Teachers Taking Risks

At yesterday's training of the 6 Wilgamuwa teachers -- the 3rd day on site -- there was some exciting progress with their risk-taking and application of the teaching methods I've presented.

I begin each session with a sharing of their day at school -- many are teaching 6-7 classes per day. Three of the teachers yesterday said that they had experimented with an activity I'd demonstrated, including the newest teacher who has only been working for 6 months and is struggling. All reported that the activities went well, and most importantly, none of them thought they had done perfectly which suggests they are willing to experiment with their practice even when they are not fully confident with it. Yesterday I modeled 3 more activities and asked them all to agree on one of the activities they will all try in their classes by next Wednesday. Then they will come back and we will problem solve together. I am hopeful that they will begin to see each other as a professional community who can support each other after Elizabeth and I leave.

I have decided to focus the teachers on Project Based Learning -- large projects with many steps that are done over a series of weeks, and ending with a performance based outcome. For example, the students may write and act in a play or plan a lesson to teach to the rest of the class. One of the benefits of this is that it promotes student choice of project, which increases interest in the subject and also ramps up their need for fresh vocabulary. I introduced the concept to them yesterday and will teach them how to plan and conceptualize projects. None of these teachers has ever done an extended project like this before, but I can see when I introduced it that they were interested in learning about it. This type of structure is more appropriate for Saaraketha lessons where they will need to teach for 2 hours instead of the 40 minutes they are accustomed to and where the students will be older learners who may not be excited to spend hours on grammar instruction. The grammar is taught, but rather than dominating the course it is blended more organically with the communicative and social aspects of language development.

I have been worried about the sheer number of days and hours we are meeting and it's clearly going to become an issue, though it hasn't yet. The teachers asked to start later though because two of the teachers have to leave school early, walk a kilometer, then take a bus to the meeting place where the Saaraketha van picks them up. One woman also lives quite far from Saaraketha. I am going to have Dilum discuss this with the teachers today.

One more day this week because tomorrow is a poya day. Then a week alone here while Patrick goes to Colombo before Elizabeth arrives on July 3.