 5th and 7th grade children. I have a curriculum to follow, and as you can see, the children have not grasped the basics. I really want them to do well, and pass their exams.
Interesting challenge. Perhaps the students don’t see any advantage to speaking, reading, writing English? Or even getting a formal education?
Some of my students want to go to college and try harder. Most of them want to stay in the village, so you may be right in some cases Larry.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
All the same, some of those 7th graders have made a lot of progress compared to the “better” composition in the 5th grade.
What I would do is drop temporarily the 5th grade curriculum and
teach them English as if the language was completely new to them,
starting from the beginning again, with pictures, songs, games, and
acting, as they do in French primary schools. I used the “Happy English” books with a CD, for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, and they loved it.
Thank you Carol. I don’t know the “Happy English” books, but I do think the Phonics DVDs and other videos will motivate them to learn.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Can you label everything in the classroom in English? Lots of visual words. Speak slowly and repeat continually. Songs in English? Rhymes in English?
The best Spanish teacher my daughter ever had was one who would allow no English in her room. Perhaps you should allow only English in your classrrom.
dkzody recently posted..Cool summer morning
THeir classroom is almost empty. There are very few visual aids, but I can try. I already tell them, English only” when I’m teaching, but they cannot express themselves in English.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Oh, no, you can’t expect them to answer in English. They are still speech emergent. It is like me. I can understand Spanish, but I still have trouble speaking. It takes so much practice every day. How about labeling things like wall, floor, window, table, chair. Colors. Day of the week. Then work on just one sentence with those visuals. I know your job is very hard, and I’m not being critical at all. Just throwing out some ideas.
I am copying all the ideas down into one document so I can put a plan together for after the holidays. Thanks for your input.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Wow, what a challenge you face. Is there any way to get them interested in books by bringing the stories in them to life? In a completely different setting, Erin Gruell developed a teaching method for at-risk Long Beach teens, which led to the publication of The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them (1999). Could you possibly learn some tricks from her? The 2007 film Freedom Writers is based on her story. Good luck…your experience is fascinating.
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Melissa,
I can check out Erin Gruell’s publication. Is it online? I shall do a Google search. Thanks, and I hope you’re still loving life in Amsterdam.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Melissa, I just downloaded the “Freedom Writers Diaries.” Thanks for your suggestion.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
This may sound silly but, how about some Sesame Street dvd’s? It certainly helped our kids get a leg up from an early age and it seems your students are comparable in ability to a toddler learning English. Just a thought.
b
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That’s a good idea. I have 120 books and some are the ABC’s and my 7th graders love looking at the pictures in those books.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Yes! Just the simple stuff. Even as an adult, when I took Spanish classes, we learned as if we were small children, just learning the language.
dkzody recently posted..Cool summer morning
Yes, I have been focusing on the government curriculum which is way too advanced for them.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
I suspect that unless all, and I mean ALL ,the other teachers do all their teaching in English this could be a self-defeating exercise. You need to raise this at staff meetings and insist that they use English.
The suggestion about The Freedom Writers Diary has a lot of value. You really ought to look at that and see if you can develop some lesson plans from that experience. It produced results against the odds before, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work for you.
The question of poor nutrition is also valid. It is quite probable that the students’ lack of concentration is due in part to poor nutrition. Perhaps you need to write to the parent mission, even going over your Principal’s head if she won’t do something about it. Bring this to their attention and ask if one of their support networks might be able to provide some supplementary nutrition. It’s something the Education Ministry in Maseru ought to be made aware of too.
Lastly I guess you need to go right back to basics and start with simple things things like ‘the girl sat on the mat, ‘the food is in the pot’, the pot is on the fire’, ‘the woman is at the store’. They probably don’t have a word for ‘on’ or ‘in’, or ‘at’ in Sesotho, so this needs driving in. The same with ‘at’, ‘with’ and many similar words.
Repetition many times is usually necessary, and if you can make a game of it so much the better. You can later move on to getting them to act out simple phrases, like ‘He put the stone in the box’, ‘he closed the book’, ‘she held the book above her head’, and so on. This sort of thing can be fun and drives the lesson in when repeated enough times. Look for the gaps in their language and try to find ways of filling those with English words, showing them why these words are needed in English.
This sounds a bit like teaching Grandma to suck eggs, and I know you know how to teach English, but I understand how easy it is to lose sight of these things when faced with the frustration you are obviously encountering.
I think the key thing, however, is to get the rest of the teachers doing the same things you are. When the students learn that everyone is saying the same, they’ll learn. You may need to kick up a fuss to achieve this, but don’t be afraid, it’s necessary and you CAN do it.
