January 10, 2012

Made my way to the Operation Mercy NGO under cloudy skies and the threat of more snow. I was led to a small, overheated classroom where 15 students sat on chairs lined against the wall. They looked to be about 8-years old, but Johan confirmed they were ninth graders from a remote village with no access to an English teacher and that’s why they were providing English classes under the Access Program. One of the Tajik instructors was leading them through a lesson on a birthday celebration. By glancing at the paper the girl next to me held, I could see that she wasn’t even able to match the vocabulary describing the different activities that might take place during that kind of celebration. At the end, a guy from Canada who’s also teaching there, showed a video of some munchkins singing “Happy Birthday” and encouraged them to do a sing along.

I had not brought a single warm up activity with me, so I decided to break them into groups of five, and then have them discuss what they knew about Washington, D. C. When asked to relate to the class at least one fact they knew, they were reluctant to speak even with the encouragement of their Tajik teachers. I was able to elicit something like: “It’s located on the East Coast.”, “It’s where the U. S. president lives.”, and “It’s where the White House is located.” I then moved on to the actual slide presentation asking questions along the way about the different historical events and monuments featured in then. There were no comments or questions at all except for those coming from the Canadian guy who appeared to be the only person in the room to know what was being talked about besides me.

When I opened up the session for Q & A, there was total silence. I asked the students to pose their questions to their Tajik instructors who could then translate them for me, but even then, no questions/comments were forthcoming. We proceeded to the lunch room where I was served just what I needed the most, another platter of plov, salad and flat bread, alongside the weak bowl of tea I’ve come to dislike for lacking in any flavor.

I was introduced to Linda, the English teacher for two of my PedInst students, and we agreed to meet tomorrow and talk about our respective classes for a bit. I also met two other women from South Africa, one of which directs the NGO. Johan, the one who extended the invitation, is from Sweden and moved here eight years ago with his wife and two children, after having spent a year doing development work in the country. He recommended that I simplify the PPT for the two remaining days to insure there was less text and more pictures clearly labeled for the students to follow.

I spent a good deal of the afternoon and evening doing exactly that and trying to stay warm for it seemed that in spite of having the wall unit and a space heater next to me, my hands were freezing thus causing me to be in a foul mood.

Zoir stopped by to check on the answers to the questions I had given him on his reading of “The Old Man and the Sea”. Contrary to my expectations, he had written lengthy responses on his notebook instead of just the concise, direct ones the handout required. I showed him how to scan the text for specific information, but he wanted reassurance every time he answered a question that it was correct. I can see why he wasn’t selected to participate in the English classes at Operation Mercy as he lacks the critical skills to read on his own. When I asked him about this, he lied and said he was told there wasn’t any room for more students in the class.