A Tanzanian adventure

Cecilia with Madame Lema.

Cecilia Johnson has recently returned from Tanzania where she worked as an English Teacher Trainer on assignment with Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) in a secondary school in Arusha. She muses on whether she ‘made a difference’.

No electricity or water, blackboards or chalk, no textbooks, classes from 50 to 90 and few qualified teachers, these are the norm for secondary schools in Tanzania.

Kaloleni Secondary School where I taught was fortunate to have an administration block with electricity, a dedicated, hardworking headmaster, some committed, enthusiastic teachers and, what was most important, some wonderful, delightful and hardworking students.

The challenges were many but, on the upside, there were many ways to make a difference.
The easiest challenge was to find a way to give the students access to teaching materials.

The only textbooks available were for the teachers and few parents could provide them for their children. So I produced many worksheets of extra activities and photocopied them. The students loved having these worksheets to complete; it was a change from the passive learning that they were mostly used to.

The second challenge was to try and motivate the teachers. All were very badly paid, many were not qualified, and some had only finished Form Six the year before. (Our school went up to Form Four.) Often their English was poor and this caused difficulties as English is the medium of instruction.

The last difficulty was the negative attitude of some of the teachers towards the students. Historically punishment and harsh discipline have been tools of teaching.

So the other VSA volunteer and I set up a staff development programme. Here, our headmaster was a great help because he encouraged many of the teachers into attending, and without his leadership, they wouldn’t have come.

We had computer classes, writing and reading sessions and group sessions to encourage group work and positive reinforcement. It was about giving the teachers opportunities and ideas and excitingly, one of the teachers wanted to continue to lead the programme this year.

The large classes were another challenge and many students, especially in the bigger classes were falling behind.

Group work was difficult because of the large numbers and the physical impossibility of moving the heavy desks around. With up to 90 in a class it was almost impossible to check that they were all understanding the lesson.

With the headmaster’s help I set up remedial classes for the students who were falling behind.

Not all the students who could have attended did but those who did definitely benefited from it. One of the teachers reported to me how amazed she was that the students were grateful and enthusiastic about it. That she could have a positive relationship with the students had never occurred to her.

 So, did I make a difference? I hope I did. To me, one of the advantages of VSA is that you are not there to change the world but to work alongside your colleagues to help, advise and hopefully make a few changes for the better. Even a few drops in the ocean are better than nothing.

Is it worthwhile? Definitely.