|
Since I last visited Bethany in July 2008, there are a number of differences, generally for the better.
The introduction of the rule that the children must speak English all the time has made a noticeable difference. This time I found that as a visitor, you could actually hold a conversation with any of the children, even the younger ones. This, in turn, made it far easier to teach the children in a range of subjects due to the fact that for the most part, they could understand what you were saying. I taught the older children from standard four all the way up to the form one boys and secondary girls. I spent most of the time teaching Maths, which the children generally found hard, although they did try their best, and most understood what I had taught them by the time I left. The Maths topics ranged from securing the times tables with standard four, to working out areas of shapes with standard six and the secondary school children. It was a privilege to teach the children as they were almost always attentive and eager to learn.
The few bits of English I did were also far easier to teach than last time. Although I only taught bits of English to the secondary children, it was pleasing to hear the improvement; especially in the secondary girls, with whom I carried out a number of debates, which they discussed for extended periods of time with only minor interjections from myself.
The attitude of the children, as ever, was superb. They were always ready for the lesson when I walked into a classroom and spent all of the lessons working hard, and asked when they didn’t understand something. In a few cases, I even had some of the students come and ask me for extra work outside of lessons for them to practice the topic.
Overall, the entire experience was, once again, most rewarding and I will be following the progress of all the students with interest and I look forward to the possibility of returning to Bethany sometime in the future.
|
