Don't mess with my Grade 1 boys... One of the main skills you quickly learn how to use in Africa is the ability to be flexible and not to expect to make plans and stick rigidly to them. I'd planned a whole term's worth of sessions to do with my children, but have rapidly come to the conclusion that I need to hold lightly to these plans and to go with the flow of the school system here.
Last week's Thursday session was all planned and prayed into etc, but when we got to the school and I set up in my classroom, no children appeared. I went to investigate and was informed by the teachers that they were finishing school early so they weren't sending any kids to me that day! Upon further investigation it turned out that all the staff were going to the home of one of the teachers whose relative had passed away. I think it was some kind of memorial service. And at 1.30pm, exactly half an hour before the normal end of school, there was no bell, but every teacher left their classes, jumped into cars and in a flash they were gone! The kids got themselves together and headed off home.
This week has been more productive! I managed to get all but one of my Grade R-1 children together and tried a different tactic with them. We played matching pairs animals, a game they didn't really get! They loved turning the cards over but the idea of finding 2 the same was lost on them! Then we looked at animal noises and the English names for them. I'd found a children's book in a sale when shopping called 'Izilwane 100 zokuqala eziyikhulu' which cost the bargain price of R3 (about 25 pence!). For those whose Zulu is a bit rusty that's 'First 100 animal words in Zulu'!! This book proved to be a lifesaver with the children as they could match up the animals in Zulu with the cards. I'm amazed at how God provides even the smallest things. I'd got this book to help me learn my animals, and at the time I'd not thought that it could be useful for teaching English but it was perfect!
Grades R-1 can now do convincing animal noises, and name in English, the following...
Cat - ikati
Dog - inja
snake - inyoka
cow - inkomo
kangeroo - umlalaphansi
Unlikely to see many kangeroos around here, but seeing as one of the first zulu words I learnt was ufudu (tortoise) and I've used it since I've been here, you never know...
It was a fun session and the little ones have quickly got over their fear and are quite chatty now with me. In each session I'm taking pictures of the children for their profiles and am starting to collect information about them so as to understand what they have to go through everyday to survive and to have fun!
Whereas the younger group went well on Tuesday, the older group didn't show on time, but much later appeared on the soccer field just as we were about to leave! Yesterday I put 2 groups together to see how that would work and had children from Grade 1-5 together. It worked well. One of the main reasons is that it's not like in the UK when you get all your 5-year-olds in one year and 8-year-olds in another. Here the children are a variety of ages. In grade 5 I've got an 8-year-old and a 13-year-old. This is completely normal. Children might have started school late, or may have taken some time out to look after dying relatives, or not had enough money to consider coming.. there are many reasons for this variety of ages in each Grade...