Good luck. 🙂
Ian,
Lots of good suggestions as usual. I have told the teachers to speak English numerous times, and when they see me walk past the classroom, they quickly turn to English, and the minute I’m not in view, they revert to Sesotho. Do they think I haven’t noticed?
During my DVD sessions, all the teachers want to see the screen, and depsite me sayin, “You may only speak English when I’m here, and we’re watching a movie,” the teachers, and even the Pricipal, interfere and speak Sesotho to the kids.
I have just downloaded the “Freedom Writers Diaries.” Thanks for mentioning this.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Glad you’re pursuing the Freedom Writers story. Ian is right; it’s very difficult to learn a foreign language without total immersion. Which is why so few expats speak Dutch in Holland; the minute you speak their language, Dutchies can hear you’re a foreigner so they revert to English, either to spare you the hassle of communicating in their guttural language or to just move the conversation along. If your students don’t NEED to speak English to communicate, I’m guessing they won’t.
Melissa Adams recently posted..Just Shoot Me! How to Put Yourself in the Picture
One suggestion is to help them engage their senses. So when they are writing about the seasons, have them observe what they see, smell, touch, hear and /or taste in their immediate environment. Do what they observe make them happy, sad, anxious, angry etc.?
I agree with Ian about repetition in a game form and also in song form.
Barbara’s Sesame Street video suggestion is also a great idea.
Keep up the good work xo
Yes indeed, songs are good. Make them up if you have to, maybe even using local tunes. All kids love signing, and let them get up and dance as they sing, it’ll get them engaged. If it’s fun, they’ll learn. 🙂 You WILL Win!
Ian,
Having lived in Africa, you know how much the people can spend hours singing and repeating the same words over and over. I’m not good at singing or making up songs. I prefer to have DVDs where I can join in. But I’ve noticed that the kids love music of all types.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Listen the what the kids sing among themselves and see if you can pick out any tunes. Get them to repeat these to you and get familiar with them, then use those tunes and put in simple English phrases. That’s how I started learning English, in a mission school in Northern Rhodesia; I haven’t always spoken it!
As for the teachers, you have to keep nagging them and taking them to task, even to the point of shaming them.
Have you thought of writing to the local paper and asking the Editor what should be done with teachers who let their students down by not speaking English to them? Ask it as a rhetorical question and see if any of their readers can give you suggestions. Word will soon seep back to your teachers. Remember, this is a battle, and all’s fair in love an war. Go in to win!
I know that to some people it may sound easy to sit and suggest things from six thousand miles away, but as you know, I’m not suggesting anything I haven’t already done and made work in Africa myself.
I noted also that you commented that the girls often try harder than the boys. Exploit this. Tell the boys the girls will get the good jobs because they try harder and are learning. Encourage them to do better than the girls. Make a competition of it. As long as it’s fun they’ll join in.
OK. I will see what happens.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Jennifer,
I’m copying and pasting all these ideas into one document. Thanks for contributing.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Hi….to start with I did not know English till the age of 12 but today I am comfortable. So we have Hope :).
There were two major factors that improved my English. First one was “Make sentances” where in the teacher gave us 20 words to be used in sentances and second was watching/listening programs in English.
Mock conversations focused around the day to day activities also help.
All the best …
Some good ideas. I like the vocab words idea. So much to plan for after the holidays.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
What Ian says about acting out simple phrases is exactly what I did
with my 5th graders; through pictures and objects they (or most) got to understand what they were saying, learned to pronounce properly, and we were able in the end to construct a dialogue with
sentences they had learned by heart at home. In the long run they were destined to be bilingual, but unfortunately one and a half hour a week per class was insufficient.
Carol,
I don’t have many visuals. I shall bring back some magazines when I return from the US.
I am copying all the ideas down. Thanks for your suggestions.
Sonia Marsh recently posted..How Do I Improve My Students’ English?
Can all your students read, at least to a basic level? If they can, there;s another very simple technique for teaching them words in another language.
Get some small (and preferably quite durable) pieces of plain card about the size of a credit card. Write an English word on one side and its Sesotho translation on the other side. Shuffle the pile well so that some cards have the English on top and then ask the students to take a card, read aloud what’s on it ,and tell you what’s on the other side (without looking!). If they get it right, they move to the right of the class. If not, they stay where they are. Then the next child has a go. Make a game of it.
Later, when they get the hang of it, you can introduce more complex words and phrases and by constant repetition they will learn both to read and say the English words. I use this system for learning foreign words, and it works.