Training Winding Down

I can officially say I’m at the home stretch of training, which is certainly a relief.

The past three weeks have been the busiest part of training: practice school. Everyday from 8 to noon, Guinean students from 7^th grade to Terminale (the final year of high school) came to the lycée (high school) de Dubreka for summer classes. Everyday, I taught a two-hour English class to high school students.

If you want to imagine me as a teacher in Guinea, I will paint a picture: covered in chalk, sweaty, and wearing pajamas. (Really. You can get an outfit tailored here that would be pajamas in the U.S. but that are seen as formalwear here.) Teaching English in Guinea requires a good deal of imagination. The national curriculum is underwhelming (to put it lightly) and resources are lacking (no books, just a blackboard and chalk). Students come to class with a notebook and a pen (or, at least they are supposed to, although I lent out a lot of paper and pens over the three weeks) and everything you write on the board they insist on copying down, since they have no textbooks or dictionaries. So basically as teacher, you better not tell them anything incorrect since you’re their only resource!

Some highlights from practice school:

One of the Terminale sections was actually filled with university students and graduates that had taken an interest in learning English. For that reason, their class was far more advanced than the other sections and it was a struggle to figure out what to do with them. When I taught them, I brought in a Time magazine from this past August and we dissected an article on the current drought in the U.S. Unfortunately since I don’t have access to a photocopier it had to be an oral exercise, which made it more difficult, but it ended up being a success.

My favorite level to teach is onzième (eleventh grade), the first year of English. The classes are introductory so they are focused heavily on vocabulary, rather than grammar, and vocabulary learning lends itself to more enjoyable activities (a.ka. games). Over the three weeks with my classes I played Guess Who, Jeopardy, I Spy, word jumbles, and the “line game” that we played in Mrs. Reed’s middle school French class…

I loved sitting in on other trainee’s classes, too. The 7^th grade class was around fifty students large, and was pretty crazy… although it was a much more realistic depiction of a Guinean classroom (50 students is an average class size here). The class was pretty unruly. Anytime a question is asked, students eagerly raise their hands, snap, and yell out “moi, monsieur!” or “moi, madame!” When they answer questions or when the teacher enters the classroom, they’re expected to stand.

Every Friday, we were expected to give our classes exams. That was another challenge. Cheating is rampant, and students have concocted a variety of ways to cheat with varying creativity. They sit staggered so they can see each other’s papers, hide cheat sheets in their desks, whisper in the local language, crumple up pieces of paper and throw them across the room with the answers, etc… Current volunteers have given us words of wisdom about how to handle these instances.

At the end of the three weeks, we had an awards ceremony for the stop students. Each of us listed off the top three ranking students in our classes, and they got certificates and gifts of notebooks and pens. It was nice to recognize the really motivated students.

On Wednesday, we leave Dubreka to go to Conakry. Our “swearing in” ceremony is on Friday. We spend six days in the capital, taking care of logistics, banking, shopping for site, etc. I’ll be able to update my blog once more before I head off to site. I’m a little sad about leaving my host family, but I’m ready to move on and actually get started as a Peace Corps volunteer!

On a final note… you may be curious about the political climate here in Guinea given what is going on globally. Guinea is a predominately Muslim country. Things have been calm for the most part, although today is a planned demonstration at the American embassy. We’ve been told we can’t leave the training center until further notice. However, the sentiment towards Americans is very positive here, and so far Peace Corps staff is on alert but remaining optimistic about our presence here. Hopefully it remains that way.

Thanks for reading, more to come later!