It's nice to get a little positive feedback now and again...

So, the government of Benin has this law that being a "full time" teacher at any public school is limited to 18 hours of work a week. 16 hours of class time (4 classes for 4 hours a week) plus 2 hours of the weekly teacher meeting. So, the full work week is considered 18 hours and they are NOT allowed to work more than this at one school. While they are happy to consider an 18-hour week a full time job, they are definitely not happy with the amount of money that gets them. So what all of the teachers do is take 1 or 2 classes from multiple other schools in the area where they are considered "part-timers". The results being as follows: my school has only myself and 2 other full-time English teachers, and between us we cover 12 of the 36 classes that need teachers. Every other teacher that 'works' there only has 1 or 2 classes.

In actually a great jump forward this year, however, the government now requires that both part-timers and full-timers attend the weekly teacher meetings. (Last year it was just me and my two colleagues discussing our few couple of classes and I never even met most of the others). It's really encouraging that they are demanding this, and this year they also limited the number of schools a professor can work at.

So, this past week we had a bunch of these new part-timers attend our weekly English meeting for the first time. These meetings have been really productive so far this year, and next week I'm leading a session on visual aids. It seems like they want me to be leading most of the sessions, but I'm trying to get them to present their ideas and strategies as well. Anyway, this past Thursday we were just getting the newbies up to speed and I told them that we already discussed how important it is for us to only speak English in the classroom, and not give in to students' demands to speak in French. Of course the responses were mixed.

It's easy to look at them and see based on their comfort level if they really can speak English or not. One man (who didn't look so comfortable) raised his hand and responded (in French), "please, I respect what Madame has said, but when I talk to my second level class they refuse and refuse and refuse." Then we asked him what class specifically and it turns out it is a class I had last year as complete beginners, and all they got from me was English!! Immediately I said, "no no no!! That is impossible, those kids follow directions very well in English and understand perfectly." Then he went on to say that when they pronounce the verb "to be" they incorrectly say "I'm, you're, he's...etc" and I was like..."Of course they do! I teach them that in reality we speak in contractions, and they learned from listening to me". I then went on to explain to all of the teachers that speaking in English to their classes does not mean giving 15 minute monologues, but rather, short, quick instructions- "copy! finish! listen! repeat!"

Anyway, so after all of this I was still a little sad about my previous class now demanding French and refusing English. But that afternoon, as I was preparing for class with a first year group I'm teaching this year, about 15 of the now second years walked up outside my door. I walked over and said hello, and then joked with them (in French) that I was very mad! "How can you refuse English?" I scolded. "Madame, Madame, no!! He can't speak! He makes no sense and we need you to come back and teach us!" Then they asked me why I didn't follow them to year 2 and asked if I could switch. Then, to my crazy surprise, they told me they would come in every Saturday if I would do make-up classes with them. Since I'm in the capital this weekend, I told them that couldn't work, but that occasionally I'd be happy to work with them, and especially right before exams.

Then, just to reassure myself that I did a good job, I made them all stand there and repeat the conjugation of "to be" for me. Indeed...they do still remember it correctly...thank god! Then I promised them that I'd come visit their class this Monday morning and watch their new teacher. Afterwards I'll hopefully be able to give him some pointers about communicating better with them in English and hopefully seeing me will encourage the students as well.

All in all my students' little visit made my day...and while I do sort of feel like I abandoned them this year, I'm also having lots of fun with my new first years. I don't necessarily regret it because I'm glad I can get another group of kids off to a good start...even if I can't control who will come in the years to follow me...