A well-deserved weekend.

le 6 novembre (sat)   FINALLY it is the weekend.  This was the first Friday that truly felt like a Friday, and weekend that really feels like it’s the end of the week, not just a sixth and seventh day.  Though we only started the English class on Wednesday, it has been an exhausting few days.

I’m not only teaching the 4th Form students from 8-12 each day, but also tutoring a prospective student from 4-6 each day. Diane is a 19 year-old Rwandan girl who would like to start at our Secondary school in January. The only obstacle is that the curriculum will be fully Anglophone starting this next scholar year, and she’s never had an English lesson before in her life. That’s where I come in. Sr. Gisele suggested to Diane that she come to take private lessons with me each afternoon for a few hours until the school year starts. The entrance exam in January will be the deciding factor whether or not she’ll be able to study here next year.

Here in Rwanda is my first experience with teaching. I was tutoring Sr. Rose for the first month I was here (who has had lessons with each volunteer who’s been in Gisenyi), I started this week teaching the 4th Form students who have been learning English in school for at least a few years now so they have at minimum a foundation to build upon – but Diane? Oh my goodness, is this ever a challenge! The problem isn’t her willingness to learn, she is a sweet girl and very hard-working. The problem is when she doesn’t understand a concept or term and I have to find a way to describe what I mean. (Now mind you, we’re meeting in the middle to communicate. Her first language is Kinyarwanda and mine English – we mostly interact in French.) For example, the word up: the word describes a direction. One can climb up, walk up, hike up, etc. In FRENCH, though, the verb “monter” describes all of these idoms at once. So because “up” is not a verb, it is difficult to describe its exact meaning. We do have fun, though, and already I can see that she is learning a lot.

For Cours d’Anglais, things seem to be going well. The first few days were mostly figuring out how to manage this particular group of students and to see what each individual’s level of English was. I’ve decided, too, that even though they’ve had English classes before that I would start with the most basic topics and cover everything. Why not? Practice is practice, and besides – their teachers were not English Mother-Tongue, so maybe I will be able to answer questions that the others can’t. Either way, each student seems to be catching onto things that maybe he or she wasn’t clear on before. Yes, certain subjects are easier for the more advanced students but each person has been learning new things and building upon previous knowledge.
So finally… finally it is the weekend, and I’m relaxing by waking up at 5h30 to get to 6h15 mass on time and spend a few hours cleaning and doing laundry. Then who knows, maybe I’ll even prepare some lesson plans. Now I can understand, Mom.