Katie Sheehy, Global English grad and new TEFL teacher, completes her report on her 3 week trip to Uganda, where she taught English at 2 primary schools. In this report she talks about teaching kids all about Arsenal FC, moving on to a small private school in Masindi, Northern Uganda and a final trip to Kira Farm outside Kampala.
During the course of the week, I used four more of my prepared plans, including one dedicated to the topic of Arsenal football club. This is my favourite team and I had written to the club’s charity department to ask for some resources. They sent me a lot of brochures on the club and pictures of the players. I used the brochures as a basis for a team quiz and gave the pictures out as prizes for the winning teams. This was certainly the quietest lesson as 60 heads were bent over the brochures trying to work out the answers to my most difficult questions!
The funniest part of this lesson was the fact that nobody would take the picture of Emmanuel Adebayor as a prize.
“Why don’t you want this one?” I asked; only to be told “But he’s left Arsenal and gone to Manchester City for £25m”. I didn’t know this and I was amazed that they were so up-to-date with what was happening in the English Premier League.
I further witnessed their devotion to football when I went along to support Asaba Primary school in a match against another local school. The two teams had brought along plenty of supporters but I was pleased to hear that most of the noise (songs, drums, clapping and whistles) was made by my school. I sat with them and picked up the words and when Asaba scored the first goal, I watched as all the spectators swarmed onto the pitch and held up play for at least 5 minutes.
By the end of my first week, I was exhausted and worked out that I had taught over 20 hours of lessons in four days but I had thoroughly enjoyed it and found the students a delight to work with. There was a wide range of abilities in each class and with the class size it made it difficult to notice who needed individual attention let alone give any and I definitely admired the way the Ugandan teachers knew them all.
I spent my free weekend visiting Murchison Falls national park (on a very long day trip that started at 4:30am!), visiting Masindi market & shops and then relaxing at the hotel. Masindi town is a friendly place and many of the locals are very glad to chat with you, find out where you are from and share experiences. During a brief torrential downpour I took shelter in a small shop and got chatting to the proprietor. It turned out that not only had he visited the UK on a teacher exchange a few years back but he had stayed in a number of small villages in Essex that I knew very well as that is the area I grew up in – it’s a small world!
For my second week, I travelled a few miles outside of Masindi to a small village called Kyema and taught at their local community school which is called Masindi Progressive Primary (MPP). This school was much smaller with only about 200 students in total but it still had the range of classes from nursery to P7 and about 6 full-time teachers. They gave me a lovely welcome, with the children lined up along the side of the road to greet me. Then all the school gathered to sing songs and I took this group picture.
The rural setting of the school is beautiful as it sits on top of a hill overlooking Masindi, but its facilities are very basic as there is just one large building and the classrooms are divided from each other by some grass partitions.
My co-ordinator at MPP was Teacher Harriet and she was very keen for me to meet some of the local community members as well as teach English.
In fact my week at MPP was far more flexible and wide-ranging as I never knew what or who I was going to teach on any one day, so I turned my hand to a variety of lessons and taught all classes at least once. I brushed up my singing skills and got P1 and P2 singing & miming to “ Old MacDonald” and got P3 running relay races and dancing the “Hokey Cokey”. The funniest part of this week (for them not me!) was me being easily beaten by a small boy in P3 class during a hopping & jumping relay race. Next time I will get hold of some sacks, cloth ties, spoons & eggs and do a full replication of an “ English sports day”.
I was also able to meet all the children at MPP that are sponsored through Amigos. There are 28 children, mostly orphans, who benefit hugely from having a sponsor that pays for their school fees, their uniforms and school books. Without the sponsors their guardians would struggle to send these children to a school with such good results.
Paying fees to send children to a private school was actually one of the issues that I struggled the most with. There are free, government-run primary schools in Uganda but many people consider the educational levels to be poor (and indeed the class sizes are often over 100) and hence they scrape money together to send their children to the private schools. When I visited the homes of the guardians in Kyema, I was invited inside and I could see how little they had (just a mattress and a few pots & pans) in this rural community. This helped me to understand why they valued education highly and were prepared to pay fees so their children can get the best available and hopefully improve their future prospects. (You can find out more about sponsoring a child through Amigos here>> - Ed.)
At the end of my week at MPP, the school held a big fundraising day. Many of the students & teachers had spent the week visiting the local communities to ask for donations (which was why my teaching timetable was so fluid!) and they brought back various items of produce, including beans, bananas, groundnuts, maize and a few chickens & goats. I attended the fundraising day in the morning but unfortunately had to leave to catch my bus back to Kampala before it really got underway. But I hope they did very well from it and raised money for their planned building improvements.
I had many emotions during my journey back to Kampala. I had settled into Masindi, was pleased that the placements had gone so well and felt I had made friends with many people that I had met. Once I was back in Kampala, I was able to squeeze in a couple more visits; one to Kira Farm where Phil (below right, pictured here with Amigos Volunteer Coordinator Joseph) showed me around and explained all the progress so far and one to Joseph’s local Pentecostal church where I was welcomed as a guest during a lively & interesting service.
Now I am back in the UK and planning my next adventure in my career-break. I intend to continue supporting Amigos work and would love to return to Uganda sometime soon. I am hoping those teaching English skills will come in handy once again!
To conclude, I would like to give many thanks to everyone who helped me before and during my placement – I had a fantastic experience and I send best wishes for Amigos’ continued success and good luck to future volunteers that come via Global English.
