Students on-line

Umoja students are very lucky compared with most Tanzanian school students - they have access to computers and to the internet. The computers are a mix of second-hand PC desktops accumulated over several years. They are in a network and connected to the internet - fast broadband generously donated by Habari, a Tanzanian internet company. 

Our students have IT classes where they learn to use MS-Word, Power Point and Excel, and how to browse safely, but we all know the internet can be a great time waster! There are so many distractions not the least of which is Beyonce's dancing!

My latest project is a web page to help the students with their internet use. I am trying to put together a mix of information pages and links to other sites that will help students use their time on-line more productively. It will also be a cheaper alternative to photocopying information for students to read - we have few text books here! - and will hopefully provide resources at a range of levels suitable for beginners and intermediates.

If any of my teacher friends know of good educational sites in geography, science, mathematics or english as a second language please let me know. And if you do look at the site and find there are 'broken links' let me know so I can fix them. Asanteni sana.

Maasai country

On Sunday I went for a hike with the Twende Hiking Group.  I paid someone Tsh10,000/= to make me walk 16 km! I'm glad I did it.

The hike was through dry acacia woodland just outside Arusha. Just over a dozen assorted ex-pats came - Americans, Europeans and Antipodeans. We scored top marks for amusement value to the locals, especially when we stopped to picnic!

See me with the binoculars Steve!

The scenery was spectacular. The eroded gullies had so many colours in the profile - evidence of the volcanic past. Many of the gullies were being quarried for gravel and road metal.The trees along the rims had so much root exposed is was a wonder they could survive. The landscape was dotted with euphorbias and thorny acacias.

There were herds of goats whom I suspect were responsible for quite a lot of the damage to the landscape. Over grazing seemed to be a problem.  I didn't see any water where we walked but there must have been some close by. It was so dry! The gravel was quite treacherous walking downhill as my grazed palms can testify.

It was a pleasant walk - 4 hours with good company - and I certainly slept well Sunday night.

A successful workshop

I am calling today’s workshop a success.

1.     All the food was eaten, except what we salvaged for Miss Chuki to take home. Miss Chuki is fasting during daylight hours for Ramadan. She says it is not a problem if people eat in front of her; she has such a cheerful and optimistic disposition! We sent her home with two carrot muffins, two banana pikelets and two chocolate orange Jaffa cakes. The ‘boys’ looked slightly bashful that they had not been considerate of her – she missed out on a Ginger biscuit - but overall everyone was happy with the Afternoon Tea criterion.

2.    We started and finished on time. This was very important. The workshop followed a Staff Meeting – very variable in length – but could not start early if the staff meeting finished early as visitors had been invited for 2 pm. In the event none of the invited visitors came. We finished bang on 3.30!

3.    We met the published objective. All the participants finished the workshop with a Lesson Plan to use in the next week. I worked on mine – I’ll be teaching about Tanzania under the British mandate next week – and had some help from our grants volunteer who isn’t a teacher but knows what a good lesson looks like!

4.    The feedback during the plenary session was positive and encouraging. We are already talking about the subject for the next workshop – Report Writing or maybe Communication – and what food would be nice!

Over the next two weeks I will seek feedback privately on how well their lesson plans went but the proof will be in whether they continue to use the pro forma, or their own modification of it, as that will truly test if it was a way of planning lessons that was quick easy and effective!

A busy week coming up!

I’ll be doing plenty of teaching in the coming week – teachers and students!

My usual weekly teaching load is four classes of Spoken English and one of tuition.  I also spend time observing and advising in other teachers’ classes. The remainder of my week is spent investigating the curriculum that is currently being taught and finding resources to support it. As the year goes on I will be looking at what modifications the curriculum needs to make it more relevant to students’ needs.

This coming week I will be teaching four lessons of Global Studies while our Belgian volunteer is climbing Mt Kilimanjaro. The current topic is African History and I will be tackling Tanzania in the Colonial Era. I have a lot to learn! I have ‘googled it up’ and put together a timeline of important events. Now I have to find a way to teach it that is possible with the limited resources available but will make the information real for the students. My biggest problem will be the language I use – I have to keep it simple as the students, especially the beginners, have fairly limited vocabularies.

Doing my lesson planning will be useful practice for the workshop I’m running on Wednesday afternoon which is on – Lesson Planning! The ‘flyer’ said

Why should we intentionally plan our lessons?

How can we plan our lessons in a way that is quick and easy?

How can we use planning to make our teaching more effective?

How can we use planning to be more accountable?

I hope I find out before Wednesday!

The Spoken English is going well.  In the week just gone the students have been devising and presenting short rôle plays on topics from other subjects – ‘Teaching the use of Microsoft Word’ from IT, ‘A visit to the doctor’ from Life Skills, ‘The Slave Market’ from Global Studies and ‘Getting the bill at a restaurant’ from mathematics. Hilarity ensues when the computers are too slow to load and the teacher becomes impatient with the students; when the would be slave owner wants to pay using M-pesa; and when the waiter tells the customer that her restaurant is too ‘classy’ to sell Ugali! We have a lot of fun and I think we are learning to speak better English.

I’ll let you know more about the workshop after Wednesday. I’m hoping that at least the

Afternoon tea provided 

will get them there and then I can keep them interested. In the meantime at least all this planning is a distraction from the disaster unfolding at the MCG this morning (my time) and I hope the head cold that has me staying inside and keeping warm with many cups of tea will be gone by Monday.

Safari ndogo

Luckily today is Sabasaba – a national holiday in Tanzania to recognise the contribution industry and trade make to the country. It’s lucky for me as I get a chance to sleep-in, to recover from my mini-Safari and sort through the hundreds of photographs I took.

I had a day at Tarangire NP and a day at Ngorongoro Crater with a quick look at Lake Manyara and an overnight stay at Karatu in between.

I went with the Savannah Discovery safari company and excellent guide/driver Ombeni.

Here are some pics!

Lilac-breasted Roller

Blue Wildebeest

Grey-crowned Crane

Crowned Lapwing

A hyena family - notice the babies are all black

Grant's Gazelle

Ombeni, Sofia, Sara, Danielle & me

Kori Bustard

Baboon Family

Ngorongoro Crater

The excursion

On Wednesday I went with the beginners class to Tia Nuru, an environmental project on the outskirts of Arusha. We went by a specially hired daladala - I sat in the front!

The students were very excited. They knew a bit about what to expect as the intermediate class had been the week before.

Tia Nuru comprises a beautiful artisan built 'cob' house and shamba. It has been built with reduce - reuse - recycle in mind and a lot of repurposing as well.

The students were interested in the compost toilet, surprised at its lack of pong but universally would not want one!

They had a go at making the cob mud mix and enjoyed dancing around in the mud.

It was definitely a worthwhile trip for the students to see an alternative way of living.